Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Leading Through Uncertainty, Redesigning Healthcare, and Making Meaning for Teams with James Hereford
Transcript
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- 0:26- Thank you for listening to the Becker's Healthcare
- 0:27- podcast. I am Molly Gamble with Becker's Healthcare
- 0:30- and joined by James Hereford, president and CEO
- 0:33- of Fairview Health Services. James, welcome. Thanks for
- 0:36- joining me today. Well, thank you, Molly. It's
- 0:38- a pleasure to be here. Good to be
- 0:39- with you. We're at the live of the
- 0:40- sixteenth annual meeting. How has your week been
- 0:43- so far?
- 0:44- Well, my week here started last night fairly
- 0:47- late. I got in, and then I'm leaving
- 0:48- today, so it's been very brief. It'll be
- 0:50- a quick one. But it's always good to
- 0:52- be here. Good to, you know, run into
- 0:54- a whole bunch of people. Health care is
- 0:56- such a small world that it's nice to
- 0:58- reacquaint.
- 0:59- Let's make the most of your time. We're
- 1:00- we're gonna
- 1:02- go beyond introductions, learn a little bit more
- 1:04- right now about the the scope of your
- 1:06- work, the your organization,
- 1:08- and also your role. Can you briefly touch
- 1:11- on each just to orient our listeners?
- 1:13- So Fairview Health Services is headquartered in Minneapolis.
- 1:18- We serve,
- 1:19- the broader,
- 1:21- Minnesota market,
- 1:23- about 1,200,000
- 1:24- unique individuals in the state of 6,000,000.
- 1:27- We're the third largest employer in the state.
- 1:30- Total revenues are about 9,000,000,000.
- 1:32- We are a truly,
- 1:34- kind of birth to grave integrated system. Right?
- 1:37- So,
- 1:38- large base of primary care.
- 1:40- We have academic
- 1:42- relationship with the University of Minnesota, so the
- 1:44- tertiary quaternary level.
- 1:46- Significant specialty,
- 1:47- present,
- 1:48- presence in our organization, both
- 1:51- employed,
- 1:52- academic, as well as, community.
- 1:54- And then we have we're really good at
- 1:56- specialty pharmacy. It's one of the things that
- 1:58- we're very proud about in terms of not
- 2:00- just can we maximize three forty b, but
- 2:02- can we manage the care of individuals
- 2:05- very well? And that's what we do. I've
- 2:07- got a great graph that to show that
- 2:08- we manage a specialty
- 2:10- pharmacy patient.
- 2:12- The PMPM spend is 10 to 15%
- 2:15- less because we're management. And so we're really
- 2:17- good at those those sorts of things, and
- 2:19- including having a a senior,
- 2:21- subsidiary, Ebenezer, that is, independent living all through
- 2:25- all the way through skilled nursing facilities.
- 2:27- So truly a, you know, full featured integrated
- 2:29- system. Very much so. So fair review. $9,000,000,000
- 2:31- system, so so 1,200,000
- 2:33- patients in a state of 6,000,000, you said.
- 2:35- Yep. I think one of the things, James,
- 2:37- just to zero out or zoom out a
- 2:40- little bit, is I'm appreciating more and more
- 2:42- in events like this, the decisiveness of leaders
- 2:45- in these conversations. There's a lot that you're
- 2:47- managing, a lot of competing priorities,
- 2:50- compounding effects of legislation, and
- 2:53- reimbursement changes that we're seeing. I guess, if
- 2:56- you had a take a look at your
- 2:57- past year, one truly defined by rapid change,
- 3:00- is there a recent decision or pivot
- 3:02- that really took the most conviction from you
- 3:05- as a leader, particularly when it comes to
- 3:07- to people?
- 3:09- Well
- 3:10- People resources or or capabilities.
- 3:12- I think the,
- 3:14- operation Metro surge in Minneapolis
- 3:17- was a fairly
- 3:19- significant event at a whole bunch of levels.
- 3:22- It certainly impacted,
- 3:24- our workforce in a significant way. And when
- 3:27- Alex Creddy was murdered, you know, as a
- 3:30- nurse, it affected our nurses significantly. And we
- 3:33- always talk about leadership in a couple of
- 3:35- different ways in at Fairview. One is leadership
- 3:38- is not a noun.
- 3:40- It's a verb. It's what you do, and
- 3:41- you anybody can be a leader. It's how
- 3:44- you, you know, react to situations. You go
- 3:47- towards the problem. Do you bring people with
- 3:49- you?
- 3:50- Are you actively involved in making the organization
- 3:52- better? And that could be at any level
- 3:53- of the organization.
- 3:55- Likewise, just because you have a leadership title
- 3:57- doesn't mean you're a leader.
- 3:59- The title doesn't make you affected. It's what
- 4:01- you do. And that was a great example
- 4:03- of
- 4:04- impacting our organization and our people in a
- 4:07- pretty significant way, in a very kind of
- 4:09- visceral
- 4:10- and emotional way, and the importance of being
- 4:13- able to continue to focus on who we
- 4:15- are and what we do. And we're there
- 4:17- to care for patients.
- 4:19- Period. End of story.
- 4:20- Doesn't matter what your immigration status is, who
- 4:23- you work for, doesn't matter. We care for
- 4:25- patients. And so being able to continue to
- 4:27- focus back on that was absolutely crucial to
- 4:30- be able to stabilize our organization,
- 4:32- make sure that we could be there to
- 4:34- deliver care that was necessary to the entirety
- 4:37- of the population of the Twin Cities and
- 4:39- state of Minnesota.
- 4:40- So it's less a a big pivotal moment
- 4:43- Right. More as how do we continue to
- 4:45- stay connected with who we are and what
- 4:47- we're about. At the same
- 4:49- time, building on where we have to go
- 4:50- because we can't stand still, not in our
- 4:52- marketplace and not in health care delivery in
- 4:54- The United States these days. So how do
- 4:56- you do that, maintain stability, at the same
- 4:59- time be disrupted? Mhmm. And so there's a
- 5:02- million decisions you make every day about how
- 5:04- do we continue to challenge the status quo?
- 5:06- How do we challenge and get better? How
- 5:08- do we iterate to, you know, learn from
- 5:10- our what we've done and get better at
- 5:13- what we need to do to deliver on
- 5:15- patient data? Right. And I think it's another
- 5:17- great reminder too. Health systems don't operate in
- 5:19- vacuums. What happens externally is it's shaping
- 5:23- the patient experience, the pro the care team
- 5:25- experience, how they're showing up to work, how
- 5:28- they're showing up and relating to patients. I
- 5:30- guess, did did that stretch of time challenge
- 5:33- any assumptions
- 5:34- that people might have commonly have about health
- 5:37- system leadership? And the way you showed up,
- 5:39- were you more visible?
- 5:41- Did it make you rethink
- 5:43- your decision making or
- 5:45- how you relate to talent? Any any any
- 5:48- of those effects that you can relate to?
- 5:51- It is interesting. It's an interesting balance point
- 5:53- because, you know, there was a lot of
- 5:56- pressure on CEOs and health care CEOs specifically
- 5:59- to come out and be very aggressive
- 6:01- about, you know, the what was happening in
- 6:04- in many hours. Right? And and one of
- 6:06- the great things that came of that was
- 6:07- really unifying the Twin Cities, you know, against,
- 6:10- at that point, a common enemy.
- 6:12- We didn't have that luxury. Right? We couldn't
- 6:14- say, oh, ICE, bad.
- 6:17- Federal government, bad.
- 6:19- Got it. We're a big vendor for the
- 6:21- federal government in terms of delivering care. And
- 6:23- ICE, you know, law enforcement is a part
- 6:26- of the ecosystem of who we deal with
- 6:28- every day, and it's a very important relationship,
- 6:31- especially with local law enforcement.
- 6:34- So, you know, we reached out and really
- 6:37- kind of struck a deal with ICE about,
- 6:39- okay. It's important that we're able to be
- 6:41- in a position to deliver care. We get
- 6:43- you have a job to do. Whether we
- 6:45- agree or disagree with how you're doing, it
- 6:46- doesn't matter. But we need you to be
- 6:49- able to minimize your presence in our
- 6:52- hospitals.
- 6:53- And so we struck an accommodation
- 6:55- that was based on, we need to be
- 6:57- able to do what we do need to
- 6:58- do, and we need your cooperation because you're
- 7:01- also dependent on us. But it's an example
- 7:03- of that kind of tension of there's a
- 7:06- pragmatic
- 7:06- thing that we have to continue to stay
- 7:08- kinda focused on, which is delivering care. At
- 7:11- the same time, there's inordinate pressure about, you
- 7:13- know, CEOs gotta take a stand. We gotta
- 7:15- be, you know, this, at the forefront of
- 7:18- the ability to,
- 7:20- make judgments about what is happening. Is it
- 7:23- good or bad? Absolutely. And to a certain
- 7:25- degree, you can do that. To a certain
- 7:26- degree, you've gotta maintain a balance Yes. In
- 7:29- how you approach that. What no matter how
- 7:31- you feel individually,
- 7:33- that organizational
- 7:34- accountability
- 7:35- overrides that.
- 7:36- What I'm hearing is there's no easy answers
- 7:38- in that position.
- 7:40- A ton of relationship management,
- 7:42- a ton of trying to make things work
- 7:44- for the greater good, which is access to
- 7:46- health care
- 7:48- regardless of of role, immigration status, title.
- 7:52- So I I really appreciate you walking us
- 7:53- and expanding on that, James. What I always
- 7:55- describe to, you know, anybody who asks what
- 7:57- my job's like, I say, look. You have
- 7:58- to understand. And I have a brilliant team.
- 8:00- Yeah. And so the only problems that get
- 8:02- to me are really hard problems in which
- 8:04- there are always 51, 49 calls.
- 8:07- Everything else gets solved. Right? So it is
- 8:10- that you're always in this position of trying
- 8:12- to weigh against these very difficult judgments.
- 8:15- I wouldn't trade it for anything in the
- 8:17- world. It's a, you know, great job, and
- 8:19- the impact you have is amazing, but it's
- 8:20- not easy. Yeah. I
- 8:22- I believe you. If you have a zoom
- 8:24- out of your organization and and look to
- 8:26- the industry as a whole, are there any
- 8:28- areas where
- 8:30- you
- 8:31- are seeing the need for leaders to be
- 8:32- more decisive?
- 8:34- This is about all the forces that are
- 8:35- reshaping health care right now, which are many.
- 8:38- Yeah. Where would you crave more conviction from
- 8:40- your your peers and your colleagues?
- 8:43- I think leaders of care delivery organizations
- 8:47- have to have
- 8:48- a, affirmative answer
- 8:51- to what's next. You know, this current financing
- 8:54- of health care system is breaking down. We
- 8:56- can see that everywhere. I always describe it
- 8:58- as this big Jenga tower that people keep
- 9:01- taking pieces out of in terms of health
- 9:02- care financing. In some point, the thing is
- 9:04- gonna fall over. We have had this long
- 9:07- run of this cross subsidization
- 9:09- between commercial,
- 9:11- entities and the government. And the commercial entities
- 9:14- having to make up the difference for you
- 9:16- know, we don't get even get paid what
- 9:17- it costs us to deliver Medicare and Medicaid
- 9:19- commercial entities. If we had to make that
- 9:21- up,
- 9:23- that's not gonna sustain itself. Mhmm.
- 9:26- What we need to do as a health
- 9:28- care delivery, which let's keep in mind, that's
- 9:30- where the value is created. It's nowhere else
- 9:32- and all the middlemen and all the other
- 9:34- things that are happening. We're the ones who
- 9:36- are delivering value to our patients, but we've
- 9:38- also been very protected.
- 9:40- Very well, we gotta defend this, and we
- 9:42- have to defend that. But we can't continue
- 9:44- just to defend the system that is breaking
- 9:46- down. We have to have some answers around
- 9:49- what's the next system have to look like
- 9:51- to be effective, to continue to care for
- 9:53- patients and to be able to afford? I
- 9:54- mean, I have these, you know, very big,
- 9:57- very expensive capital assets called hospitals
- 10:00- that, you know, demand continued capital infusion
- 10:05- as the,
- 10:06- Sisters of Providence are famed for saying,
- 10:09- no profit, no margin, no mission. Right? Right.
- 10:11- And so we also have to be able
- 10:13- to make a enough margin to be able
- 10:15- to reinvest.
- 10:16- The other balancing point, I think, for,
- 10:18- us as health care leaders, especially nonprofit health
- 10:21- care leaders, I think it's it's very different
- 10:23- in that you also have this
- 10:26- mission to the community and a relationship to
- 10:28- how you're improving the health of the community.
- 10:30- You know, if I'm in a for profit
- 10:32- yeah. I got quarterly analyst calls, and I've
- 10:34- gotta answer to the street. I don't have
- 10:36- to do that. Mhmm. But I have a
- 10:38- different set of stakeholders
- 10:40- that in many ways are as demanding, if
- 10:42- not more so, in terms of how we
- 10:43- relate to our communities that we serve Mhmm.
- 10:46- And that kind of public health mission. So
- 10:48- that's another balancing point that we have got
- 10:50- to get clear about how we do that.
- 10:52- May I ask a follow-up there? I mean,
- 10:54- at events like this, we hear leaders describe
- 10:56- how the math does not work. They paint
- 10:58- a rich picture of some of the dysfunction
- 11:00- in the the status quo systems, and and
- 11:03- not just one organization, but the health care
- 11:05- system as a whole. And then
- 11:07- do we kind of retreat back to our
- 11:09- organizations? And when these discussions come up, protect
- 11:12- her,
- 11:13- have have some resistance to ways to redesign?
- 11:15- Redesign is tough. But I I think your
- 11:17- point Yeah. The conviction needed easier not to
- 11:19- in the short term. Term. And and to
- 11:20- describe what's not working. But to your point,
- 11:23- the conviction around redesign is where we might
- 11:25- be needing to up up the ante a
- 11:27- bit. I think that's certainly a part of
- 11:29- it. Right? And a big part of it
- 11:30- is and we're also in you know, facing
- 11:33- down
- 11:34- two kind of transformational
- 11:36- technologies.
- 11:37- One is around precision medicine.
- 11:39- It is gonna change the way that we
- 11:41- think about the delivery of care. And,
- 11:43- you can see it in the what the
- 11:45- you look at what's in the pipeline.
- 11:47- If we don't look at how we deliver
- 11:49- care and how we orient our care delivery
- 11:51- systems to that,
- 11:53- we'll have missed a significant opportunity.
- 11:55- The other is AI.
- 11:57- And I'm old enough to remember, you know,
- 11:59- late nineteen nineties, early aughts, the web. It's
- 12:02- gonna change everything. Problem is nobody knew exactly
- 12:04- how. Right. Right? AI is the same thing.
- 12:07- It is gonna be transformative.
- 12:09- The problem is we don't know exactly how.
- 12:11- And so it is critical for organizations like
- 12:14- ours to be able to lean into those
- 12:17- and really challenge ourselves on the status quo
- 12:19- and say, yeah. We've always done it that
- 12:21- way. It doesn't mean we always get to
- 12:22- do it. We have to consider how do
- 12:25- we continue to press forward and think about
- 12:27- the transformational effects.
- 12:29- The concern is
- 12:31- even doing that's gonna be insufficient.
- 12:33- So we don't really have control of our
- 12:34- input costs.
- 12:36- So
- 12:37- pharma, medtech, high-tech, labor, I have very little
- 12:40- control over those. But those industries, those segments
- 12:43- make all their money largely off of health
- 12:45- care delivery. Care delivery. Yeah. And so if
- 12:47- you don't have control of your input costs,
- 12:49- it's really hard to have control of your
- 12:50- output. Right. There's a certain amount that we
- 12:52- can do, but it's limited. And so we're
- 12:54- also gonna have to think about what those
- 12:56- fundamental relationships look like.
- 12:59- As uncertainty just becomes more and more the
- 13:01- norm,
- 13:03- you you can't afford to take your your
- 13:04- foot off the gas. Right. And you have
- 13:06- to keep things moving. You have to keep
- 13:07- your people motivated, focused,
- 13:10- taken care of. Is there a mindset or
- 13:12- a a leadership habit that you think has
- 13:14- become even more critical,
- 13:15- to keeping people moving forward in your organization
- 13:18- or more broadly?
- 13:19- Well, couple of things. We talk about leadership
- 13:22- as a verb. Yeah. It's not a noun.
- 13:24- And so, yeah, don't care what your title
- 13:26- is. I don't care where you work in
- 13:27- the organization. We all have the opportunity to
- 13:29- be leaders, and we all make choices about,
- 13:31- are we gonna lead in this situation or
- 13:33- not? Are we gonna go towards the problem
- 13:34- or not? But the other thing we talk
- 13:36- about is there's at least three fundamental things
- 13:38- that you have to do as a leader.
- 13:40- You have to set and hold standards. If
- 13:42- you're not setting and holding standards, you're really
- 13:44- not leading.
- 13:45- You have to have a system of accountability.
- 13:48- So you have to have a way of
- 13:49- relating to the people who are accountable for
- 13:52- the work, how you hold them accountable in
- 13:54- a way that's constructive, not de struck. Right?
- 13:56- So how do you learn not to not
- 13:59- do things, but to do things, and if
- 14:01- they're not completely successful, learn from that? And
- 14:03- then I think almost the most important at
- 14:05- this point is you have to make meaning
- 14:08- for people.
- 14:09- There's so much information and disinformation
- 14:12- and opinions and people who claim to be
- 14:15- health care experts who don't know really all
- 14:17- that much about what they're talking about. Right.
- 14:20- Filling the airspace, filling the, you know, the
- 14:22- waves with stuff, podcast included. Right?
- 14:25- Part of the job of leaders to take
- 14:27- all that information and help make meaning for
- 14:29- the people that you're leading. And, again, it
- 14:31- doesn't matter if you could be the CEO
- 14:33- or you can be the environmental service work.
- 14:35- It doesn't matter.
- 14:36- It's how do you take in that information
- 14:38- and make meaning about what's important to the
- 14:41- organization. That's why I really feel like the
- 14:43- it's the first time that mission, vision, and
- 14:45- values really have become
- 14:48- a a cornerstone
- 14:49- to really stand upon as you're talking about
- 14:51- how do you what does this mean for
- 14:53- us? And I refer back to the example
- 14:55- of Operation Metro Search. We relied on who
- 14:58- we are as a cornerstone
- 15:00- for how we approach that particular challenge.
- 15:03- If I can, James, just as we wind
- 15:05- down here, I'm gonna take something you had
- 15:07- raised
- 15:07- later in our conversation, the AI piece.
- 15:11- Technology is a through line of this entire
- 15:12- week. As you talk about those three things,
- 15:16- setting and holding standards, system of systems of
- 15:19- accountability, and also making meaning, how are you
- 15:22- treating
- 15:23- technology decisions with those values in mind? Because
- 15:25- you need to make sure that these digital
- 15:27- investments are supporting rather than straining your workforce.
- 15:30- Right. What's the framework of decision making you
- 15:32- hold around that? Can you point to that
- 15:33- or illustrate that highly?
- 15:35- Well, I I I don't know that the
- 15:37- framework of decision making is all that different.
- 15:39- I think what guides our decisions are, you
- 15:40- know, always the same in terms of it's
- 15:43- this
- 15:44- you know, I always look at this as
- 15:46- while we have these competing dimensions of performance.
- 15:48- Right? It's your,
- 15:50- economic performance, your quality performance, your service
- 15:54- performance, your engagement of your employees.
- 15:56- All that has to be held in balance.
- 15:58- Right? Or held you can't you don't get
- 16:00- to choose a couple of notes. You gotta
- 16:02- do the move. But the common denominator with
- 16:04- that is process. So how do we do
- 16:06- our work? And to me, that's what grounds
- 16:08- us in the conversations about how do we
- 16:10- think about AI. So,
- 16:12- you know, like many organizations, we've implemented ambient
- 16:15- listening for our physicians.
- 16:17- And it was critical in terms of improving
- 16:20- their workflow because one of the downsides of
- 16:22- EMR is what it's done is chain our
- 16:25- clinicians
- 16:26- to a a damn terminal.
- 16:28- And, you know, patients one of the number
- 16:30- one complaint compliant patients is, my doctor doesn't
- 16:33- look me in the eyes anymore because he's
- 16:35- too busy typing on a a computer. And
- 16:37- Right. Frankly, they're not very good typos.
- 16:39- Right? So being able to untether that Yeah.
- 16:41- Changes that workflow fundamentally.
- 16:44- Now that's a easy example. That's one of
- 16:46- the more mature technologies that are available. But
- 16:48- I think as we see more development of
- 16:51- a Genentech AI and some of the other
- 16:53- capabilities,
- 16:54- that how does it impact the process and,
- 16:56- therefore, the people in the process
- 16:58- has to guide the decision making. And, ultimately,
- 17:00- how does it serve our patients? How are
- 17:02- we creating value with us?
- 17:03- So, obviously,
- 17:04- if my providers are spending more time looking
- 17:07- at patients in the eye, engaging with them,
- 17:09- that's gonna help us in a whole bunch
- 17:11- of different fronts, including the satisfaction of our
- 17:13- providers, which is an important aspect. Absolutely. The
- 17:16- process in getting people your people closer to
- 17:18- the meaning of the work is what, ideally,
- 17:21- technology will be doing.
- 17:23- Ideally. Yeah. Yeah. And the the meaning of
- 17:25- the organization, who you are, what you're about,
- 17:28- everything should be in service of that. 100%.
- 17:31- James, this was such a great conversation. We
- 17:34- really you hit on a lot, a lot
- 17:35- of great leadership advice, a lot of timely
- 17:38- leadership experiences to touch on. So I wanna
- 17:40- thank you so much. James Hereford, president and
- 17:43- CEO of Fairview Health Services. Thank you so
- 17:45- much for being my guest on the Becker's
- 17:46- Healthcare podcast. Pleasure. Thank you.