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This is Laura Dierdo with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
doctor E. Wayne Mosley, who is a board
certified orthopedic surgeon at AdventHealth. Doctor Mosley, it's
a pleasure to have you on the podcast
today.
Oh, thank you, Art. It's a pleasure to
be with you.
Now I'm looking forward forward to our discussion
and really learning more about how you're building
out the orthopedics department at AdventHealth.
But before we dive into my questions, can
you tell me a little bit more about
yourself and your background?
Sure. Well, if you haven't already figured it
out from my accent, I'm from Kentucky originally.
Grew up there. Was educated and did my
residency training in Lexington at the University of
Kentucky, which was just a fascinating place to
train.
Since then, I've,
been in
various practice modes. I've been in private practice
where it was
all my responsibility. I've been in private practice
with other individuals,
worked in a multi specialty clinic,
now in the hospital system,
and spent a considerable time overseas with the
army,
in support of, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring
Freedom.
Wow. That's amazing to hear. And, certainly, as
you mentioned, a lot of different practice experiences
from the private practice to both my specialty
and then, serving overseas and now with AdventHealth.
When you think about all those different
practice situations,
you know, what do you think has been
really,
preferable about any one of them, or or,
you know, what has been the best situation
for you?
Well, you know, my wife hates to hear
me say this, but the best job I
ever had was running a combat support hospital
in Mosul, Iraq. I mean, most fulfilling job.
So that was there.
Afterwards, I think this job is is very
fulfilling. It's very challenging.
It's developing some new,
service line, kind of a new way to
take care of orthopedic patients in this area.
So this is probably,
I'll say, my favorite,
CONUS or continental US job.
As far as my other jobs, they've all
taught me something. You know? Locums teaches you
something.
Certainly, being in private practice where you're the
person on the hook for
keeping the lights on and everything like that
tells you to be very judicious about how
you spend your money and wisely how you
spend your time.
Working in a multispecialty group teaches you a
lot of diplomacy. You have to have a
lot of diplomacy to be successful there. So
I learned a little bit from each of
those practice environments.
That's great to hear. And I can imagine,
as you said, just,
a lot of,
lessons to be learned in each of them.
So from your perspective here, where you're at
today at AdventHealth, what are some of the
biggest headwinds that you're planning for, for the
remainder of the year, the next 12 months
or so? What's really top of mind for
you?
Well,
we, made a commitment last year to open
up a,
operating room suite in a hospital that's part
of the AdventHealth Sebring Hospital. It's in Lake
Placid. It's got 3 ORs, and it had
been,
basically discontinued. It'd been kept up, you know,
because of joint commission and all those things,
but it wasn't being utilized. And so we
made that decision last year to
convert that to a mini orthopedic hospital.
And that's probably our biggest challenge that we're
facing is getting that off the, ground.
Administration has been excellent about re,
revamping it, renovating the areas that need to
be renovated. But there were a lot of
things that just had to be done, such
as,
processing,
some of the OR equipment.
And as you know, we've all been living
through this
logistical nightmare of trying to get things. So
getting some of that equipment is taking longer
than it what it did pre COVID, so
to speak.
So that's our biggest headwind. After that,
probably personnel,
trying to find and acquire,
competent orthopedic surgeons that are skilled that we
can bring here that will work in a
cooperative fashion with us where we work as
a team.
I learned that very,
how important that was in the military to
take a team approach.
So we want people that will come here,
provide good care,
integrate into the community,
and be willing to help each other out.
That's probably our 2 biggest challenges that we're
facing.
Everything else that we're that we're seeing, you
probably already talked about them in Becker, so,
those are more specific to us.
Well, absolutely. And I think, you know, both
of those things make a lot of sense,
and I can imagine,
you know, having opening the new,
OR suite. A lot goes into that and
then trying to bring on new,
orthopedic surgeons and personnel,
is a huge, huge undertaking.
So, you know, when you look at, that
process and being able to really effectively,
meet those goals, you know, it's much different
than,
what you're trained to do in medical school
in treating patients. So how do you, you
know, take,
the clinical hat off and put the administrative
hat on when you're trying to, you know,
build out, an additional
service line or just complete some of these
projects,
and connect with other, experts in the field
to make sure you get it done?
Well,
boy, that's an excellent question. I would just
have to tell you that I probably don't
ever take the clinical hat off. It has
to be on. It has
to shape what I'm doing. It has to
make sense. It has to be good orthopedic
care or nothing makes sense. So I always
leave that on, and I always add,
I guess maybe a administrator or more of
a management hat onto it.
Growing up on the farm taught me a
lot about how to effectively work with and
manage people. Same thing same thing with the
military.
You've gotta recognize who the stakeholders are in
any kind of endeavor. You've gotta make sure
that they're buying in. You gotta make sure
that they're
even more than buying in, that they're gonna
be active participants, and they're gonna help the
process. So,
you know, you have to look at that.
Some training that I've had throughout my life
in business certainly helps me to be more
critical of things from a financial standpoint.
You know, every surgeon just can't get their
own personal laser anymore. So we have to
be very, judicious about how we spend our
capital.
And we've done that. We've only spent it
on the things that we absolutely need and
the things that will help us build to
what our goal is of having a,
orthopedic center of excellence here in
Highlands County or South Central Florida.
That makes a lot of sense. And, you
know, I really appreciate that lens of always
having that,
clinical care hat on and that orthopedic surgeon
hat on because it's, like you said, so
important to no matter what you're building within
the health system. Now, you know, in general,
how do you see
spine and orthopedics continuing to evolve over the
next 2 to 3 years or so? I
can imagine
whether it's technology or some of the other
trends in the industry,
you know, so many,
different ways that patients are needing orthopedic care
and entering the system. What do you see
as being some of the big things that,
you have your eye on and are thinking
about as you continue to grow and evolve
your program?
Well, I guess if I wanna make sure
I'm right on answering your question, I have
to say AI will be instrumental in all
of it. So I just said it just
to get that out of the way.
The other part of it is I think
we have to be
I think we have to be more diligent
about taking care of the patient, about meeting
their needs,
not only their orthopedic needs, but being able
to help them in other medical aspects. That's
the reason why I think a,
a multi specialty system, I'm not talking about
just a clinic, but a multi specialty system,
is
crucial to the long term needs of the
community.
I think we need to figure out a
way to
treat them in a manner they need to
be treated without
impacting their life over
I guess, overdue impacting their life. We wanna
give them some quality of life without having
to for them to sacrifice too much for
it.
Certainly,
in a more rural area, and I'm not
saying we're completely rural, but we're certainly rural
as you com as you, compare us to
the coast of Florida.
We will have to develop a relationship with
these folks. They're gonna know us. They're gonna
judge us because we're gonna see them in
our local Publix or at church or something
like that. So we have to work to
develop that relationship,
and we have to facilitate the things that
they need. In addition to that, we have
to do the same thing
on a similar level with our referring physician.
So our primary care physicians, we need to
have good relationships with. We need to work
to meet their needs because they're taking care
of these folks,
you know, on a daily basis. They're the
they're the frontline individuals in their care. So
we have to work in that realm as
well.
That makes a lot of sense. You know,
it's really helpful to think about and understand
as, the health care system continues to evolve.
And, you know, speaking of the future, before
we wrap up here, I'm wondering, where do
you see some of the best opportunities for
additional growth,
going forward?
Well,
my administration is,
they're very straightforward and they're very fair. And
when they hired me for this project, I
said, look. We're getting 20% market share, and
we want 70%.
And so
I'm constantly thinking about growth. So the first
thing I wanna do is I want to
stem the tide of those folks who
are in our area who think that they
have to travel to the coast for better
care. And we've got to change that on
our front
with better physicians, with better facilities, with better
equipment, and we're we're working diligently on doing
that.
The second thing we want to do is
because
we think we can be wildly efficient
when we're in in our, orthopedic center.
We think we can be very efficient. We
can process patients through,
safely,
efficiently.
We want to be able to attract people
to come into our area. So we wanna
look at some of the other outlying areas
that much like where we were 2 years
ago where they're traveling to the coast, we
wanna see if they'll travel to us. Now
this was kinda pointed out to me by,
one of our vendors who said, you know,
they're doing the same thing in Orlando because
the difficulty difficult part is you gotta
travel up I 4, and you've gotta cross
these streets, and then you gotta park 500
year yards away from the hospital. What we're
proposing to do, they're gonna be on a
small
well, it's highway 27, 3 lane highway, gets
them there. Easily just travel, and they get
to park 20 yards from the hospital.
And they get to get in and out
in a small center with a few number
of people. They're not just a number. They'd
be they're an individual. And so that's what
we think we're going to do, and we're
gonna focus our efforts to grow our
market share.
That's really interesting and and great to hear.
I mean, that huge goal is going from
20% to 70% of the market share, and
I love the idea of trying to, you
know, again, make sure people stay locally and
and provide an easy access to really high
quality care,
you know, for them right where they live.
And so that's,
such a huge goal, and I can imagine,
you know, easier said than done in many
ways, but it seems like you're on a
great track to, to reach that goal.
Yeah. I think we are. I mean, I
think the the,
orthopedic hospital is gonna take hold. I think
we'll see that come up in, q 1
2025.
We already gotten permission to revamp our clinics,
which will help us with throughput of patients
and referrals.
And we have
well, I'll say it. We have 4 potential
orthopedic surgeons looking to come here, where 2
years ago, it was difficult to find one.
So I think some changes that administration have
made, some the ways that we approach this,
we are
you know, we all trained in a large
center. We all trained in a tertiary care
center somewhere.
So we're gonna offer that same level of
care,
to the extent that we can. There may
be a few things that we can't do
such as tumor and stuff like that, but
we're gonna offer that same level of care
right here in the Sebring, like, placid area.
And I think that's got some of the
surgeons who are looking to come here. I
think that's got them excited along with working
in a team approach. I think they really
like that as well.
That's fantastic to hear. Doctor Mosley, thank you
so much for joining us on the podcast
today. This has been such a fun conversation,
and I look forward to connecting with you
again soon.
I do too as well. So thank you
very much for having