Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Dr. Gurvinder Kaur, Chief Medical Officer at Adventist Health - Central Valley Network

Transcript

Dr. Gurvinder Kaur, Chief Medical Officer at Adventist Health - Central Valley Network · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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  - This is the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, created
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  by the team of Becker's Healthcare,
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  a multimedia company devoted to the people
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  who power us healthcare.
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  Thanks for listening. Now here's the episode.
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  - Welcome everyone,
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  to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
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  I'm Maria Mohammed, writer
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  and moderator with Becker's Healthcare.
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  I'm absolutely thrilled to have with me today Dr.
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  Vender Carr, chief Medical Officer at Vinta Health
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  Central Valley Network.
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  Dr. Carr, it's very nice to have you on the
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  podcast today. How are you?
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  - Good, thank you, Maria.
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  And, um, I appreciate you taking, uh, my, uh, voice up
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  to your audience on this podcast. Yeah,
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  - Absolutely.
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  I cannot wait to ask you these, uh, these questions today.
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  Im sure you're gonna give some great insight into what's
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  happening right now in healthcare.
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  Um, but to begin, would you mind please introducing yourself
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  and telling us a bit about your background?
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  - Absolutely. I'm good weather, Carr.
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  Um, I'm an internal medicine physician by training.
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  I've been, um, you know, out of med school
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  for 20 plus years now,
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  so I've been a doctor for all that time.
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  I did do some, um, um, I have some background in master's
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  with a master's in health administration.
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  And then I went ahead
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  and, um, you know,
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  started working here in the Central Valley quite some time
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  back, uh, in California
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  and really have, uh, evolved through my journey, uh,
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  as a physician leader, both with a physician medical group
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  as well as, uh, through
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  Adventist health physician leadership,
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  and have been in this role as a Chief Medical officer
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  for about close to three years now.
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  - Wonderful. Thank you so much for giving us that insight.
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  So to begin with the questions of the podcast,
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  the first thing I wanted to ask you is,
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  can you tell me about your most successful project
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  or initiative from the last year?
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  What issues were you trying to solve
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  and also what drove the success?
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  - Uh, some of the key projects
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  that we have worked on in this past, uh, year
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  or so have been a really, uh, top decal patient safety, um,
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  also, uh, top decal inpatient quality when it comes to,
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  you know, mortality, readmission care progression, which is,
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  um, how efficiently we drive the patient's care while
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  they're in the hospital and patient experience.
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  They're, um, you know, now that's a broad, broad, um,
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  topic here, but I think if we narrow down to, um,
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  it comes down to having a culture of clinicians
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  that care about doing their best
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  and making our organization high performing
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  and ability to drive performance through, uh, learning,
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  you know, continuous learning process, identifying
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  where the issues are and improving upon them when we know
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  that there, uh, there are processes
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  that we need to improve on.
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  - Wonderful. Thank you so much
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  for giving us that background.
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  And as you know,
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  the clinical workforce has changed a lot in the last few
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  years for obvious reasons.
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  Um, what challenges are you still facing
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  and how do you see the clinical workforce evolving?
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  - Yeah, we continue to have issues around, um, being able
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  to recruit, uh, high good talent, being able to bring in,
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  uh, folks that are highly, uh, trained
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  and talented in their different workforce, in clinical, uh,
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  workforce in the Central Valley in California.
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  And we're not much worse than other places.
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  I realize that, um, you know,
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  every different area has its own challenges,
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  whether it's related to competition for that same workforce
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  or whether it's related to the demand.
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  And so understanding that,
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  I think this trend is likely going
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  to continue over the next several years
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  because we're not seeing that many higher number
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  of graduates from nursing schools
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  or from um, medical schools.
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  Uh, we do see that, uh, radiology is one
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  of the key challenges from physicians, um, that continues
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  to be an issue that is, um,
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  really affecting us across the board, uh,
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  from just about every CIS hospital in
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  the Adventist health system.
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  We know that we, uh, want to do
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  better in attracting talent when it comes to radiology.
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  We also have issues around O-B-G-Y-N, um, being able
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  to attract and keep good OB physicians in our communities
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  because patients want to deliver close to home.
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  And if we're not able to provide high quality OB services,
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  we're gonna have a challenge being able
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  to get the patients maternity care
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  delivery care right close to their homes.
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  Um, cost of keeping labor
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  and delivery, uh, units open is very high,
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  and being able
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  to recruit OBS has become extremely challenging in these
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  past, uh, several years.
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  I don't see that letting up anytime soon.
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  We're not increasing the number
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  of graduates from OB residencies either.
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  Um, we do feel like that is one area to explore, is to, um,
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  uh, identify how we can train more, uh, OB
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  and those hard to recruit, uh, specialties
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  for gi We're having a lot
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  of difficulty getting GI just about in all our markets,
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  but definitely here in the Central Valley, um, this is a,
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  um, challenging area mostly
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  because the, the kind of work it is,
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  it is high intensity work
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  and it takes a long time to train a GI physician.
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  We're looking at extending, uh, the, those kind
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  of specialties with advanced providers, both in their, um,
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  clinics as well as, you know, for, as for ob gyn,
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  adding midwife programs, helping make this a team approach.
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  And I think that's where really healthcare is going is we're
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  gonna have a team approach, um,
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  and we will have to develop algorithms where
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  we know there's, there's a spectrum of disease process,
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  there's a spectrum of, uh, healthcare delivery.
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  How do we best use our resources in a team-based approach,
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  whether it's virtual
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  and physical in person, whether it's, um, you know,
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  high-end, highly trained, high end specialty,
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  or there's advanced providers to support that specialty.
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  All of those things will come down to
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  how we best use team approaches
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  for delivering good quality care at bedside.
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  - Absolutely. Thank you so much for giving us that insight
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  and background to how you're trying to solve this issue
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  that many people are having.
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  Um, but before I let you go, doctor, the last thing I wanted
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  to ask you is, what is your best advice
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  for aspiring physician nurse leaders?
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  - Uh, I, my main advice would be
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  Invest in your workforce.
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  Um, build trust within your workforce
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  and really identify processes that help improve the ability
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  for people to perform better.
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  You know, when we look at our systems and our processes
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  and we make things efficient for people to come back to work
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  and be able to do what they are passionate for, what they,
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  uh, signed up for,
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  then we make everybody's lives, uh, so much better.
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  We improve our retention, we improve our culture,
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  and that's really what our main, uh,
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  focus has been here in the past,
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  in my role in these three years, is to help drive a culture
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  that improves people's ability to do what they do best.
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  And that's by driving the processes around them
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  and helping them overcome those obstacles much more
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  faster and smoother.
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  - Wonderful. Thank you so much
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  for those final thoughts, doctor.
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  This has been a very amazing and informative discussion.
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  So again, I wanna thank you so much
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  for coming on Becker's Healthcare.
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  We really do appreciate it.
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  I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  - Alright, thank you. I appreciate your, uh,
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  time from with me today.
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  - Of course, - It's so important for leaders at the top
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  of organizations to keep learning, stay sharp,
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