Heard Around the C-Suite: Insights from the CPE Forum

Chief Physician Executives (CPEs) are uniquely positioned to bridge clinical care and strategic goals. In our latest Heard Around the C-Suite episode, we highlight insights from The Health Management Academy’s Fall 2024 CPE Forum, where CPEs shared their approaches to technology adoption, innovative workforce models, cybersecurity, and leadership development. This episode brings strategy executives into the room with CPEs, equipping them with practical insights to enhance collaboration with clinical leaders, align organizational goals, and implement solutions that drive both financial and clinical ROI.

Join Jerome Pagani, Executive Director of Strategy Catalyst, and Anika Rasheed, Strategy Catalyst Analyst, as they unpack key themes from the forum. The episode also includes clips from CPE Forum participants as they reflect on the innovations, strategies, and solutions discussed across the sessions.

Key Takeaways

• Collaborative Implementation Improves Tech Adoption: CPEs emphasized the importance of engaging clinical leaders early in technology planning to ensure new tools align with workflows and improve patient outcomes. Solutions are more likely to succeed when clinicians are treated as collaborators, not just end-users.
• Workforce Innovation Drives Retention: Programs like Corewell Health’s gig economy-style app can reduce clinician burnout by offloading non-clinical tasks, leading to significant time savings and higher retention rates. Other programs are helping clinicians work at the top of their licenses with greater flexibility while addressing staffing shortages and equity challenges.
• Cyber Attacks are Threats to Care Delivery: Treating cyberattacks as operational disasters, not just IT issues, is critical for maintaining care continuity. Building resilience must be a strategic priority for health systems.
• Beyond the Clinical: The CPE as a Coalition Builder: Balancing clinical practice with strategic responsibilities helps CPEs maintain trust and credibility, while succession planning and leadership development ensure long-term success.

Transcript

Jerome (2): 0:04

Welcome to Hurt Around The C Suite, brought to you by the Health Management Academy. I'm your host, Jerome Pagani, Executive Director of Strategy Catalyst.

Anika: 0:12

and I'm your co host, Anika Rashid. I'm a research analyst and strategy catalyst.

Jerome (2): 0:16

Hurt Around The C Suite is the Strategy Executive's window into the most pressing conversations happening at the highest levels of health system leadership. Each episode, we'll bring you the headlines from discussions at the Health Management Academy's various CXO specific forums and summits. We'll highlight trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the future of healthcare, and explore how these themes impact strategy leaders like you. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the health management academies, 2024 chief physician executive forum for systems that use different terminology. These are your CMOs and your chief clinical officers. We'll cover CPE perspectives on technology, adoption, innovation approaches to workforce challenges, cybersecurity concerns, and the evolving role of CPEs and their leadership development.

Anika: 1:02

they're more involved than ever in strategic, operational, and financial domains. And I think a theme that's going to come up over and over in our conversation today is just how important it is to get CPEs and your clinical leaders in the conversation early. Because their buy in and insights have really huge implications for how health systems operate and innovate. So we're going to start with AI and some other exciting technological solutions that have transformative implications for healthcare. And we heard that there's actually a lot of excitement from CPEs around AI.

Jerome (2): 1:36

We know that CPEs are always focused on the intersection of how to improve care delivery and improve the quality of life for folks on their teams. one of the biggest challenges we keep hearing about from clinical leaders is that gap between the excitement around tech and AI tools and actually getting them adopted by the broader physician population and then translating that excitement into something that works seamlessly for everybody, doctors, nurses, and other clinical staff.

Anika: 2:01

Right, and a big part of the problem seems to be that clinical leaders often feel like they're brought into these conversations too late. So they recognize the importance of these tools, and they have a lot of enthusiasm for them, but then they need to bring that down the ladder to their teams, so to speak, and then make that connection for their teams. And that's really difficult to do when you're brought into the conversation late or after a lot of the really big decisions have already been made. So as a clinical leader, you want to be able to talk to the folks who will ultimately be using the product, get their input, really understand how it's going to affect workflows. And ultimately the conversation revolved around how they want to see a shift from seeing clinicians as end users to collaborators in the implementation of any new technology, because you can't do it without them.

Jerome (2): 2:52

Yeah, I think you're talking about the important role of physician champions. It's always about more than tools and technological capabilities that clinicians are thinking about. they want to understand how those things will affect workflow efficiency, patient access and satisfaction, and all those other things that directly affect care delivery. involving clinicians early on is a good example of applying the principles of human centered design to healthcare. And that's really about focusing on people and their context. So understanding how that technology would be used in the context that they're going to use it. I know we talk a lot about financial ROI, but for CPEs and clinicians, they're really looking for that sort of balanced scorecard. leaders at Forum talked a lot about measuring not only the financial impact of the technologies being implemented, but the clinical outcomes and the clinical engagement with those tools. Those factors like better workflows, happier clinicians, they matter and can ultimately drive things like the financial ROI.

Anika: 3:48

I think that's a great point, and to get there, you need early cross functional collaboration. And that's on everyone, including CPEs and also strategy leaders to make sure that they're speaking the right language to each other and also advocating for what their teams need. So financial ROI, while really important, it alone doesn't capture the whole picture. If a tool improves efficiency, but it frustrates clinicians or disrupts workflows, the longterm costs outweigh any potential benefits. so without that buy in early on, you risk a solution that doesn't ultimately stick. It might check the boxes for implementation, but it won't have the long term impact that systems are looking for. Let's listen to Robert Hart, CPE at Ochsner, expand on this idea.

Robert: 4:34

I think we've seen a lot of good ideas come and go. I think where the important thing is, is getting the buy in around it, in how you operationalize it. Because if you don't find the resources to operationalize it appropriately, then it's another great tool that would have been great, but it just doesn't get adopted. And so I think, For the innovation officer having that good line of sight with their clinicians on here's the problem we're trying to solve. Does this solve it? And if so, what are the steps that need to be taken to make this organizationally something that you can actually put into practice without creating more work. and hopefully if we're able to do that, then we'll see the financial implications of that can be positive as well.

Jerome (2): 5:32

What I take from this is that for CSOs, the key is to engage clinical leaders early and find people that speak their language. They can frame discussions around clinical and patient impacts, not just the technological capabilities or the financial metrics. The other thing I was hearing is to make sure that systems are not creating more work for clinicians and leaders who are already overburdened. And that approach ensures smoother adoption for sure. but also strengthens alignment with the broader strategic goals.

Anika: 5:58

Exactly. It's about making technology a true enabler rather than another task that clinicians have to manage and about making them real partners in any implementation.

Jerome (2): 6:08

Yeah. And speaking of overburdened, this is a great place to begin to dive into some of the workforce challenges. This is an area where innovative technological solutions are really coming to the forefront, Especially when it comes to enabling the clinical care team to practice at the top of their license

Anika: 6:23

What

Marjorie: 6:37

the day prior we had had a conversation about all of our challenges, which seemed very enormous. And yet when we came together, we were able to quickly pivot to talk about all the potential solutions that are out there. So one was Corwell, who has. Um, we also implemented Helen, which is a way to use non clinically trained individuals to come do non clinical activities like deliver water, deliver a meal, things like that. Being really resourceful of another, activity that's out there. next was, what's being written up in a New England Journal article a couple weeks ago also was Inboxologist, which is a whole new person that just literally manages the inflow of all those messages that are coming to a physician. Which takes a really good skill set that can also be augmented, by AI.

Anika: 7:24

that was Marjorie telling us about a few of those innovative approaches discussed in that session. One standout example was Corwell Health's gig economy style app called Helen as a way to reduce the burden on clinicians by outsourcing non clinical tasks. So Corwell worked with a staffing agency to build this app. The patient can go into the app and place all those nonclinical orders, and then folks on the app from the staffing agency side can then take those orders if they're working at the hospital that day, let's say. Okay. And then that way, the nurses don't have to deal with it.

Jerome (2): 7:57

Yeah, you know what I found interesting about Coral's approach is that it prioritizes retention and morale Over immediate cost savings, which isn't something you'll always see. I also liked that there were offloading tasks like fetching supplies or answering patient requests for blankets or snacks to the appropriate level of staff, allowing nurses to focus on that top of license stuff that really only they can do.

Anika: 8:17

Exactly. What's really interesting is that Corwell said that this isn't a cost saving measure for them. It's actually quite expensive to have these gig type workers versus just having someone on staff, but it pays off in a lot of other ways. The preliminary results that they've seen is per shift, per nurse, they're seeing one to two hours worth of savings and a nine percent improvement in retention for their RNs.

Jerome (2): 8:42

I think that's a big deal, particularly when we're thinking about the cost to acquire new staff. I also heard Marjorie mention inboxologists. What is that?

Anika: 8:50

So that's an approach that, we've been hearing about more and more recently. it's creating specialists, oftentimes nurses or other clinical staff, who focus on managing the inbox or in basket if you're using Epic. And then they handle an asynchronous triage and messaging with patients, which then frees frontline clinicians to really focus on delivering care.

Jerome (2): 9:14

So this is like a two parter. It's really game changing for clinicians who need to be able to focus on clinical delivery, but also provides flexibility for clinical staff who may not want to be front line and allows them to work from home or juggle family responsibilities. And we know we have a small labor pool. So if tools like this can help bring folks back in whether they're, they're end of career or they just want a lower level of intensity, that means we have a bigger pool of people to work with.

Anika: 9:38

yeah, that flexibility can be really great for retention and there were conversations about how this could potentially bring back talented clinicians who might have otherwise left the workforce entirely. And in general, the CPEs were really excited about anything that can reduce, so to speak, pajama time the time that clinicians spend where they bring their work home with them. this is really part of a larger push for virtual care solutions. for example, we're seeing some health systems leverage remote triage programs. So the emergency doctors spend a few hours a week helping patients avoid unnecessary ER visits so that they can get patients to the right care locations quickly while reducing strain on the emergency department as a whole.

Jerome (2): 10:17

Another model we've heard about as virtue is nurse staffing agency. They don't look to outsource to travel nurses, but essentially built an internal agency to fill those roles.

Anika: 10:25

Yeah, the logic simple, right? Like if you're going to pay for contract nurses, why not pay your own system? It's still kind of early days for virtuous, so we don't have any outcomes yet, but the idea is that it could reduce costs and improve consistency in staffing. There was also quite a bit of discussion on remote patient monitoring. and virtual nursing programs. and also the impact that these solutions have on workforce and patient access. Let's listen to Robert Hart of Ochsner Health tell us more about that.

Robert: 10:54

So I think we've got to think about this in a couple of ways. Where do we get people to operate at the top of their license and pull other people into those pathways along the way of access? Where they can do things that maybe in the past physicians did. And that can be elements of, managing medications. Can pharmacists do that with the right oversight? I think we've got a lot of elements of innovation that can help us do this. But thus far in healthcare, where we've found innovation, we've struggled to Get rid of the people part of it. We add innovation and then we add more people with it. And I think that's where we've got to get in access. So I think doing things like remote patient monitoring is a technology that we're just beginning to scratch the surface of. But there are some studies coming out that show that with remote patient monitoring, we can get the results that we need, sometimes even better than what we can get with traditional practices. So, we've got to ask ourselves, why are we not using these? And the other thing that we're finding is that can sometimes lower the hurdles that people have for receiving health care. So maybe we don't have as many noncompliant patients or patients that we've labeled as noncompliant in the past. Maybe they're not noncompliant. Maybe they truly are. just have so many barriers to receiving care that they're unable to. So can we use remote patient monitoring to actually get some of those health care disparities to go away with the right tools in place? I think virtual is another way that we can help solve some of these access problems. But physician adoption has to be there. And that's got to start back in the education. We've got to make sure our med schools are educating physicians in what healthcare is going to look like in the future and not what healthcare has looked like in the past. Because healthcare is steeped in tradition. And so we've got to begin making sure that we're teaching students how they're going to take care of blood pressure and hypertension and cholesterol in the future. You don't necessarily need to come in for an office visit to do that. How can we do that other ways? So I think those are the things that we've got to get better at and percolate those across the industry to allow us to continue to meet the needs and the challenges that we have in access for our patients.

Anika: 13:38

I like medication management to other professionals with proper oversight, of course. number two, healthcare can sometimes struggle to leverage innovation efficiently, so they often add more personnel alongside new tools instead of actually streamlining workflows. Next, there's a lot of potential with remote patient monitoring, sometimes with it even outperforming traditional care models. And so that has the potential to reduce barriers to care, some of which get patients labeled as non compliant when actually they might just experience certain barriers. So using innovations like this, health systems could, in theory, help reduce healthcare disparities and improve equity.

Jerome (2): 14:28

So those are some great points. What I'm hearing is that health systems can make care more fair and efficient by using tools like remote patient monitoring to break down barriers and letting clinicians focus on what they do best. So some of the other things we heard discussed at forum or how RPM and virtual nursing programs are helping to address workforce burnout and actually extend their clinician pool, as we mentioned earlier, And that really helps them get at some of the problems they're having around access. And different types of systems are taking different strategies. So, for instance, rural health is really using virtual monitoring to solve access issues, while urban health systems are tackling challenges like scaling more efficiently with those solutions.

Anika: 15:03

Yep. So we heard in rural areas, there's often the question of affordability. Can patients even afford the devices needed for this? And in urban areas, it's about managing high patient volumes with limited space and resources. So as you said, CPE is really grappling with how their system's unique demographic factors affect implementation of these tools. they also discussed whether they should build proprietary virtual care platforms or partner with external vendors. both approaches have their pros and cons, but the common goal is, as you've been saying, to improve patient access, reduce burnout, and ultimately retain more clinicians.

Jerome (2): 15:40

Yeah, naturally, that conversation is going to come back to ROI. So I think it's worth emphasizing again that we need to think about ROI more broadly than just financial metrics. And a lot of those solutions are really expensive, but for the CPE, it's going to be worth it if it improves patient outcomes and clinician satisfaction, if it improves retention and reduces burnout too, that's a bonus for sure. And I think any CPE is going to be really excited about the idea of reducing pajama time.

Anika: 16:05

yeah, ultimately workforce challenges are going to require creative solutions that align with the broader strategic goals. And the takeaway here is that some health systems are really taking this into their own hands. Here's a clip from Marjorie again on what CSOs can take away from these discussions.

Marjorie: 16:20

Of all of the things that I spoke about and the examples that I spoke about, they all have really, Interesting, strategic differentiation for you in your marketplace as well as, your investment portfolio. So many of these can be homegrown and then you can monetize them. Some of them might be early startups that work in another healthcare organization. So you can also be an early implementer and get some maybe ongoing royalties or things like that down the road. Some from a strategic perspective, as you think about managing your portfolio, Many of these not only fix clinical issues, but they can help you manage your strategic portfolio and monetize what we all have, which is a lot of data, a lot of patients, a lot of problems that all need to be solved.

Anika: 17:05

So some great points made by Marjorie. another one of these kind of enterprise wide level topics that came up at forum was cybersecurity, specifically how health systems. Often do not get enough support for cybersecurity incidents and that they aren't recognized for the true disasters that they actually are. There is a growing acceptance that a cybersecurity incident isn't an if, but a when, and especially with more and more systems on Epic, there were several conversations in the hallways on if that might increase vulnerability to cyber attacks. We had a session led by Norton Healthcare on how a cyber attack completely shut down their operations, and it was a really vulnerable moment, but also one where they could share lessons learned with the broader group.

Jerome (2): 17:52

Yeah, it's a perennial issue. And we know that the health sector in general spends a smaller proportion of their technology dollars on cybersecurity than other industries do. And I think it's worth mentioning that this is not just an IT issue. When it happens, it's an operational and patient care crisis.

Anika: 18:08

Yeah, exactly. One participant at the forum made a great comparison that if a health system had been hit by a natural disaster, like a tornado, Other hospitals and agencies, FEMA, or even other competitors would step in to help them. But with a cyber attack, there just isn't an equivalent support structure, even though the impact can be just as devastating.

Jerome (2): 18:29

We did hear that the gap in systematic response really resonated with the group. There are a lot of discussions around disaster planning specific to cyber threats and the importance of building resilience at every level. And I think, again, it's worth mentioning cyber security goes well beyond protecting more than just data. huge part of it is really ensuring the continuity of care. If your systems are down, patient safety is at risk. So for strategy executives, The key takeaway is that cybersecurity needs to be treated as a core strategic priority integrated with other priorities. And part of that is really moving beyond compliance. It's about protecting the ability to deliver care even under attack. It's also a great reminder to take a closer look at vendor relationships. And lastly, as health systems rely on integrated platforms like Epic, they need to be able to balance efficiency with resilience.

Anika: 19:14

so the last thing we'll cover today was a discussion at the forum about the role of the CPE. What makes a good CPE? What factors are important for succession planning? There was a lot of talk about how CPEs are more than just your clinical leaders. They're really integrators who connect the dots between operations and finance with clinical care. I think a really interesting quote that came out of the forum that resonated with a lot of folks was that it's easier to teach a physician to think like a business person than to teach a business person to think like a physician. traditionally to make a good clinical leader or a CPE, the standard has been obtaining that MBA degree. used to be that if you had the MBA, it was assumed that you could run a service line or more. Now it's shifting to this recognition that while the MBA is valuable, it's really just a starting point.

Jerome (2): 20:03

There's a lot of emphasis on relationship building as a core leadership skill. I think we typically think about this falling more into the MBA camp because the MBA provides the dictionary for the business side and the CPE still has to have those skills for fostering trust and collaboration with other clinicians and teams throughout the system. I think part of the expectation is that they act as a bridge that connects the financial, operational, and clinical priorities, but again, not every physician is naturally suited to that role, why succession planning came up as a key topic

Anika: 20:31

Yeah, forum attendees discussed the need to identify leadership potential early and perform skill gap analyses. Here's an interesting question that came up. How much clinical practice should CPEs maintain as they take on more administrative responsibilities? So the consensus seemed to be that it's actually really important for CPEs to stay connected to clinical care, even if it's just a few hours a week. That connection not only builds credibility, but it also keeps them grounded in the realities of patient care.

Jerome (2): 21:03

That sounds like a sea change because in the past I've heard a lot of systems actually discourage CPEs from continuing to practice. I think the data we've seen at the Health Management Academy show only about a third of CPEs are actually still in practice..

Anika: 21:14

Yeah, it's really interesting to hear that come out of forum considering, the data you're referring, I think the point being made at the forum is that when that link to clinical care is lost, it can create a disconnect between physician executives and the clinicians they're leading. it also might make them less effective at being able to discern what's best for workflows. because they're not actually close to the work anymore.

Jerome (2): 21:36

And those physician champions we mentioned at the beginning, they know how things work and they're excited about innovation. so they're an important part of helping a CPE ensure that clinical and operational priorities stay aligned, even when they're juggling multiple responsibilities. I think the big takeaway here is that leadership development for CPEs needs to go beyond technical training so they have the skills for fostering connections, aligning those priorities and maintaining credibility within the clinical community.

Anika: 22:01

Yeah, systems should also ensure that CPE stay plugged into the realities of care, either by practicing themselves or by empowering trusted leaders within their teams. That's the foundation for building strong, effective leadership in today's health systems. that wraps up this episode of the Health Management Academy's Hurt Around the C Suite. we're always looking to make these conversations as relevant and insightful as possible. So if you have thoughts or comments, we'd love to hear them. Email strategycatalysts at hmacademy. com to share.

Jerome (2): 22:37

And don't forget to check out other resources from the Health Management Academy on our website, HMacademy. com. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Jerome Pagani.

Anika: 22:46

And I'm Anika Rashid, and we'll see you next time on Heard Around the C Suite.