Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Dai Chung, M.D, President, Chief Medical Officer for the Children's Health and UT Southwestern Joint Pediatric Enterprise

Transcript

Dai Chung, M.D, President, Chief Medical Officer for the Children's Health and UT Southwestern Joint Pediatric Enterprise · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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  - This is the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, created
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  Thanks for listening. Now here's the episode.
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  - Welcome everyone,
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  to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
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  I'm Mariah Mohammed Ry
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  and moderator with Becker's Healthcare.
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  I'm absolutely thrilled to have with me today,
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  Dr. Day Chung, president and CMO at Children's Health
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  and UT Southwestern Joint Pediatric Enterprise.
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  Doctor, it's very nice
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  to have you on the podcast today. How are you
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  - Doing Great. Uh, thanks for having me.
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  - Yeah, of course. Very excited to talk with you today.
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  Uh, and to get us started,
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  would you mind please introducing yourself
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  and telling us a bit about your background?
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  - Yes, I'd be happy to.
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  Um, I'm a passionate, uh, academic pediatric surgeon,
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  so I brought on little babies and children
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  and a physician executive in Dallas, Texas, uh,
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  with more than 25 years of clinical
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  and leadership experience.
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  So my role currently I am, um, serving as the President
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  and Chief Medical Officer for Children's Health
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  and UT Southwestern's Joint Pediatric Enterprise.
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  We affectionately prefer to as JPE, uh, around here.
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  And I just, uh, completed serving as a surgeon
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  and chief at Children's Medical Center at Dallas
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  and Plano Campus for several years.
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  And, uh, and I remain as the, uh, uh, academic, uh, uh,
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  professor of surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
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  So through the JPE as I mentioned, we have
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  combined our respective expertise to collaborate and,
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  and advance our pediatric patient care research teaching
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  and certainly community outreach.
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  And, and our goal is to really transform the lives
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  of our region's children's for the better.
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  So my current role, I'm responsible for
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  strengthening our clinical operations
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  and fostering a stronger partnership across the JPE
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  and throughout the, uh, certainly, uh, uh, region and at DFW
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  and North Texas communities.
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  So I work closely with leaders at the Children's Health
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  and UT Southwestern Medical Group practice to develop
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  and execute strategies to
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  operationalizing across all spectrum of pediatric, uh,
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  practices and service lines with the, really the goal always
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  to improve the overall patient care, being mindful of
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  cost and highly being efficient
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  and deliver the, you know, easy access for patients
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  and our, one of the fastest, if not the fastest,
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  rapidly growing North Texas pediatric population.
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  And lastly, I'm a, uh, native Texan who went
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  to high school here some like years ago.
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  And, uh, I'm proud to, uh, elevate care
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  for children in the region and help shape the next
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  generation pediatric surgeons.
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  So those are a few, uh, uh, sort
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  of points I wanted to share with you.
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  - Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing.
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  So with all your experience that you just talked about, um,
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  and what you're currently doing now,
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  can you tell me about your most successful project
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  or initiative from the last year?
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  Uh, what, what issues were you trying to solve
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  and also what drove the success?
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  - Yeah, no, happy to share.
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  I'd say I think that one of the several things,
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  obviously major initiative,
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  but one thing that we've really put a lot
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  of emphasis in the highlight is, uh,
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  recent innovation initiative that we've launched
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  to help lead our organization
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  to be ranked the best children's hospital in north Texas
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  by US News and World Report.
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  And with those ranking, uh, it,
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  it isn't about just getting ranked
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  and recognized it, it's really about having infrastructure
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  and resources and foundation, uh, key elements
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  and support to make sure we are delivering the best possible
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  care for all patient that we, uh, see.
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  And, and, and it does take a whole truly a team effort.
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  So for example, I mean our
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  significant efforts in pediatric mental health crisis
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  and that really just, we've done some great, great work
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  to serve the community
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  and so many kids in teenagers that are in great, uh,
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  need of our health.
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  So we recently released in our 2023 beyond a b,
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  c report from Children's Health and,
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  and, um, detailed the, the current state of mental health
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  of children in north Texas
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  and how we as an organization are, are doing about
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  and as well as what really as, uh, uh, as a community, uh,
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  in a medical community that we need to be doing far more.
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  So that's some of the couple examples that I wanted
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  to highlight.
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  And then lastly, we, we've got some great, uh, expansions,
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  uh, in our Plano campus,
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  which is about 20 miles north of Dallas campus.
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  There's, uh, if you were to drive
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  by in this neighborhood in Texas, I mean,
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  there are just cranes and building expansions
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  and near completion.
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  So we're excited to have a, um,
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  really a anticipated new tower opening in the fourth
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  quarter of 2024.
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  So lots of, lots of work underway in anticipation of, uh,
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  opening up so many more beds to serve the community
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  and needs in northern market as well as Plano.
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  And then we last year launched a, uh,
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  multi-specialty ambulatory clinic and Prosper Texas.
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  So that again, to go
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  and be closer to families home to deliver highly
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  specialized expertise and, uh, care.
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  Uh, it's been a great, great, uh,
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  um, offering to the community.
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  So we're really proud of that.
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  Um, so there was a couple examples of, uh,
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  a couple successful projects that we have come undertaken
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  and come to, uh, see to fruition last year.
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  - Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much
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  for giving us that insight.
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  Definitely sounds like you
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  and the organization has been busy for this year.
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  Um, the clinical workforce has changed a lot in the last few
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  years as I know you are aware of.
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  What challenges are you still facing
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  and how do you see the clinical workforce evolving?
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  - Yeah, I think pandemic, uh, has changed lots
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  of stuff across all enterprises
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  and hospital across the country.
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  There's several, um, variables and compounding factors,
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  but I think one of those most important areas
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  that we put a lot of focus and emphasis
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  and resources to burnout and wellness are care providers.
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  It is really important is equally as we're taking care
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  of more complex and complicated
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  and sicker patients, we have to make sure
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  that our team members are healthy
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  and we have resources to support
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  with all very difficult work they're doing day in,
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  day out, frontline.
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  So Children's Health as an employee
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  of choice has taken a number of steps to support our staff
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  employees positions, uh, overall wellbeing
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  through a comprehensive benefits program
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  and nurturing the environment and supporting our goals
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  and empowering them to reach full potential, both work
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  as well as in basically outside personal lives as well.
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  I mean, we, we've done really some incredibly innovative
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  and, uh, a resource enrich, um, offerings
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  to supporting our staff work-life balance is
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  so, so important.
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  Healthcare delivering healthcare has changed
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  substantially since the covid.
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  And so we, we wanna make sure that we, we go far and above
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  and beyond to make, take care of our team members.
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  'cause without healthy minds
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  and healthy, um, approached by our team members, we,
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  we we're not in any, um, a good position to be able
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  to really take care of some
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  of the most complicated complex patients
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  that we're dealing with every day.
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  - Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing.
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  And Doctor, before I let you go, the last thing I wanted
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  to ask you is, do you have any advice
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  for aspiring physician nurse leaders?
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  - Oh, I have many, but I I'll share just a couple.
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  I think the key is communication and collaboration.
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  You have to engage at the end of day healthcare.
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  Delivering patient care is,
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  is all about team work and team effort.
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  So I say collaboration is the key to get the absolute best
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  and maximum result that really relies on various expertise,
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  uh, the team around myself or any members of the team.
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  And so that we all compliment each other.
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  So I think as a great leader
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  or a good leader, it is about recognizing
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  that it's all about your team members
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  that are really working together to deliver the care
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  in a very coordinated and organized and supportive fashion.
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  So I think that is really, really important, uh, advice
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  that I would have for aspiring physician
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  and or nursing leaders.
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  And with that is I just elaborated just stay healthy, uh,
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  healthy body, healthy mind.
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  I mean all that goes along.
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  I mean, I think that we have to really take care
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  of each other in order for us
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  to better take care of our patients.
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  So I would say that's the, that's the advice that I have
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  for aspiring physicians and nurse leaders.
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  - Wonderful. Well, thank you so much
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  for those spinal thoughts, doctor.
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  There's definitely been an amazing
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  and informative discussion today.
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  So I wanna thank you so much
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  for coming on Becker's Healthcare
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  and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  - Thank you, Mariah. And thank you for having me.
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  - It's so important for leaders at the top of organizations
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  to keep learning, stay sharp, grow their networks,
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  help our audience better do this in a more simplified,
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  personalized, and meaningful way.
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