Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Matt Brown, President of the South Region at CommonSpirit Health

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Matt Brown, President of the South Region at CommonSpirit Health · 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.
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This series event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
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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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This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Healthcare
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Podcast.
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We're thrilled today to be joined by a
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brilliant leader, but we're joined today by Matt
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Brown.
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Matt serves as the president for the South
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Region of CommonSpirit Health. He's also the CEO
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of St. Luke's Health Texas.
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He's had a magnificent career in a great
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faith based system.
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Matt, we'll talk today about trends, what you're
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watching, what you're excited about.
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I know you're doing a ton of robotic
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heart surgeries at St. Luke's Health. Talk a
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little bit about, first, yourself. Introduce yourself and
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tell us about your role in your career.
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Sure. Thanks for having me today. I really
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appreciate the time.
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I've been with CommonSpirit for six years. I
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was, the transformation
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officer for the first
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five
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and a half. And, since August officially, I
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have been, the South Region President,
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which is multiple states,
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Texas, Arkansas,
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Kentucky, Tennessee,
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and Ohio,
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for common spirit.
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And we're about $8,000,000,000,
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in revenue
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and, several hospitals, ambulatory facilities, and and employed,
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docs and independent docs.
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My career has really been kinda two paths.
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Grew up in academic medicine
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and at both, Barnes and and WashU and
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the University of Tennessee
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in Knoxville,
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and
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moved over to the consulting side where I
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did a lot of transformation work and and
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turnaround work
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as a partner
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at Navigant,
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that's now Guidehouse. And, I've been, like I
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mentioned, with common spirit for the last six
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years, and it's been
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quite a journey. And we're really excited about
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where we are and where we're going.
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And and what would is it like
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coming back out of consulting and back into
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leadership at a health system?
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You had spent serious time in health systems
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before going to consulting.
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It it it seems that when people just
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go straight to consulting,
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dental leadership, sometimes challenging,
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Was it incredibly helpful for you that you
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had spent several years, a decade or so,
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in house system leadership before consulting and then
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back to house system leadership? I think it
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was helpful, you know, that my early career
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was helpful both in consulting and then making
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the transition from consulting
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back into health care leadership.
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You know, being a consultant,
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talking to clients about similar situations when they're
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opening command centers for,
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you know, events
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or,
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trying to
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squeeze,
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expenses to a level that they've never operated
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before to to make margin to invest back
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in themselves.
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You're a lot more credible if you've done
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it. And so that was very helpful.
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And then making my transition back, the transformation
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role at CommonSpirit was a lot of consulting.
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So it was kind
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of consulting light,
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working with the different regions in CommonSpirit.
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And then as I transitioned
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back,
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I had a couple of
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fairly lengthy interim roles,
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both at market and region levels and and
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missed it too much. I missed being part
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of a a larger team,
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in a geographic area, really working on the
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day to day. So it helps with the
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transition. But more than anything, I was ready
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to get back. I I I really enjoy
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the team part of it.
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Thank you. And you work across several states,
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Texas, Georgia, several others.
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What are some of the trends you're watching
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across the region that you're involved in
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in in across common spirit as a whole,
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which is a magnificent system. This the largest
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about the largest
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not for profit faith based system in the
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country, common spirit in total.
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What do you see as trends you're watching
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across the system and across your region? Yeah.
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So, you know,
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we have a really dynamic,
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executive leadership team at the common spirit level
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that's fairly new for the most part. You
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know, we really had a transition after the
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merger of Sea of Giant Dignity.
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And one of the things I really like
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is their focus on competition at the market
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level.
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And so we've been very focused over the
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last few years,
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especially since Ryde has joined, to be very
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competitive in markets. And there's obviously trends across
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those markets, but
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we've really found out to do that, you
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have to think differently than what we've done
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in the past. Right? So we were very
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acute care heavy, and what I'm excited about
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in our markets is becoming essential to
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patients,
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employers,
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payers,
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providers
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in a way that we dip to toe
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in in some markets, gone a little further
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in others,
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but get really aggressive in bringing care to
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the consumers becoming essential. And the payers are
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telling us that's what the employers want, and
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the employers are telling us,
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that's what they want. So things like ambulatory
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proliferation around markets,
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access points,
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differentiating your products
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on service lines in
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a a more competitive way. Those are the
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things that
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kinda have gotten me up in the morning
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over the last,
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several months is how we build each plan
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in each market to really be competitive. And
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what competitive means
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is building something that
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our consumers really wanna be a part of
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and be in our network. And,
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we better do it. You know, it's gotta
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be more than just big box acute care
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going forward.
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How important is it in each market
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to be really good at something? To to
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sort of choose,
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here's what we're gonna be great at. Here's
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how we're gonna really serve consumers.
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How important is that market to market?
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Do you have to be great at something
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in each market?
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I think it's important to be great at
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something in each market. And I think, actually,
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in submarkets within the markets,
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you have to be great at things. So
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we we we just talked last week. We
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had strategy reviews
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for each region with the common sphere team.
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We really need to talk about, okay, what's
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the identity
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of this care setting
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in this part of Houston?
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Houston is a huge market, 7,800,000
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people in the metropolitan area.
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So to think that you can be
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all things to everybody
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in Northwest or Southwest Houston
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is probably
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not good enough for today's consumer.
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They wanna see that you are a center
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of excellence in cardiac care at the Texas
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Medical Center.
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And when you get out into the suburbs,
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we're gonna do a lot of diagnostics,
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maybe a few interventions.
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But, boy, we're really,
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really good at Open Hearts
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downtown,
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and they know where that care is gonna
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be even in the sub markets.
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And
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we're really excited about we what we've done
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in cardiovascular
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in multiple markets in the South Region, Arkansas,
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Tennessee,
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and certainly Houston.
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But we need to feed
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kind of the the big hubs with
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very specific,
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very competitive, and very differentiated service lines and
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identities
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in the outlying markets to give access to
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the consumers where they want it.
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Thank you. And talk talk about service lines
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for a second.
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It seems like there's so much movement back
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from our
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from systems
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towards the pedics, oncology,
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cardiovascular.
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It it it seems for a few years,
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everybody was under the umbrella
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of value based care
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and and obviously still important. But it seems
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like there's so much more focus back
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to the big service lines of things that
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patients really need in mass,
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and that also help to pay the bills.
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Any thoughts on that, of what you see
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out there in terms of oncology, cardiovascular, orthopedics,
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or other lines?
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Yeah. I think I think they merge. I
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think the service lines and value based care
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actually merge. And what I mean by that
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is that service lines are extremely important.
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The payers wanna see now that you have
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geographic
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access
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access in more than just the acute setting,
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and then you differentiate on your service line
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in a way that we haven't in the
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past? How do you take a service line
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and differentiate on service quality,
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cost,
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and then kinda world renowned care. Right? So
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they want they want all of it. And
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the consumer
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is starting to look under the covers. Right?
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It's not just the managed care companies and
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the employers now. The consumer themselves are looking
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under the covers to see how you compete
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in those areas. So they wanna see value
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in the form of
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high efficacy,
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convenience,
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efficiency,
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and,
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really,
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you know, access kinda trumps all. Can you
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get in there? And we built a system
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for for years in service lines that were
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geared to
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a certain kind of consumer. Well,
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the generations that are up now are they
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do a lot of research. They do a
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lot of Internet research. They schedule almost everything
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without talking to anyone. And can you get
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your differentiated service line in that space?
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And the payers are noticing when you do.
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Thank you.
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I'm gonna ask you another serious question, then
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I'm gonna take you to a different area
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for one second. The serious questions
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are these.
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As a consultant
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well, let me start with, as a health
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care leader
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in systems your first decade of work, what
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did you learn that was transfer preferable to
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being a consultant?
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And then vice versa,
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being a consultant for a decade and coming
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back to leadership, what did you learn there?
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Oh, that's a great question. I had a
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great mentor early
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when I was at Barnes.
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And I my early career,
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I was thrown into
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everything. And, she was a
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a spectacular
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operator
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and let me have access to a lot.
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So
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I had as a non clinician, I had
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a lot of,
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exposure to clinical operations. And, man, that served
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me well when I was a consultant.
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And also kinda
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financial discipline, when I was at Barnes and
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WashU. And and her name is Sharon O'Keefe,
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and she went on to be the president
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of the University of Chicago. So it was
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really
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the place and the mentor. Right?
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And then when I was at the University
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of Tennessee,
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because of the reimbursement
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structure in the South,
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what I really learned there was how to
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build a really high quality product,
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high patient experience at a very low cost
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because we we just didn't have the reimbursement.
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We didn't have the reimbursement of
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Barnes and and WashU at the time. So,
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those skills, kind of the clinical operations piece,
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from Barnes and WashU, and then the doing
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that in an extremely efficient way at the
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University of Tennessee
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kinda led me to my career in consulting.
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And I really co managed the ops practice
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at,
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Navigate. And that was a skill clients were
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willing to pay for, especially when we could
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kinda build it out. And
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what I learned there, you know, and and
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this was
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fascinating.
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You learn things like how to influence without
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power because you don't have any power as
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a consultant, so you have to actually build
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cases,
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which is a very transferable skill when you're
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in leadership.
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And then in addition to that, the
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access to multiple clients watching what they do
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and trying to actually build solutions
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that are innovative is very transferable back to
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coming back to,
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health care leadership. So it was a I
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wouldn't trade anything
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in my career.
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The early part of it was very important,
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obviously, and and I had great mentors in
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in in both Barnes and and UT.
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And then the consulting piece of it, just
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the multiple experiences, and then the
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soft skills around building cases and and leading
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without power,
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very important.
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And, I've fallen back on both of those
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in this career.
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No. I I I love that. I I
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love it. And let let me ask you
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one final question.
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You spent time at Truman State University
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and at University of Kansas. So I'm gonna
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ask you two questions.
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Harry Truman,
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is he one of your favorite presidents?
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Second is,
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is Bill Stelph a good coach or does
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he deserve to be kicked out of college
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basketball? Those are the two questions.
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Well, those are great questions,
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and I I gotta be careful here. But
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Harry s Truman was a great president.
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He was the ultimate in accountability,
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as you know.
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And,
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and my favorite thing about him was
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he was able to laugh it off when
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the newspapers called Dewey
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the the winner,
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following his,
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appointment as president after,
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Roosevelt died. So
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self deprecating man with,
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that really believed in accountability and studying. And,
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if you if you can't like Harry Truman,
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then then it then it's tough to like
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history. So I'll say that. And then so
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I'm from the Missouri side,
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and it's really hard for me to
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to opine on Kansas very much. I I'm
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a kind of a Mizzou fan, so I've
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I've gotta really be careful.
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Matt, thank you so much for taking the
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time to visit with us. What a pleasure
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to talk to you. Thank you so much
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for joining us on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
13:45
Thank you very much. Thank you all for
13:47
having me.
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I really enjoyed the time and, look forward
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to seeing you all in the future.