Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Timothy L. Switaj, Vice President, Chief Population Health Officer and Associate Chief Medical Officer at WellSpan Health

Transcript

Timothy L. Switaj, Vice President, Chief Population Health Officer and Associate Chief Medical Officer at WellSpan Health · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  This is where health care leadership comes together.
• 0:04
  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
• 0:07
  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
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  speakers to Chicago April.
• 0:14
  This series event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
• 0:17
  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
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  W. Bush. For the agenda and event details,
• 0:23
  visit beckershospitorreview.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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  Hi, everyone. This is Paige Twenter
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  with Becker's.
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  I am so excited to be joined by
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  doctor Timothy Switaj,
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  chief population health officer,
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  vice president, and associate chief medical officer at
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  primary care service line at WellSpan Health. Doctor
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  Switaj, can you briefly introduce yourself and tell
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  us a bit about WellSpan?
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  Absolutely. So it's a pleasure to be here
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  with you today. Thank you for the invitation.
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  As mentioned, my name is Tim Swiatej. I'm
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  a family medicine physician.
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  I currently serve as the vice president, chief
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  population health officer,
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  and associate chief medical officer of primary care
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  at WellSpan Health.
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  I've been with WellSpan now about two and
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  a half years. Prior to that, I spent
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  twenty five years on active duty in the
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  United States Army,
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  where, you know, my last, positions in the
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  army were serving as the market chief medical
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  officer for our San Antonio market and also
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  leading,
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  primary care transformation
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  value based care for the military health system.
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  WellSpan Health, is a comprehensive health system serving
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  Central Pennsylvania.
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  We have nine hospitals and about 24,000
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  individuals working within the system.
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  Our system includes an integrated care network of
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  over 3,000 physicians and advanced practice providers
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  and reaches a span of 12 counties kind
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  of, set circled around the Harrisburg area,
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  with a strong focus on community impact and
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  health improvement.
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  You said WellSpin's nine hospitals, and then there's
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  two more, in development. Right? Three. Correct. Three
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  three three three,
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  hospitals opening in
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  the February to April period of 2026.
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  Okay. Okay. Great. Coming up then.
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  Yes.
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  Yeah. My first question for you and then,
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  you know, we can talk about whatever you'd
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  like. But, starting off with, can you kinda
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  share your most important
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  initiative that you led in 2025?
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  Absolutely. So, you know, my diet partner and
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  I came into our roles,
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  just over a year ago,
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  leading population health at WellSpan.
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  And
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  so this past year has been a lot
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  of of foundational
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  strategic
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  work,
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  to prepare our team and the system for,
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  you know, our future vision of population health
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  and where we wanted to go.
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  That started with,
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  a big project. We we pulled in stakeholders
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  from across the organization to actually develop a
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  comprehensive population health strategy.
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  So population health is frequently thought of as
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  in the value based care perspective or the
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  total cost of care
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  perspective, but it is so much more than
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  that. And we wanted to make sure that
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  we had a system strategy
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  around not just value based care, but the
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  entirety of population health.
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  Once we had that established, that then allowed
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  us
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  to work to integrate population health across our
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  clinical service lines.
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  And so, you know, we have, done very
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  deliberate work to pull in our service line
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  colleagues across all specialties
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  and get them to be thinking about population
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  health criteria, population health concepts as they consider
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  their own work.
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  We've been very successful with that. We now
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  have multiple collaborative projects
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  between population health and clinical service lines.
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  For example,
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  project we're building on around sleep health and
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  with our medicine service line,
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  project around dementia care with our neurosciences
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  service line, weight management with our surgical service
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  line,
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  and a number of others that,
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  are are great collaborations and partnerships between us
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  and our clinical and operations colleagues.
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  One thing we're very proud of that we've
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  done this past year is really increase our
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  transparency
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  with our data.
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  We have outstanding data capabilities,
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  and we started with primary care. And we've
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  actually started to take population health data into
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  our primary care practices and discuss it and
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  look look at it and analyze it with
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  our primary care teams,
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  at the individual physician or or PCP level.
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  And we've actually, through this, have identified several
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  very impactable patients
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  that, even potentially little tweaks to their care
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  plan or their care management have led to
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  improvements in outcomes,
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  utilization,
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  and cost reduction.
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  And so we are working to scale that
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  work currently.
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  As always, you know, we continue to lead
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  in value based care. We were recognized by
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  the National Association of ACOs
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  this past fall with an ACO Excellence Award.
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  We're very proud of of continuing to deliver
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  on high quality,
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  care,
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  provide exceptional experiences, and truly bending the cost
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  curve yielding significant savings,
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  for the federal government over the past few
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  years.
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  And then one specific achievement I wanted to
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  highlight,
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  about a month and a half ago,
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  our team published an article in New England
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  Journal of Medicine Catalyst
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  entitled an optimized heart failure triaging protocol
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  to reduce avoidable hospitalizations and total cost of
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  care. So this stems from an annual goal
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  we have around cost of care reduction.
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  One of the big pillars of that is
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  avoiding unnecessary ER utilization.
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  And so we developed a tool that our
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  triage nurses use now
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  to,
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  avoid unnecessary ER use utilization
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  for mild and moderate heart failure exacerbations.
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  And that has been, cited with this article.
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  It was also a CMS
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  webinar on that process,
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  this past year as well.
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  Well, congrats, first of all, on accomplishing
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  so much, you know, from the integration with
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  the clinical lines, the data transparency, getting that
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  into the primary care teams. And then the
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  article,
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  what do you feel like
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  was most
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  important, like, skill or technique you had to
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  use when you're collaborating with the clinical lines
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  or population health was collaborating with the primary
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  care teams with that data?
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  I think,
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  frankly, it's as simple as being present
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  and being transparent
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  and some change management principles,
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  like, really helping people understand the why of
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  the work that we're doing.
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  You know, as I mentioned,
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  when people see pop health coming not infrequently,
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  especially our our frontline clinical staff, they think
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  we're there to tell them to do less
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  or do more,
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  you know, reduce costs.
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  But it's not just that. I mean, it's
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  about
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  clinical outcomes. It's about healthier patients
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  both medically and, frankly, financially in our current,
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  state. It's yeah. And, you know, not only
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  that, but there there is work that we
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  do in population health that also leads to
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  revenue generation as well. So it's not just
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  cost cutting,
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  and, you know, so really explaining the why
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  of that,
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  and getting people to understand why,
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  you know, we're in their practice, why we're
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  sharing the data with them,
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  and then helping them to translate the data
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  into
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  actionable opportunities.
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  So it's great to throw data at somebody.
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  We've got plenty of data. Physicians love data.
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  But we gotta give them the so what.
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  You know? If if we're giving them the
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  data and we're putting this in front of
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  them and saying, your patients are using the
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  ER
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  x times more than your colleagues,
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  well, then it's on us to then help
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  them understand what is driving that,
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  what potentially is impactable
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  in that, and then help them develop an
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  action plan,
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  to to make that change.
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  Yeah. I think the why and so what
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  sounds simple, but it's a skill you have
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  to or a muscle you have to work
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  out every day, right, of Absolutely. Communication.
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  For this upcoming year, 2026,
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  what do you see as the biggest priorities
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  or headwinds that you're focused on?
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  Yeah. So there's, there's a number of them,
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  obviously.
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  Obviously, we want to continue to succeed in
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  value based care. So we're always
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  looking at where can we reduce cost? Where
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  can we reduce utilization? Where can we drive
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  outcomes in
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  a manner that is also personalized,
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  to our patients?
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  But from a more global perspective,
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  you know, there's a shift in our demographics
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  coming.
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  Our counties are gonna see about a 13%
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  of our population age into Medicare age over
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  the next five years.
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  So, you know, that that forces a little
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  bit of a different consideration of that population
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  and how we meet their care needs.
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  But, also,
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  you know, we are projecting at this point,
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  a shift of our Medicaid population
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  and even some of our commercially insured population
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  to more of an uninsured population.
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  And so this is a population that,
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  we need to dedicate more time and more
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  thought and deliberate planning around
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  how are we going to engage with them,
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  how are we going to
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  focus on wellness and prevention to try to
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  keep them healthy,
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  and keep them, you know, out of, you
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  know, the ER or hospital setting that's just
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  not conducive to their overall health.
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  Yeah. I still think also we have more
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  work to do on broadening the understanding of
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  population health, across our our enterprise.
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  And I think that's not just not unique
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  to just us.
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  You know, there's still more work to do
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  with getting our message out,
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  sharing that message both to internal and external
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  stakeholders,
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  because I do really believe we have a
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  lot of great things going on. And it's
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  a value not just to our our team,
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  but it's a value to our community,
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  to our legislature,
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  to organizations such as Becker's and others Mhmm.
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  To spread that message.
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  And then I think there's opportunities to continue
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  our integration across the system. So I mentioned
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  service lines. There's always more we can do
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  there. One of our areas of opportunity, I
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  believe, is doing more, more getting coming more
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  integrated with our hospitals.
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  You know, so looking at our acute care
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  facilities,
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  our,
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  you know, our other other hospital entities and
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  seeing where can we integrate population health with
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  those organizations,
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  and and help them, you know, achieve the
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  goals, that we all
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  have. Thank you, Tim. We have time for
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  one more question. So I'm just gonna keep
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  it broad.
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  What have we not talked about yet that
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  you'd really love to share with other population
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  health leaders like yourself or more general health
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  care executives?
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  I think
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  one of the things that we need to
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  do better, I think, as a US health
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  care system is on the side of prevention
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  and and wellness and what I would consider
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  holistic health. You know, we have a chronic
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  disease epidemic. It's well documented. We have sicker
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  patients younger.
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  And at least I know that,
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  locally in this part of Pennsylvania, you know,
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  that's been a contributor to our hospital crowding,
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  just more complex
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  medically sick patients.
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  But we have tools now
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  where
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  we can
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  identify through things like genomics. We can identify
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  risk.
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  And then with there are strategies we can
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  put in place to mitigate that risk or
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  lower the risk.
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  You know, there are other things we can
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  do with simple preventative measures such as cancer
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  screenings,
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  and others that we do well, but there's
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  always room to do better.
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  And so I think, you know, a little
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  bit of a mindset shift
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  towards wellness and prevention care,
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  I think is something that would go a
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  long way for us, to really improve
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  the health of the population,
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  in many ways.
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  Thank you so much, doctor Swiatek, for joining
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  us today. Thank you. Appreciate it.