Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Dr. Andy Anderson, Chief Medical and Quality Officer at RWJBarnabas Health

Transcript

Dr. Andy Anderson, Chief Medical and Quality Officer at RWJBarnabas Health · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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  Thanks for listening. Now here's the episode.
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  This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Andy Anderson,
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  chief Medical and Quality Officer at R W J Barnabas Health. Dr. Anderson,
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  it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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  Thank you very much, Laura.
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  Now I'm excited for our conversation.
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  It'll definitely be a great one talking a lot about some of the key priorities
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  you're looking at today and where R W J Barnabas is headed.
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  But before we dive into the broader discussion,
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  can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background?
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  Absolutely. I'm a,
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  a general internist and continue to see patients as a,
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  a primary care physician and currently serve at R W J Barnabas Health as
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  the Chief Medical and Quality Officer.
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  I'm responsible for our patient outcomes related to to
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  quality, uh, safety and, and patient experience and,
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  and also steer our relationship, um,
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  with our academic partner, Rutgers University, which translates into our,
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  our pipeline of trainees as well as our, our research mission.
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  That's fantastic to hear. And you know,
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  given all of those responsibilities both on the health system side as well as
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  that relationship with Rutgers, what are some of your top priorities today?
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  What are you spending most of your time on?
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  Yeah, today my mindset is very focused on, on our,
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  on our people. Um, and when I say people, I mean both our employees,
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  including our nurses and doctors as, as well as the, the patients and,
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  and the communities that we serve. We have, um, you know, emerged out of,
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  of covid in, in a better way in terms of being,
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  I think more organized and, and integrated as a health system.
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  But there's still quite a bit of, of healing to do, and there's quite a bit of,
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  of pent up demand for, for patient care needs.
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  And some of those are related to managing chronic diseases.
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  Some of those are related to,
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  to procedures and surgeries that that need to be done.
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  And what we're really after is getting to those very,
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  very best patient outcomes and,
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  and making sure our patients are cared for in the best possible way.
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  That the experience in our,
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  in our hospitals and in our practices is at the highest possible level,
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  and ultimately that they achieve the,
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  the best possible health in terms of how we deliver healthcare
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  to them and how we help prevent people from getting sick. Um,
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  so a lot of great focus on what I'll call, um,
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  population health where we are out there actively promoting,
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  you know, healthy behaviors and,
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  and looking very closely at social determinants of health to make sure our,
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  our patients in our communities are, are healthy.
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  Absolutely.
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  I love that and certainly is such an important aspect of serving the community.
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  Well, you know, when you look at, uh,
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  some of the different ways that you're going about the prevention side of things
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  in, in population health, what's worked really well for you?
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  I know that's something that a lot of hospitals and health systems are trying to
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  figure out in their own communities and would just love to hear if there's,
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  you know, a, a project or initiative that you feel like, um,
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  has been really successful.
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  Yeah, we've worked hard to make, um, access, you know,
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  easier and when patients need to be seen, um,
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  for healthcare conditions. And, and some of those are,
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  are chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, you know,
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  ensuring that that patients can easily access our services and,
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  and some of that is having flexibility in terms of,
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  of having telemedicine available, for example.
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  But some of that's just simply making sure there's,
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  there's appointments available on the other side of that, there's a lot of,
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  of outreach and, and education and,
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  and some of that is through standard methods such as, you know,
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  sending emails and texts and, and some of that is providing, you know,
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  forums for communities to engage in questions and answers related to,
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  to chronic health conditions. And, and, and all this too,
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  I think is very strongly promoted by the, the branding of, of,
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  of healthier communities, um, and making sure that,
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  that we as a health system are,
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  are out there in our communities being the voice of, of health and,
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  and providing, you know, easy access and, and and just very clearly,
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  um, you know, managing our, our patient populations in,
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  in a very proactive way so that everyone feels comfortable coming to us to, to,
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  to find better health as well as better healthcare.
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  Got it. That makes a lot of sense. You know,
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  and is definitely a great way to look at it. Now when you are,
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  are looking at the future,
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  how do you see the health system evolving over the next two to three years?
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  What do you see as changing and really, um, becoming, uh,
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  better over time?
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  Yeah, we're becoming more integrated, um,
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  and more efficient because we're more integrated and,
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  and all that really centers around coordinated care for,
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  for patients and in our communities.
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  And part of how we're working hard at that is becoming more
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  regionalized and more service line oriented. And that creates, you know,
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  connectivity for our patients such that when a,
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  when a patient is in one of our hospitals or in one of our practices,
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  they have the, the whole armamentarium of, of specialists and, and services,
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  things like laboratory services and, and radiology services, et cetera,
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  that will enable our patients to get every aspect of their healthcare. And,
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  and again, as we talked about before, some of that is, is reacting and,
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  and treating acute diseases. Some of that is, is more proactive and,
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  and doing things like screening for breast cancer, colon cancer and,
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  and ensuring our patients are, are getting, you know, access to the,
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  to the best possible care.
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  So as we become more integrated in more efficient,
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  it's gonna be easier for patients to access and and navigate our services. Um,
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  one of our other very big initiatives is installing, um,
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  epic as our single electronic health record.
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  Historically we had multiple health records and,
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  and now we have a unified record that that centers on the patient, um, and,
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  and really provides that coordinated, integrated care that,
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  that our patients all deserve.
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  That's great to hear, and I know all of those areas just are,
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  are a huge undertaking,
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  whether it's looking at becoming more integrated and really, um,
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  connecting the dots there for, for the patient and the patient experience,
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  and then epic installs is certainly a huge undertaking as well. Yeah.
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  From the c clinical leadership side, you know,
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  what does it take to make sure that goes as smoothly as possible?
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  How do you make sure, um, from the people perspective, pe you know,
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  your team understands why you're making these changes, um,
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  and how important it is to really buy in and, um, you know,
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  move in this direction that'll be better for patient care overall?
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  Yeah, a lot of that is centered on what I'll call best practices and,
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  and doing things, you know, the right way consistently. So, you know,
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  having more of a standard operating model that incorporates those best
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  practices. Um, you know,
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  one of the ways that that epic is powerful is it enables you to,
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  to deliver that in the electronic, you know, health record forum. Um,
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  part of,
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  to your question about change management is we want to be
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  the absolute best at what we do. And, and so getting to that gold standard,
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  getting to that,
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  that best practice is something that everyone I think pretty easily rallies
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  around and, and understands. And the other, you know,
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  thing that we've gotten better at to the question before is,
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  is sharing best practices and making sure that are different leaders at
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  our different sites of service or talking to each other,
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  they're learning from each other. When something goes well,
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  we share that or vice versa, if something doesn't go well,
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  we share that too as a, a lesson learned so that that others cannot, you know,
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  have that happen. Um, again. And so, you know,
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  that communication, that integration, that,
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  that sort of interweaving of our different sites of service so that we are truly
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  performing at the highest possible level at,
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  at every sites of services is what we're after. And,
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  and so in terms of change management, people do get excited about that. They,
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  they want to be the best, you know, we want to be the,
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  the number one health system, um, in New Jersey, which I believe we already are,
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  but we want to continue to get better and better such that our patients and
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  communities get the best possible outcomes.
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  I love that. I think it's such an important mission and definitely, uh,
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  makes a lot of sense as a healthcare organization. Now,
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  before we wrap up our conversation,
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  I was wondering if you could share with us one change that you,
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  your team has made in the last year that has really yielded some great results.
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  Yeah, we've gone, I would say back to the bedside, you know,
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  during covid there was less opportunity to,
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  to have the face-to-face interaction that really makes us all human beings.
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  And we have purposefully as leaders in our health system, for example,
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  gone back to the bedside. So we have senior leader rounds, um,
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  once a week and,
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  and most of our hospitals where our senior team is going to the unit
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  in the hospital meeting with the, the staff, the nurses, the the technicians,
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  um, the, the individuals who are delivering care at the frontline,
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  listening to them, understanding what's working well, what's not working well,
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  solving some of their problems if there's issues with the supply chain or
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  there's issues with the electronic health record not working as, as well as,
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  as it should. We, we listen to those issues and, and go back and,
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  and put fixes in. The other part of that that's very powerful is,
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  is going to the,
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  the bedside of the patient and actually rounding on patients and listening to
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  patients. And again,
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  individuals will present issues that we can solve real time and or their
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  themes that, that emerge from those conversations.
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  So getting back to the,
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  the frontline to the bedside is so powerful for, for leaders to,
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  to help understand what is happening and to help in turn fix
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  issues that, that are happening and,
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  and really spreading those best practices across our whole system.
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  I love that it sounds like such a simple thing to do, but certainly, you know,
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  it makes that connection and can make everything, um,
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  seem just a bit more easy to, to make that change and,
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  and be better for the patients as well as your teammates.
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  Have you seen or heard any feedback from, uh,
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  since you started doing more of these bedside rounds as senior leadership team?
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  Yeah. The, the staff on our hospital units love it.
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  Um, they love the opportunity to interact with,
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  with senior leaders and to really be heard and, and, you know,
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  as we're solving problems,
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  some of them are simple things that we can solve within the hour.
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  Some of them are, are longer term problems. It,
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  it really yields those results that makes everyone feel better about their
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  workplace and, and then having the, the patient-centeredness and,
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  and really having our patients be truly listened to is,
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  is just very powerful and it, it brings us all back to why we do what we do and,
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  and that's to get to those absolute best outcomes for our patients.
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  Absolutely. Well, Dr. Anderson,
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  thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
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  This has been a really fun and interesting conversation and I look forward to
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  connecting with you again soon.
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  Thank you very much.
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