Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Darin Roark, President and COO of Wentworth-Douglass Hospital

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Darin Roark, President and COO of Wentworth-Douglass Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  This is where health care leadership comes together.
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  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
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  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
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  speakers to Chicago, April 13 through the sixteenth.
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  This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
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  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
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  w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
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  visit beckershospitalreview.com
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  and click on the events tab in the
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  upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
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  in Chicago.
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  Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare
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  podcast. I'm Scott King, thrilled today to be
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  joined by a very special guest, Darren Rourke,
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  president and COO of Wentworth Douglas Hospital. Darren,
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  how are you doing today? Thanks so much
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  for joining us. I'm doing outstanding, Scott. Thank
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  you for having me today. No. It's our
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  pleasure. And, you know, we have a lot
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  of of big topics to get to in
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  health care.
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  Before we dive in there, I was wondering
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  if you could just please tell us a
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  little about yourself and, your organization.
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  Sure. My name is Darren Orrick. I'm the
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  president and COO of Wentworth Douglas Hospital, and
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  we are part of the Mass Gen Brigham
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  family of hospitals. We provide care here in
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  New England,
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  and I am a registered nurse.
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  Been a nurse for over twenty five years
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  and, was fortunate enough, to enter leadership,
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  in early in my nursing career and now
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  have the privilege to be able to serve
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  as the president and COO up here in
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  Dover, New Hampshire.
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  Darren, thanks so much for the background information.
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  It sounds like you had a a tremendous
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  career journey there. And and I'm just looking
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  back at the past year as we're just
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  about to wrap up 2025
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  here. What do you think is the most
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  important initiative
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  you led in the last year, and what
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  did you do
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  in terms of,
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  achieving those results?
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  We, have been a straight a leapfrog hospital
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  for seven,
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  a, grading periods in a row now. And,
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  working with Mass Gen Brigham,
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  we use Visient Healthcare
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  as our benchmarking tool for our quality.
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  And
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  back in, late two thousand twenty three, early
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  two thousand twenty four, as we began benchmarking
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  with Visient,
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  we were not necessarily a top performing hospital.
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  We were more of a a lower decile
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  performing hospital. So we doubled down on improving
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  our quality journey and partnered with,
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  the leaders in
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  CROSMASGENT Brigham and created a new structure,
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  under our ACMO, who was our chief, assistant
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  chief medical officer
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  to really focus in on our quality performance,
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  our length of stay. And we've been working
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  over the past year and a half to
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  dramatically
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  improve
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  the service that we provide our clinicians and
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  bring us all the way up now to
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  where we sit today at the top quartile
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  as a Visient hospital. So we're very proud
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  of that quality journey. We feel that in
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  a time of, tumultuous
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  change that's occurring in health care,
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  that we should really get back to the
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  mission of taking great care of people. And
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  that has been our goal over the past
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  year and a half to double down on
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  our quality journey, improve our quality metrics with
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  the help and support of our nursing leadership.
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  And what we've been able to do, Scott,
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  is we've been able to move our overall
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  patient length of stay and reduce that by
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  over ten percent this year. And we've also
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  reduced our observed versus expected mortality.
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  And we've been north of five hundred days,
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  knock on wood, without a CLABSI or a
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  CAUTI in our ICU.
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  So by doubling down on that patient experience,
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  doubling down on the quality of care that
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  we provide our patients, reducing our length of
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  stay, we're able to get patients back to
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  their families quicker and avoid complications
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  that patients could experience from just being in
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  the hospital too long. And the beauty of
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  all that is when you take great care
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  of your patients, when you deliver great service,
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  when you deliver great outcomes, it also supports
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  your financial metrics and we've been the beneficiaries
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  of that as well.
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  Darius, to follow that up, how much patience
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  is needed from
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  yourself
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  and and the system staff while that structure
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  is being built? And do you all just
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  kinda look say, you know, it's gonna be
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  greener pastures ahead. We just gotta weather this
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  storm and put the right pieces in place,
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  and our our quality is gonna improve, tremendously.
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  It takes a lot of change. You know,
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  we have a 09:30 morning huddle every day
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  where all of our leaders, all of the
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  leaders across our organization gather, and we go
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  through,
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  the opportunities and the challenges that we know
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  exist for that day and try to support
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  each other. We also evaluate and,
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  so that every every single clinician in the
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  hospital
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  knows exactly how many Foley catheters are in
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  place, where those Foley catheters are, central lines,
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  where are they, when are they coming out.
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  So we do a deep dive and review
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  those quality metrics every single day with a
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  goal of improving.
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  And then at 10:00, our teams
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  join together with our medical staff. And in
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  every single nursing unit, we do a quality
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  round. And that quality round is attended by
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  our hospitalists who now are assigned geographically,
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  and they report on every patient. Arts led
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  by our hospitalists and, physical therapy is there.
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  Pharmacy is there. Rehab is there. Case management
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  is there. The nursing staff is there. And
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  they go through every single patient that's on
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  that unit with the goal of everyone being
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  on the same page in terms of the
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  plan of care and everyone being aligned at
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  what the goal is for discharge and where
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  that patient will go upon discharge.
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  And by having the team so aligned and
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  working together and communicating so efficiently,
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  we've really, really been able to drive significant,
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  outcomes.
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  And you're right. This was tough because we
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  had to do a lot of change to
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  get there. We had to move our hospitalist
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  to geographic rounding, which was, something that they
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  didn't do before,
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  and that was a change. And, and and
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  you have to really
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  sit next to folks, sometimes hold their hand,
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  guide them gently, and then listen intently as
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  a leader to what the barriers are to
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  being able to achieve this process so that
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  we as leaders can remove those barriers and
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  and make this process as seamless as we
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  can for the people who are participating
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  every day and making sure that it meets
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  the needs of our clinical staff as well
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  as our patients in achieving our optimal goals.
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  So you're right. It takes a lot of
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  patience. It takes a lot of listening,
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  but I find that our clinical team is
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  extremely passionate about delivering great outcomes. And when
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  we work together to do that, there's it's
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  amazing what we can achieve together as a
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  care delivery team.
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  Well, it really sounds like your team's efforts
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  led to some
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  rates in-depth personal care for patients.
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  And and, Darren, looking ahead to 2026
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  now, what do you see as the the
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  big priorities
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  and headwinds you're focused on?
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  We're definitely focused on continuing that quality journey.
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  We wanna continue to improve that quality of
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  care. First, we have to worry really about
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  maintaining our gains and then consistently looking at
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  other opportunities.
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  You it's easy when you first start. To
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  kind of capture a lot of low hanging
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  fruit. And then once you've done that, you
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  do a deep dive on what exactly those
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  challenges are and what changes need to be
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  made to continue to support the clinical teams
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  to deliver on that mission. One of the
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  things we're gonna be focused on in 2026
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  is our sepsis patients. We still have opportunities
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  there. We really wanna
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  dive deep into making sure that we have,
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  the right drug for the right bug and
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  doing that as quickly as because we know
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  early identification of the appropriate bug in those
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  sepsis patients with the right antibiotic
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  will really, really enhance outcomes. So we're gonna
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  heavily focus on that. In addition, you know,
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  we do know that we have to grow
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  our service line and we need to be
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  reaching
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  our population in the Northern service area in
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  which we operate and we'll be looking to
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  start construction and hopefully finish a free standing
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  emergency room department in the Rochester community, which
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  is in our Northern service area where because
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  we already have roughly 30% of our daily
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  ed volume at our central campus comes from
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  folks to the North. So we really wanna
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  try to bring that care to them closer
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  to home and work on improving outcomes,
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  to the residents that are in our northern
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  service area. So we got a big 2026
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  ahead of us. We're excited, and we're looking
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  forward to continuing to be able to serve
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  our community.
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  What kind of challenges do you see in
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  growing that service land? What has to be
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  put into place for that to happen?
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  Well, we gotta continue our recruitment journey. So
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  that's, you know, recruiting additional medical staff, continuing
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  to shore up our our nursing staff and
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  recruiting,
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  folks here into New Hampshire. New Hampshire is
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  a small state. You know, we don't have
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  a lot of hospitals here. We're we're just
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  south of 2,000,000 residents. So we really wanna
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  work on recruiting and finding the right team
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  members to join us in this mission as
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  we continue to to serve the community.
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  And then working through the normal construction challenges
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  that you have in any market, we especially
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  today with, the supply chain opportunities that present
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  themselves
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  and making sure that we can bring this
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  project in under budget with inflation.
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  And, so a lot to do in 2026,
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  but super excited.
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  What do you think the hardest thing is
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  overall you and your team will have to
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  do in 2026?
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  Wow. It's a great question. The hardest thing
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  we're gonna have to do in 2026
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  really is maintaining the great momentum that we
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  had in '25. When you go through a
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  lot of change, there's a lot of excitement,
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  there's a lot of angst, and then you
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  come out on the other side of that
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  and you continue to see the fruits of
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  your labor. But it can be challenging sometimes
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  to keep that motivation, to keep folks,
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  doing the great work. And we simply have
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  to stay the course, continue our mission, come
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  together as a team, unite together,
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  and, continue to be open to those ideas
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  and those changes that we discover along the
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  way that can only help us be even
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  better. And that is the the challenge is
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  we we we achieve things, we get really
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  great, and then sometimes we wanna sit back
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  and relax. And I, as a leader, have
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  to continue to motivate the team to say,
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  yes. We've done amazing things, but we can
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  be even better as we continue that quality
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  journey. And as we across Mass Gen Brigham
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  continue our journey to become a true high
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  reliability
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  organization.
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  And as I explained to our team every
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  day, the quality journey really never ends. Quality
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  is a continuous improvement. It's a continuous improvement
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  cycle, and we gotta stay motivated to continue
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  taking great care of our patients.
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  But also at the same time, Scott,
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  when you walk out on our nursing floors
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  every day, when we do our high reliability
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  organization rounds,
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  we don't have to look far for those
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  opportunities
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  to to meet with our patients and understand
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  our mission. And that,
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  you know, sits deep with inside of us
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  and helps
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  us gain that enthusiasm that's necessary,
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  to take those steps to continue that quality
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  improvement journey. Because our patients and that patient
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  feedback and the service we're able to provide,
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  is why we're here and why we get
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  out of bed every morning and come to
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  work.
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  Yeah. And I know you're focused on keeping
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  that great momentum going, but where do you
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  see the best opportunities for organizational growth?
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  Organizational growth really rely, is centered around continuing
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  to to serve our service area. Whether that
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  means expanding primary care, bringing more specialists into
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  our market, we're certainly looking to continue to
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  grow our oncology footprint.
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  And, also, we're expanding our cardiology services this
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  year with the help of our fantastic electrophysiologist
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  to offer some more complex
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  ablation procedures
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  and doing everything we can to keep our
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  patients close to home. We want to provide
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  the right care at the right place closer
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  to home and expand those service lines where
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  we have patient demand and need so that
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  patients can receive the great care right here
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  in the Seacoast and not have to travel
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  for world class care, but get it much
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  closer to home.
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  And the last thing I wanna ask you,
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  Darren, is how have you evolved as a
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  leader?
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  Wow. As a leader, I grow every day,
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  Scott, but I grow because I'm enthused to
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  see the team and to see the work
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  that they do. And I would say that
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  as a leader, I've learned to be an
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  excellent listener. I've learned some patience because, growing
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  up as an emergency room nurse, emergency room
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  nurses have a tendency to wanna get everything
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  accomplished immediately right now. And I've learned that
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  sometimes you have to, it takes a little
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  bit more patience. And even though you didn't
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  get it done yesterday, you still have the
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  chance to achieve that goal tomorrow.
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  So I've learned to be a very good
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  listener.
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  I've learned some patience
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  and, I'm very fortunate to have surrounded myself
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  with an incredible team so I can rely
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  on them to help us accomplish the tasks
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  that we need to do so I don't
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  have to take on all those burdens by
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  myself
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  as a leader, but I have a great
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  team who's willing to pitch in and help
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  and get the work done. So it's it's
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  incredible to to be here. It's a great
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  time in health care, and I feel just
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  so blessed and fortunate to be able to
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  take care of the Seacoast community.
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  Darren, thank you so much for joining us
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  on the podcast. It was a great informative
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  conversation. I look forward to working with you
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  again soon. Thank you so much, Scott. I
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  appreciate you, asking me to participate.