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This is Laura Dirdo with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
Cathy Sanford, senior executive vice president and chief
nursing officer at CommonSpirit Health. Cathy, it's a
pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Thank you. I'm really happy to be here,
Laura. Now I'm excited to have you on
the podcast because I know Common Spirit has
just some very innovative things happening today. You
know, really, truly one of the great health
systems across the country. And, two, I'll be
excited to learn more about how you're thinking
about the future. But before we dive in,
I'm wondering, can you tell us a little
bit more about CommonSpirit and what makes it
unique?
You know, I, have always felt privileged to
work in health care,
and I feel privileged now to be working
in health care as the chief nursing office
for CommonSpirit Health.
We, serve communities across the country,
both large and small,
facilities.
We have 22
2,200
care sites. We're in 24 states. We have
35,000
plus providers,
forty five thousand plus RNs taking care of
patients. We have more RNs than that because
there are a lot of nurses who do
other things in the system, but over 45,000
that are actually taking care of patients. And
we employ
over
a 50,000
people.
So it's a it's a very large, complex,
and fun place to work. We have hospitals.
We have home health. We have long term
care, and we have a variety of clinics.
And because we have that combination, it gives
us
significant impact on the health care delivery across
the entire continuum of care. And that's what
is exciting to me
because I think that that's so important
that we have an impact and that all
of us who work in health care have
an impact in making health care better for
this country.
Well, that's amazing to hear, you know, and
certainly a sprawling enterprise that you have. That's
a lot of nurses working to,
create better care for their patient communities and
and really making a difference across the board.
I'm wondering if you go back to the
last year or so, what is the accomplishment
that you're most proud of?
There's so many. Really. Right? There's so many
things that are happening. But I think that
I would say that,
because we have a goal, and I've talked
about this before in different,
venues.
We started five years ago with a five
year plan for nursing, five year strategic plan
because I believe very strongly
that not only do organizations have to have
strategic plans, but functions have to have functional
strategic plans that feed into the strategic plan.
So we started five years ago with our
strategic plan for nursing, and we're in our
fifth year. So I think I would say
what I'm proud about is that we were
able to do so many things in that
plan that's made a difference. And it's made
a difference in our KPI, our key performance
indicators
in,
for our patients and for our staff. And
those are both really very important.
So I'd like to tell you a little
bit about what we've done, and here's some
favorite examples. And one is, of course, we
have,
virtually integrated care. And I say, of course,
because I believe that I've been asked to
talk about that,
in several venues.
It addresses the nursing shortage, and it lightens
the load for our bedside nurses. Our virtual
nurses are assisting in all aspects of patient
care, and we're having very, very good results
both in the patient care area and,
the quality and patient experience
as well as the experience of nurses. And
that's going to be so important
because the shortages that have alleviated
slightly
now
are going to be back. So I'm really
proud that we've done that and we've started
on that. I'm proud of our nursing,
residency program.
We've been able to put in a one
year program that helps all of our young
new nurses with their professional development. We do
coaching with them. We have mentorship for them.
We give them consistent feedback.
And we make sure that
even with the number of experienced nurses that
are leaving, we are able to help these
new young nurses as they get on their
feet in a profession that is wonderful,
but very challenging.
And so, I'm proud of that. And I'm
also proud of our what we call our
care based team. Some places call them command
centers, but it was part of our we
changed the word the name to care based
because it isn't someplace where we command people.
And I know about command. I'm a retired
army nurse.
It's it's more about,
basing our care somewhere centrally that can help
the rest of the country
to take care of patients. So we we
augment and enhance our patient flow. We work
on our progression of care. We provide direct
care to patients across the care continuum.
We monitor,
centrally.
We let's see what else. We have physicians
and advanced practice providers there. And we're focused
on unburdening nursing and creating provider capacity
while we're decreasing readmissions,
falls, and contract labor. So I'm really proud
of the five year plan that it did
what we said it would do, and now
we're ready
for the next five year plan.
Well, that's amazing to hear, you know, and
certainly a time of a lot of transformation
in the last five years, especially,
to get to where you're at today, and
really see the results of some of those
efforts.
I think it's really cool, especially as you
were talking through the nursing residency program. I
think so many organizations are trying to figure
out how to strengthen their pipeline of nurses,
nurse leaders as well, and figure out how
they can bring in additional caregivers into their
health system in a strategic way. So, for
those folks, do you have any advice when
you're trying to set up a program like
this, whether it's a large regional system or
a smaller community hospital? How do you do
it justice?
Well, you have to start with finding out
what the nurses think. You have to start
and you have to start it with a
vision. What is it you wanna do? What
is it you're trying to solve? I think
sometimes we're in such a hurry to solve
things that we come up with solutions before
we have carefully
defined what the issue is and what the
issue is for
the staff.
So, the advice that I always give people
is be sure that you are involving the
people who you are going to ask to
do the work. Be sure you ask them
what they think,
and be sure that when you come up
with what you wanna do going forward, you
know where it is, where you wanna go.
You know, where where did you wanna go?
We we you have to have a vision
first, then figure out where you are and
then figure out the steps of how to
get there. And as long as you do
that, I think you'll be on the right
track with one caveat.
When we get started on new and different
plans to go to the future, we need
to be willing to change
if those plans don't work out
and dust stand up, dust ourselves off dust
ourselves off and say, hey, that didn't work.
But what would work? Let's see how we
could change this and make it work and
not get so set in what we have
come up with that it's the perfect solution
that we're not willing to change along the
way because the world is gonna continue to
change. Health care is going to continue to
change. We know that.
Policies, procedures,
everything is going to change, and we need
to be ready to change as we go
along to get to that future.
That's really great insight, and I appreciate, the
extra context around there. What a great inspiration
and and,
motivation to really connect, as you mentioned, with
the nurses and those and and listen to,
what's important to them as they are working
towards that goal of providing better patient care.
Now when you look at the future, the
next year or even five years as you
were talking about, what are some of the
big opportunities for growth that you're focused on?
Well, I wanna start with something in the
past a little bit and then go forward.
I left nursing. Can I tell you a
little story if we have time? I left
nursing for a short while.
I didn't really leave it, but I took
a different job for a short while working
for strategy.
And a while I before I came to
CommonSpirit, I worked in a small smaller system
in the strategy area. And one of my
jobs was to go out and go to
the Lions Club and the Rotary Club and
all the local community clubs and ask people
what they wanted in health care.
And it was fascinating to me. I wouldn't
call it a true research study, but it
was fascinating to me how many people said
what we are missing is coordination.
We're looking for someone to coordinate our care.
And I would say, well, do you your
physician's office, your primary physician. They said, no.
No. No. That's not what we're looking for.
We're looking for someone who would coordinate
all of the different places we could go
and help us get there.
So when we talk about growth for the
future, I think that the
work that we're working on is,
all about that, about how we are going
to coordinate. I talked about who CommonSpirit Health
is. But we are also have we also
have opportunities
to figure out how we're going to coordinate
that care and give people what they want.
So one of the things we did a
couple years ago also was my
physician partner and I wrote a book on
dyad leadership.
And I'm excited about for growth going forward
that I have a new dyad partner and
common spirit has formally adopted that the clinical
services across the country is Colette by an
RN and an MD,
equal partner, equal senior executive vice presidents at
the organization
to figure out how we are going to
do this together and not just doctors and
nurses, but the entire team. How are we
going to bring all clinicians together and then
our other partners as well? But we'll start
with all clinicians together
to be around the care of the patient
and to coordinate our care. That's going to
help us a lot with growth.
We also know that we're going to be
having more and more technology to work with,
and, we think that some of that technology
will help us grow
and that we need to be very careful
because we don't want to
get excited about new technology. Right now, you
know, AI is the big thing. Right? Everybody
wants AI, AI, AI, and I get vendors
sending me notes all the time saying, we
got this great new AI thing. And so
I,
I think that for growth, we need to
understand that you shouldn't lose track of what
your goals are. The goals are what are
important, not the toys.
And,
my IT people might
be
concerned that I call them toys, but sometimes
I think that we think new technology is
the greatest, the best, or this new AI
thing. What we need to do is know
what our goals are and then
figure out what technology and AI will help
us get there. So that's a big area
of growth, I think, as long as we
remember to do that, to keep our eye
on what our goals are.
And then we, are going to be doing,
more with our virtual nursing.
We have some areas of growth where all
kinds of virtual clinical
activities can happen,
both to make care better for the patients
and make the work that the clinicians do
better as well.
So that's where we think we're gonna be
growing in the clinical area.
That's amazing to hear. You know, big goals,
but I I think very important reminders too,
as you said, to make sure that you've
got the right goal in mind, that you're
looking, to make improvements in the right areas.
And then the technology to support that, is
so critical. And it's been fascinating to see
how quickly
technology has evolved in the space both clinically
as well as, operations for the health system,
and in health care in general. I can
imagine, you know, it's both
exciting, but also a little bit nerve wracking
to to make sure that, you know, you're
you're doing everything right, and moving quickly than
more quickly than you ever have in the
past.
That's true. I I I think it's exciting,
but anything that's worth doing also is going
to have its challenges, and it's also going
to have,
things that you need to be thinking about
all the time. But we believe, I believe,
that as long as you keep your eye
on what's right and what's good for the
people we serve, the communities we serve, and
the people who do the serving, you're going
to come up with the plans that are
gonna help you get there.
Well, that makes a lot of sense and
is very reassuring, of course. And you mentioned
challenges. I'm wondering, you know, what are some
of those challenges that you're seeing ahead? I
know a lot of opportunities, which is great,
but, leaders also have to be thinking about
those headwinds and things that could be roadblocks
potentially. So what do you have your eye
on?
Well, first of all, thank you for recognizing
that. And I know that you do it,
Becker, that health care is constantly changing, and
we are experiencing headwinds. And we will always
experience headwinds across health care and not unique
to us. There's always gonna be challenges.
The one that I, fear that we might
forget because we're so busy with so many
of the technology or financial challenges
is that we've got to continue to pay
attention to staffing.
We've got to pay attention to what's gonna
happen and what's gonna happen as,
as,
our our society ages. It's not just the
society that's aging is gonna need more care.
The caregivers are aging. And we cannot
cannot
lose
sight of that challenge and make sure that
we're taking care of our teams so that
we have people to take care of everybody
else.
We found and I'm I'm back to virtual
nursing again. We found that that virtual nursing
models help us with staffing shortages.
Nurses tell us that they don't want to
go anywhere else that doesn't have virtual nursing.
So once people get used to those types
of
new ways of taking care of patients, it's
hard for them to go back, and it's
going to be hard for people
to get, we believe, it'll be hard, a
challenge to get people to work for us
if we don't have those tools and those
new models in the future. And we also,
believe that it's important that we help, provide
a career path for our own employees.
I I read somewhere that the and I
can't tell you where, so I'm not gonna
quote it correctly. But I read somewhere that
the new generation is going to change professions,
totally change professions multiple times in their life.
And if we don't have career paths and
help people
figure out how to change professions and still
stay engaged with care, we're gonna lose them
from health care. I think it's okay if
they move around in health care or to
help us with health care,
as supportive
in support,
agencies.
But
if we don't come up with career paths,
I think we're gonna be constantly challenged and
not be able
to take care of people. And that would
be a very sad thing if we didn't
keep our eye on that and take care
of that issue.
Well, it's fascinating to hear and think about,
especially given, how many,
you know, nurses are coming into the space
and people are coming into health care wanting
to have that,
that laid out for them or have options
too within the system, to really, you know,
vary their responsibilities
and grow in a meaningful way. Before we
wrap up here, I'm wondering, could you talk
a little bit about the number one thing
that you're doing right now to,
prep for long term success in the future?
Well, I'm gonna sound repetitive because we did
a five year strategic plan, and we are
at the end of that plan.
And so what we're doing right now is
starting
our next five year plan, and we're going
to do it very similarly to the way
we did it before, which means we're going
to invite
frontline nurses
to take part in helping us figure out
what we need to do
to get,
things done in the next five years. We
need to figure out what our assumptions are.
We need to figure out
how we're going to continue to meet our
mission, and we need to figure out which
things we should continue, which things we should
change.
We, are pretty excited about that because we
did well with the first five years. So
we
fully expect that we're gonna do well with
the next five years.
And we're spending a little extra time helping
our nurse managers and others
learn about how you think strategically.
Because if we don't learn that, all of
us, then we miss the opportunity
to do the things that we could do
to change health care in this country and
to help our own
organizations
succeed and do well, of course.
That's such a great point. Kathy, thank you
so much for joining us on the podcast
today. This has been a very inspiring conversation,
and I look forward to connecting with you
again soon. Thank you. Thank you for inviting
me.