Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Dr. Brendan Lloyd, Chief Medical Officer for Providence Clinical Network
Transcript
- 0:02- There's a small circle of people who truly
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- 0:51- Welcome to the Becker's Clinical Leadership podcast. I'm
- 0:54- Mariah Taylor, assistant editor, and I'm thrilled to
- 0:57- be speaking with Brendan Lloyd, chief medical officer
- 0:59- for care delivery at Providence.
- 1:01- Thank you so much for joining me today,
- 1:03- doctor Lloyd. I'm really excited to learn more
- 1:06- about how you're transforming physician leadership leadership at
- 1:09- your system. But before we dive into it,
- 1:11- I'd love for you to introduce yourself and
- 1:13- tell us a little bit about your background.
- 1:15- Background. Yeah. Thank you, and thanks for having
- 1:17- me. Really excited to talk about physician leadership
- 1:19- today.
- 1:20- Brendan Lloyd. I'm the chief medical officer for
- 1:23- care delivery at Providence, and so I work
- 1:25- with our medical groups and hospitals across the
- 1:27- system.
- 1:28- I spent my entire career at Providence. I
- 1:30- started as a dermatologist in one of our
- 1:32- medical groups, and I've been more on the
- 1:33- administrative side lately.
- 1:36- Really excited to, you know, have the opportunity
- 1:38- to think about physician leadership across such a
- 1:40- large organization and so many different positions we
- 1:43- engage with and how we really elevate their
- 1:45- their voice across health systems like ours.
- 1:48- Absolutely.
- 1:49- Now I think we all know that physician
- 1:51- leadership is going through an interesting transformation
- 1:54- right now as the demand for a better
- 1:56- work life balance grows, but the headwinds of
- 1:59- our, you know, environment get harder.
- 2:02- So how are you adapting leadership roles to
- 2:05- balance these?
- 2:07- Yeah. You know, physicians in general and especially
- 2:09- younger physicians, I think we're seeing they're increasingly
- 2:11- intentional about how they wanna invest their time.
- 2:14- And I see that as a really good
- 2:15- thing. It it it allows us to really
- 2:18- kinda meet their expectations in terms of how
- 2:20- we want them to participate.
- 2:23- And so we've really started to think about,
- 2:25- oh, with our leadership roles, how we can
- 2:27- more clearly define the scope and responsibilities of
- 2:29- those roles. We need to account for clinical
- 2:32- practice responsibilities
- 2:33- for the time that, physicians wanna spend away
- 2:35- from practice. And having that, clearly defined scope
- 2:38- and responsibilities upfront has been a big part
- 2:40- of how we think about these roles going
- 2:42- forward.
- 2:43- Also spent a lot of time thinking about
- 2:44- how we align expectations around the role. So
- 2:47- coming to an idea of what a shared
- 2:48- vision of success looks like for physician leadership
- 2:51- roles, how we wanna measure it, and how
- 2:52- we're gonna ensure that physicians have a meaningful
- 2:55- impact with the work that they contribute.
- 2:58- A big part of that also has been,
- 3:00- thinking about a support system for our physician
- 3:02- leaders. So really,
- 3:04- really like diet partnerships look like,
- 3:06- or other opportunities for us to make for
- 3:08- sure physicians have the support they need to
- 3:10- contribute with all of the things pulling on
- 3:12- their time,
- 3:13- as well as making sure that we're all
- 3:15- on the same page about appropriate boundaries that
- 3:17- balance that clinical practice, leadership responsibilities, and, again,
- 3:20- time with families away from work.
- 3:23- Absolutely.
- 3:24- That's a lot of big changes you're looking
- 3:26- at. When you're working on restructuring
- 3:29- a leadership role and making all those changes,
- 3:31- does that usually come with a new hire
- 3:33- stepping into a position, or are you redefining
- 3:36- existing roles where the same person stays in
- 3:38- that role?
- 3:40- Yeah. It's a great question. I mean, both
- 3:41- can happen. I think open positions present a
- 3:44- really clean opportunity to kind of reassess what's
- 3:46- needed and what success looks like. So that
- 3:48- might include rebalancing duties across different roles or
- 3:51- emphasizing different goals or even adjusting for, like,
- 3:54- a new leader's strengths or or their boundaries,
- 3:58- for how they're able to contribute.
- 4:00- So it's kind of a chance to start
- 4:01- from the outcomes that we wanna produce and
- 4:03- then understand how a physician perspective can help
- 4:06- us get there together.
- 4:08- I think it's really important when we have
- 4:10- these openings to have an open competitive process
- 4:12- process for these types of transitions.
- 4:14- That's been one way we found that it's
- 4:15- allowed new voices to potentially come forward. So
- 4:18- not necessarily
- 4:19- not necessarily just kind of earmarking the next,
- 4:22- leader in line,
- 4:23- but really, having an open process to make
- 4:25- sure that we're, understanding all the voices for
- 4:28- physicians that may wanna participate in that. In
- 4:30- other cases,
- 4:32- it it is, more kind of reassessing goals
- 4:34- for those incumbent leaders. Some of that is,
- 4:37- is what I would call just really good
- 4:39- hygiene for these roles. Like, the annual goal
- 4:41- setting process is an important part of this.
- 4:44- We wanna make sure we have smart goals
- 4:45- for physicians that really kind of lay out
- 4:48- what's expected over that year, where they can
- 4:49- expect to contribute, and, again, how we're gonna
- 4:51- measure that together.
- 4:53- So that's a big part of that, or
- 4:54- even for leaders who have been in those
- 4:55- roles over a long period of time. And
- 4:57- then sometimes even larger changes like reassessing the
- 5:00- scope of responsibilities or time commitment are necessary
- 5:03- for those established roles too. So, yeah, I
- 5:05- think it's both, open roles but also constantly
- 5:08- kinda reevaluating how to best how to make
- 5:10- the most out of the existing position roles
- 5:12- as well.
- 5:13- Absolutely.
- 5:15- That's a very interesting way of approaching both
- 5:17- of these roles. And you're also doing something
- 5:20- else that I personally haven't heard of yet,
- 5:22- and that is creating topic based leadership opportunities
- 5:26- and roles that physicians can step in and
- 5:28- out of. Can Can you give us a
- 5:29- rundown of how these roles work?
- 5:31- Yeah. We really don't wanna limit physician leadership
- 5:34- contributions
- 5:35- to only those people that are ready for
- 5:36- maybe a full time or more permanent position.
- 5:39- So we have tried to offer, identify some
- 5:41- of those places where maybe, physicians can contribute
- 5:44- in a little bit less traditional role.
- 5:46- And in some cases, those are really focused
- 5:48- on one area that physicians have a lot
- 5:50- of interest or excitement in, or sometimes it's
- 5:52- being able to
- 5:54- have some flexibility in terms of the the
- 5:56- length of these engagements so that physicians can
- 5:59- kind of move in and out of leadership
- 6:00- roles and balance that again with other things
- 6:02- that may be going on in their lives.
- 6:04- We've been really seeing that, like, physician well-being
- 6:06- and, innovation or application of technology are a
- 6:09- few of the areas where some physicians have
- 6:11- a great deal of interest in participating.
- 6:13- And so that's been a great place to,
- 6:16- open up some new opportunities for new physician
- 6:19- voices to contribute.
- 6:20- Some physicians seem a lot more comfortable with
- 6:22- the narrower scope,
- 6:24- and it helps them kinda fit again into
- 6:25- their expectations and the balance they're trying to
- 6:28- set.
- 6:29- Recent example of that, like, I think, as
- 6:31- you probably know, CMS has proposed some pretty
- 6:33- significant changes to
- 6:35- how,
- 6:36- they're they're gonna handle, OB billing and coding
- 6:39- and documentation next year.
- 6:41- And so we recently engaged a physician with
- 6:43- a particular interest in that area who has
- 6:45- a really busy practice in OB hospitalist.
- 6:48- Probably wouldn't have been interested in a longer
- 6:50- term or significant portion of their time being
- 6:52- spent in a row like this, but it's
- 6:54- gonna be a great leader for us in
- 6:55- terms of how we approach this and get
- 6:57- our physicians ready and communicate with them about
- 6:59- the changes that are coming in this specific
- 7:00- area.
- 7:02- That's so interesting.
- 7:03- Since implementing these flexible row options, what have
- 7:06- been some of the results?
- 7:09- Yeah. And I think we're still learning about
- 7:10- them, but, I do think we've created some
- 7:13- significant space for some leadership voices that we
- 7:15- would have missed otherwise because they would have
- 7:17- been more delved in on their clinical practice.
- 7:19- And I feel very confident that we're developing
- 7:22- a deeper bench of physician leaders that really
- 7:24- kind of have the tools for other leadership
- 7:26- opportunities in the future.
- 7:28- So it's nice to know that we'll have
- 7:30- that that,
- 7:31- set of folks that are ready to contribute
- 7:32- in different ways that we can, seek out
- 7:35- or that'll seek us out as those the
- 7:36- right opportunity comes forward for them.
- 7:39- I feel like I've got a better picture
- 7:40- of the different paths that a physician leader
- 7:42- might take in our organization over time. So
- 7:45- that's helped to kind of, again, match roles
- 7:47- to physicians
- 7:48- and, kind of bring the right folks forward
- 7:49- that may wanna participate in those. We're still
- 7:52- learning how to best design these. I mean,
- 7:53- they aren't without some of the usual challenges
- 7:55- we have with physician leadership goals, like how
- 7:57- we're gonna secure funding or accounting for the
- 8:00- impacts on, you know, changes in clinical responsibilities,
- 8:03- how those can impact patient access with how
- 8:05- they can impact us, colleagues that work with
- 8:07- those physicians.
- 8:08- But we do think that these are really
- 8:10- important part of, our physician leadership picture going
- 8:12- forward.
- 8:14- Amazing.
- 8:15- Now a lot of systems are trying to
- 8:17- figure out how to help the next generation
- 8:19- of physicians get into leadership roles and feel
- 8:22- like they have the balanced life they're looking
- 8:24- for. But what do you think is something
- 8:26- that seasoned leaders may be overlooking when it
- 8:28- comes to training that next generation?
- 8:31- Yeah. With the with the pace of change
- 8:32- that we're experiencing in health care, you know,
- 8:34- how we think about physician leadership does need
- 8:36- to change. And so,
- 8:38- that's been something that I think, a lot
- 8:40- of physician leaders are thinking through how best
- 8:42- to account for that.
- 8:43- We know that meeting younger physicians where they're
- 8:46- at in terms of their expectations and and,
- 8:48- again,
- 8:49- meeting their expectations about this intentionality
- 8:51- of where they're gonna engage that we talked
- 8:53- about is really gonna be essential to designing
- 8:55- and and delivering the best care experience across
- 8:57- province. We can't do that without the physician
- 8:59- voices being a part of it. And so
- 9:01- figuring out the right rules to kind of
- 9:03- match against those physician expectations is gonna be
- 9:05- a huge part of that.
- 9:07- Another thing that I would say is it's
- 9:09- really thought it's never too early to start
- 9:11- investing in physician leadership development.
- 9:15- I find that that works best, like, far
- 9:17- in advance of a formal role for physicians
- 9:19- if they've got tools like, the ability to
- 9:21- have difficult conversations or reading financial statements or,
- 9:27- leading teams,
- 9:28- that those are gonna help in their clinical
- 9:30- practice, and then they're gonna set them up
- 9:32- for success when a role does come around.
- 9:34- And so getting those started early has been
- 9:37- a big part of how we're thinking about
- 9:38- that development as well. The last one I'll
- 9:40- mention is just that in a mission center
- 9:42- organization like Providence,
- 9:44- I think leadership development for physicians goes hand
- 9:46- in hand with mission formation for physicians. There
- 9:49- are two ways that, we find that physicians
- 9:51- feel a lot more connected to the organization,
- 9:53- have a better understanding of where we're headed
- 9:55- together as partners.
- 9:57- And so,
- 9:58- we bring those together, as we think about
- 10:01- how we develop physician leaders, it's gonna be
- 10:02- part of how we thought about this as
- 10:04- well.
- 10:05- Great. Well, this has been such a great
- 10:07- discussion, and I really appreciate you joining me
- 10:10- on the podcast and sharing all of this
- 10:12- today.
- 10:13- Oh, thanks for having me. It's been a
- 10:14- lot of fun to think about how we,
- 10:16- finally engage this next generation of physician leaders.
- 10:18- And the traditional roles aren't going away either,
- 10:20- but I think the more physician voices that
- 10:22- we are participating in the process, that's gonna
- 10:24- be a better thing for Providence and, for
- 10:26- health care in general.