Latest / Becker’s Healthcare -- Pediatric Leadership Podcast / Dr. Hossain Marandi, President of SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital & SVP of Pediatric Services

Transcript

Dr. Hossain Marandi, President of SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital & SVP of Pediatric Services · Becker’s Healthcare -- Pediatric Leadership Podcast

• 0:00
  This is Laura Dierda with the Becker's Healthcare
• 0:02
  podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
• 0:04
  doctor Hussain Morandi, who's the president of SSM
• 0:07
  Health Cardinal Gwen and Children's Hospital as well
• 0:10
  as assistant vice president of pediatric services. Doctor
• 0:12
  Morandi, it's a pleasure to have you on
• 0:14
  the podcast today. It's a pleasure to be
• 0:16
  here.
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  Now I'm looking forward to our discussion because
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  I know you've got a lot going on
• 0:20
  at the children's hospital there, and in particular,
• 0:23
  you know, getting your perspective on how to
• 0:25
  continue to grow and succeed in the future.
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  But before we dive in, can you tell
• 0:29
  us a little bit more about yourself as
• 0:31
  well as SSM Health? Of course. So my
• 0:34
  name is Hossein Miranda. I have the privilege
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  of serving as the president of SSM Health
• 0:38
  Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and assistant vice president
• 0:41
  for pediatric services
• 0:42
  across SSM Health. I am a board certified
• 0:45
  pediatrician,
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  and over the last two decades, I've dedicated
• 0:49
  my career to leading
• 0:50
  multiple nationally recognized children's hospitals and working alongside
• 0:54
  some of,
• 0:55
  the most dedicated physicians, nurses, and caregivers in
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  our field.
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  Pediatrics has always been my calling, so this,
• 1:01
  is a purpose that I have every day
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  to be able to to create systems that
• 1:06
  really deliver care, not just from a clinical
• 1:08
  excellence, but really with a deep compassion and
• 1:10
  commitment to the patients that we care for.
• 1:13
  As far as SSM Health, we are one
• 1:15
  of the, nation's largest Catholic, not for profit,
• 1:18
  fully integrated health care systems.
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  We serve communities across four states of Illinois,
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  Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin
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  with more than 40,000 dedicated team members and
• 1:29
  thousands of professionals delivering care.
• 1:31
  Our mission is to reveal the healing presence
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  of God by providing exceptional health care and
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  by being a steadfast partner for our communities
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  that we serve. Now Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital
• 1:42
  is a proud reflection of that mission. We
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  were the first freestanding Catholic children's hospital in
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  The US, and I've cared for children in
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  the St. Louis community
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  and the surrounding communities for over seventy years
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  now. We've consistently been ranked as one of
• 1:55
  the top children's hospitals,
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  and families travel to us from across the
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  Midwest, nation, and internationally
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  for our specialized expertise,
• 2:04
  especially in cardiology, cardiac surgery, neonatology,
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  and, many other areas.
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  But really beyond any of those rankings or
• 2:11
  awards, what truly defines,
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  SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital is the
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  way we care for every child and family
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  with dignity,
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  respect, and an unwavering commitment to serve.
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  I love that. What a great mission and,
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  amazing,
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  historical background the Children's Hospital has there that
• 2:30
  can really, you know, continue to serve the
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  community well. I'm curious, you know, when you
• 2:34
  think about the last year or so, what's
• 2:36
  your biggest winner success story?
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  So, overall, 2024
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  was a banner year for us.
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  Over the last year, one of our greatest
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  accomplishments
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  has been building a more integrated and coordinated
• 2:48
  model of pediatric care that truly puts patients
• 2:51
  and families first, and I believe that will
• 2:53
  be the blueprint for the future.
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  When I took this role two years ago,
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  I could see that we already had all
• 2:59
  the pieces for a well functioning care delivery
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  system, but they were in silos and disparate.
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  So the vision was very clear to me,
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  and it was, to connect everything together.
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  We aligned,
• 3:10
  Cardinal Glenn and Children's Hospital and its employed
• 3:12
  physicians and clinics
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  with our,
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  Saint Lucia University
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  physician group where our specialists and subspecialists live
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  as well as the SSM Health Medical Group
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  pediatric network. So by combining all of those,
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  we created
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  a system where families have seamless access
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  to some of the region's top pediatric clinicians.
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  So whether the child needed routine care, advanced
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  specialty care, or the most complex, surgical procedure,
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  they had access to a unified continuum
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  of care with less fragmentation
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  and fewer hurdles to get the right care
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  at the right time. And that really resonated
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  as we looked at what we were achieve
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  able to achieve in 2024.
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  As I mentioned earlier,
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  we were recognized again on the national level
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  by US News and World Report,
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  as one of the top 50 children's hospitals.
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  Now eleven years in a row, we've received
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  that designation.
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  And, we ranked in more specialties this past
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  year, seven in total than we have had
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  ever, in the past.
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  We also were able to be,
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  redesignated
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  as a magnet site. Again, only 10% of,
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  hospitals across the nation have that, and it,
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  just goes to show the strength and dedication
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  of our nursing teams and the culture that
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  we've built built here. So, overall, 2024
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  was truly, a year that we are very
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  proud of.
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  I love that. And, you know, particularly a
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  really amazing recognitions of all the things that
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  you've been doing in order to, as you
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  mentioned, become unified and provide less fragmented care
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  and really get the better results and outcomes
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  that you're looking for. Now in thinking where
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  we're at today, what are some of the
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  top issues that you're focused on right now
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  and spending most of your time thinking about
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  and troubleshooting?
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  Yeah. How much time do we have? No.
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  No. No. All joking aside,
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  let me start with something positive first. So
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  although not an issue, but rather than truly
• 5:03
  a once in a lifetime opportunity,
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  our focus mainly has been on creating the
• 5:07
  future of pediatrics in our community. And that's
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  why building a brand new Cardinal Glenn and
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  Children's Hospital,
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  here where it'll be a transformative
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  14 story, 200 plus beds, state of the
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  art facility that will open later on in,
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  late twenty twenty seven. And it's this is
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  more than just a building that we're building.
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  It is truly our commitment to reimagining
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  what children's health care should look like for
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  the next fifty years.
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  More NICU rooms with natural light, something that
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  I never got a chance to train in.
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  Advanced pediatric and cardiac ICUs, larger ORs and
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  rooms for the families, and creating family centered,
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  healing spaces.
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  Every detail of the building we're designing
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  has been with the input of our patients,
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  families, frontline staff.
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  Really wanted to make sure that we ensure
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  the best outcomes they experiences.
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  So that's taken a lot of our time,
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  and it's a great thing to do. But
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  as you mentioned, we've got issues also that
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  we have to deal with. And when I
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  think about those,
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  the two or three, it's
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  always
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  workforce shortage
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  and financial challenges that keep me up at
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  night.
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  In general, children's hospitals often serve a smaller
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  population of patients with complex chronic conditions, and
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  these conditions really require
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  coordinated highly specialized care teams with unique unique
• 6:26
  expertise in their field.
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  This leads to really financial and workforce challenges
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  when we talk about delivering that specialized care
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  appropriately,
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  safely, and with the best outcomes. So I
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  talk about workforce and supply side. So when
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  you look at the workforce,
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  pediatric specialty and subspecialty staffing shortages are an
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  an all
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  time
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  high, critically low across the nation when I
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  talk to all my colleagues. A recent study
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  by Children's Hospital Association in 2023
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  actually outlined the shortage where nearly 50% of
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  the children's hospitals
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  in The United States were short staffed in
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  specialties
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  such as neurology, developmental behavioral,
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  genetics, pulmonology, and many more. And there's a
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  significant
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  imbalance between the supply and the demand. So
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  on the supply side, what we're seeing is
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  that training positions in many specialties are left
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  unfilled, so there are not enough specialists that
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  are being trained. And then on the other
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  side, we're seeing many specialists that are reaching
• 7:24
  retirement age and choosing to retire early.
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  Add to that, all of us in the
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  children's space are competing for those same small
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  number of specialists out there.
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  And these shortages are not just
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  limited to our physicians. Nonphysician professionals,
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  such as respiratory therapists,
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  imaging technologists,
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  and most importantly, our wonderful nurses are at
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  a high demand.
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  Now at the same time, we've seen an
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  alarming surge on mental health and behavioral needs
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  in pediatrics also, especially since the pandemic,
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  and that has created the significant shortage of
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  psychiatrists and psychologists
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  to take care of these patients.
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  Now we're diligently working to recruit and retain
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  our top talent,
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  finding innovative
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  and possibly sustainable care models that are different
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  from today
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  and try to assure that there's no gaps
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  in care, but that's becoming more difficult every
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  day.
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  Add to that the financial standpoint.
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  Now we're tackling some of the same challenges
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  that every health care system faces. We've got
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  significant financial pressures from rising expenses,
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  labor, drugs, medical supplies, and more. We'll see
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  costs continue to go up, and this is
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  especially challenging for children's hospitals due to that
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  specialized care that I mentioned and our overwhelming
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  dependence
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  on state funding and Medicaid.
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  So what we're seeing is the cost of
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  care continues to increase while the reimbursements
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  for that care have not kept up and
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  in many cases, as we see, have decreased.
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  So we have
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  started to work with our continue to work
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  with our state and federal legislators to advocate
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  for payment structures and models to protect access,
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  for these services because our families need it.
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  Absolutely. That's such an important aspect of what
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  you do, in terms of being able to
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  protect access to care and educating lawmakers, legislators,
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  and the community at large just about, you
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  know, how the economics of health care work
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  and what it it will take in order
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  to preserve this access to care and ability
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  to continue to serve patients. I'm curious, you
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  know, when you look into
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  that aspect of your role in as more
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  of an advocate or educator of lawmakers and
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  community,
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  what have you found works well? How do
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  you really go about,
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  successfully
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  spreading that message and and being able to,
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  bring aboard, you know, folks who are influential
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  to make sure that, you know, the right
• 9:47
  legislation,
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  comes down so that you are able to
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  get what you need in order to care
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  for the community.
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  As I've spent, more time in legislative,
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  facilities across many different states, it has become
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  clear to me that many of our,
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  lawmakers
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  do not understand the day to day
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  challenges and opportunities that we have within health
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  care. Obviously, many of them are not, from
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  a health care background, so it requires us,
• 10:15
  to be teachers also. But at the same
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  time, there's nothing better than seeing it firsthand.
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  So one of the things that I have
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  found has worked very well for me in
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  every stop is to have those legislators actually
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  spend time in the hospital, have them come
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  here and talk to our team members, see
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  our patients who are walking through our halls
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  or in their wheelchairs going to their next
• 10:39
  appointment in the oncology or orthopedics
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  and be able to truly have that connection
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  to the caregivers as well as the patients
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  and understand that a decision that's made,
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  at a far place on a piece of
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  paper truly has
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  effects that are felt by our parents, by
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  our
• 10:59
  patients, by our community, and by our caregivers.
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  So having them live our world, we have
• 11:04
  a great program here called Glennon one zero
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  one where we open our doors,
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  for a full day, and we bring in,
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  community members, bring in, legislative
• 11:14
  representatives
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  to come here and put on a white
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  coat, and we assign them to a specific
• 11:19
  area of the hospital and have them walk
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  through and, the proverbial walk in my shoes
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  for a day and help them understand. And
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  that has made a significant
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  impact on them. Many of them, we have
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  seen with tears in their eyes as they
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  finally understand
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  what it takes to care for children, and
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  that has helped to be able to move
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  that needle a bit when we needed the
• 11:41
  care and when we needed those laws and
• 11:43
  we needed that support on those areas.
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  What an amazing idea in program and ability
• 11:50
  to welcome those lawmakers and community members into
• 11:53
  the hospital and and share firsthand,
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  you know, the the stories and true true
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  things that you see every single day,
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  challenges of caring for the pediatric population as
• 12:04
  well. Now when you look into the future,
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  what are some of the opportunities that you
• 12:08
  see for growth and development over the next
• 12:10
  few years?
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  So recently,
• 12:13
  a leading national health care consulting company cited
• 12:16
  that the main opportunity for children's hospital growth
• 12:19
  is mergers and partnerships,
• 12:21
  particularly
• 12:22
  those that make,
• 12:24
  geographic sense. And we've already seen that, arrangement
• 12:27
  in the past year multiple times where you've
• 12:29
  seen children's hospitals come together. It is difficult
• 12:33
  to provide this service. But when we see
• 12:35
  this deliberate shift toward the increased partnerships
• 12:39
  and, creating these economic models,
• 12:42
  we're starting to see emphasis
• 12:45
  on more collaboration rather than competition.
• 12:47
  And I truly believe that will reshape the
• 12:49
  pediatric health care in the future. We have
• 12:52
  to start to find ways where instead of
• 12:54
  competing, we work closely together, not only with
• 12:58
  other health care systems, but with other community
• 13:01
  members and others that have the same goal
• 13:03
  in mind.
• 13:04
  Another area that we're seeing,
• 13:06
  rapidly
• 13:08
  move and change is the digital health care
• 13:11
  space and AI.
• 13:13
  I don't think any one of us
• 13:16
  have really understood
• 13:17
  and can imagine how AI will transform the
• 13:21
  care, especially from a health care standpoint in
• 13:23
  the future. What we're seeing already and with
• 13:26
  all the institute is AI assisted documentation,
• 13:30
  ambient listening
• 13:31
  for our physicians to get their notes into
• 13:33
  the EHR. We're leveraging technology to reduce clinician
• 13:37
  burnout,
• 13:38
  increase their efficiency, and then create more time
• 13:41
  to get back to what we did, that
• 13:42
  personalized
• 13:43
  high touch care,
• 13:45
  trying to automate routine tasks, leveraging AI for
• 13:49
  documentation scheduling
• 13:51
  for predictive analytics to understand how to take
• 13:53
  care of patients better. What we're looking to
• 13:55
  do is to free up our clinicians to
• 13:57
  focus on what we all went into this
• 14:00
  for, which is to care for patients and
• 14:02
  families.
• 14:03
  And I'm really excited that as this technology
• 14:05
  evolves, I think we're gonna find more and
• 14:08
  more ways to enhance,
• 14:10
  not replace, and I wanna emphasize that enhance,
• 14:12
  not replace
• 14:13
  that personal connection that are at the heart
• 14:16
  of pediatrics.
• 14:17
  I don't want our physicians in a room
• 14:19
  typing on a computer. I want them looking
• 14:22
  at that child, building that relationship with those
• 14:24
  parents because that's what pediatrics has been based
• 14:26
  on is that personal touch. So I think
• 14:30
  AI will help us with that in the
• 14:31
  future.
• 14:32
  It's fascinating to hear and and truly,
• 14:36
  amazing to think about how technology can make
• 14:38
  a big difference, not only in how care
• 14:41
  is delivered, but the personalization aspect of it
• 14:43
  too, and then allow for more relationship building
• 14:45
  and more of that human connection in the
• 14:47
  health care space, which I know is so
• 14:49
  important and especially
• 14:51
  with the pediatric population.
• 14:53
  Before we wrap up here, I'm curious. What
• 14:55
  do you think it will take,
• 14:57
  to lead a thriving organization over the next
• 14:59
  five years or so given everything we've talked
• 15:02
  about today with the technology evolution,
• 15:04
  financial challenges, other dynamics within the broader economic
• 15:08
  and political landscape?
• 15:10
  What do leaders need in order to make
• 15:12
  sure their organizations are successful?
• 15:15
  As a lifelong learner, I I like to
• 15:18
  read every day. And most recently and as
• 15:21
  I was reading, again, we always wanna stay
• 15:23
  up to to date with everything that's going
• 15:26
  on. There were a couple of concepts that,
• 15:28
  that I read about that truly resonated with
• 15:30
  me. The first one that I really fell
• 15:32
  in love with was future proofing.
• 15:35
  How do we make sure that we create
• 15:36
  a future that we can continue our calling
• 15:39
  and
• 15:40
  mission and deliver the care the way we
• 15:42
  want to? And that really resonated.
• 15:44
  And then second was changing our
• 15:46
  mindset, thinking, planning, acting differently than we are
• 15:50
  today in order to build that better future.
• 15:52
  So I truly believe we have to be
• 15:55
  visionary.
• 15:56
  We have to be resilient because we know
• 15:58
  there's change, and we gotta be deeply rooted
• 16:00
  in the mission to care for patients.
• 16:03
  And how do we do that? I think
• 16:04
  as we talked already, we must be innovators,
• 16:07
  embrace this new technology, models of care, better
• 16:10
  ways to do things differently than we always
• 16:13
  have,
• 16:14
  learn how to be good partners with others,
• 16:16
  build these strong, supportive relationships with our physicians
• 16:19
  and caretakers,
• 16:20
  but also with other health care systems where
• 16:22
  previously we competed with.
• 16:24
  As I mentioned also, we must be advocates.
• 16:27
  We have to be able to be the
• 16:29
  voice for those children, especially because they do
• 16:31
  not get a chance to vote. We have
• 16:33
  to work with local, state, and federal legislative
• 16:35
  bodies to ensure that
• 16:38
  there's sustainable funding and policies that protect the
• 16:41
  way we care for patients and make sure
• 16:43
  that we don't do something that creates harm,
• 16:47
  for them.
• 16:48
  Beyond that, I would say we gotta be
• 16:50
  a champion for our people.
• 16:52
  We gotta create these cultures. We've got such
• 16:54
  talented clinicians, nurses, and physicians, and we've gotta
• 16:58
  be able to wrap our arms around them,
• 17:00
  make them feel inspired, make them feel valued
• 17:03
  and supported in the work that they do
• 17:04
  because it is easy to always harp on
• 17:06
  the negatives, but there's so much positives. And
• 17:09
  I think at the end of the day,
• 17:11
  I've always been one to believe that we
• 17:14
  must lead with empathy and have the courage
• 17:16
  to make tough decisions, but then have the
• 17:18
  humility to realize
• 17:20
  it's not about us. It's about the patients
• 17:22
  that are in front of us and the
• 17:23
  patients that come in through our doors to
• 17:24
  take care of them. And as long as
• 17:26
  we stay true to that, we listen to
• 17:28
  those families, we learn
• 17:30
  every day, adapt to change, I think we're
• 17:32
  gonna have a good future.
• 17:34
  Oh, it's amazing to hear and such an
• 17:36
  inspirational words to leave us with. Doctor Morandi,
• 17:39
  thank you so much for joining us on
• 17:40
  the podcast today. This has been an amazing
• 17:43
  conversation, and I look forward to seeing you
• 17:45
  as well at our CEO and CFO roundtable
• 17:47
  in November and just continuing to talk through
• 17:50
  these points and and providing additional context as
• 17:53
  well as ideas for the future. So thank
• 17:55
  you.
• 17:56
  Thank you very much for the time. I
• 17:58
  appreciate the opportunity.
• 17:59
  Have a great day.