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surrounded by the top minds in the ambulatory
surgery center industry.
Welcome to the Becker's 30th annual meeting, the
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find the conference website. That's the beckershospitalreview.com
events page. See you in Chicago.
This is Scott Becker with Becker's CURE podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by a
brilliant leader. We're joined today by Prashant
Bhalla.
Prashant is the chief of ambulatory surgical services
and vice president of ASC operations at Shield
Health. He'll tell us about himself, about Shield
Health, and a lot more.
Prashant, can you talk to us about tell
us about yourself first, about you, your background,
your history. Tell us a little bit about
you.
Perfect. No. Thanks, Scott. Thanks for the time
this morning.
And, it's an honor to be with you
here today.
I am fortunate, I guess, is probably the
best way to describe,
my my background. I'm blessed and fortunate.
I get to do what I believe is
my mission, which is trying to change the
way health care is delivered.
More specifically,
the company I work for, Shields Health, we
are in, New England,
and my the majority of my work is
based in Massachusetts.
And so when when we're sort of surrounded
and populated by exceptional,
health care,
in this market, exceptional hospital, academic health care,
it's just an honor to be able to
do what we do here,
in trying to change the way healthcare is
delivered.
So I have, I'm going to say probably
around 15, 20 years of healthcare experience,
predominantly in the administrative
side of it. Worked for the VA, started
my career in the VA, and learned a
lot from the great mission that they have
there.
Transitioned into consulting,
where if you can believe it, about 10
years ago, I was working on projects. We
were reducing the length of stay for total
joints from 5 days to 3 days, and
now we're talking about within hours.
And then fast forward to working in academic
institution in the community settings.
And now for a health care management company,
that's predominantly focused on,
2 major areas of health care.
Shields Health focuses on imaging.
So both the diagnostic imaging through MRI
and PETCT.
And then my line of work, which is
overseeing the ambulatory surgery business,
for the company here in Massachusetts and New
England.
Oh, fantastic. I'm gonna ask you about surgery
centers in a in a moment.
1st, I'd like to ask you another question
about yourself.
You've been a lifelong learner,
college degree, then a master's degree,
then a master's in health administration.
Give us a sense of the importance of
that commitment to lifelong learning for professionals,
both keeping oneself motivated,
learning. Talk a little bit about that commitment
to lifelong learning because it's very incur very
impressive.
Well, no. I appreciate that. I think,
you know, it's it's probably a combination of
a couple things.
One of which is just simply the the
notion of,
finding a mission,
and finding mine perhaps a little bit,
in the academic process of what I wanna
do, what I wanna be when I grow
up. And so that took me through an
undergraduate
in, political science and geography.
Worked at a think tank, worked at a
couple of different jobs, traveled a little bit
in the world,
came back, did a master's in applied economics,
agricultural economics,
and then, continued on to do my master's
in health administration.
I think it was through that process of
education, just trying to figure out where I
can leave my mark,
where I can make a difference.
I think there's always going to be where
can I make money, but, and, you know,
we have my financial security? But I think
for the number of hours we put into
our daily professional lives,
for me, it was trying to find that
thing that,
that that career, that job, that task, whatever
it might be that gave me,
fulfillment.
And I think going through the process of
of different degrees, different experiences,
brought me to where I am today. And,
you know, just again sort of blast and
honor to be able to do what I'm
doing today, which I hope is making lasting
impact on health care.
Thank you very, very much. I I I
love the whole response, and I love you
not downplaying or at least articulating.
Look. You gotta have a great career or
and passion and what you love, but you
also gotta make a living. The the the
2 are important and not to make to
making the living part the total priority or
money the priority, but it's important to do
both. You gotta make a living too at
what you're doing. It it it it it
it's so critical, and and I love that
reality.
Talk a little bit about surgery
centers. As you work in the surgery center
space, what are some of the trends you're
watching in the surgery center area?
Yeah. I think there's there are a few.
Right? So there's the increasing reimbursement in some
specialties
and in some, procedures.
And then there's the, sort of reducing,
reimbursement in in some of the specialties and,
procedures. And it's sort of trying to find
the happy balance between,
what is it that we need to do
as a business and what is it that
we need to do
for our communities?
And and we sort of play this really,
you know, honorable role. I think what we
do here in our community where we get
to partner with some of the major academic
institutions
in Massachusetts
to help them fulfill their mission.
While we also do our own, which is
again to to my, earlier statement, I think,
trying to change the way healthcare is delivered
from a surgery center perspective.
It is about what can we give our
patients that,
that they don't need to go to the
hospital for? How do we be the safety
valve for the hospital so they can focus
on the bigger, harder things, and we can
focus on the things that are,
more obviously outpatient and allow for our providers
to have more,
efficient days and more predictable days.
And patients are not bumped and, they're they
have predictable hours and they're able to get
their case, their their procedures done when expected
at a lower reimbursement,
and, you know, at the high quality of
access. And, oh, yeah, by the way, you
know, if we're gonna look at the the
way hospitals do with the quadruple aim, not
only do we wanna do cost quality and
access, but I also wanna create an environment
where we're providing satisfaction,
whether it's to our provider, whether it's to
the patient, but also to the team of
caregivers
that we have employed that, they wanna retire
from where we work. And so it's building
that organization
where we all succeed, and everybody wins at
the end of the day.
Thank you very, very much. And when you
look at this coming year, what are you
most excited about and focused on?
I think there is one area,
that seems
to ebb and flow for me a lot.
We're we're doing a lot. Let me let
me back up and say we're doing a
lot in the outpatient space. In Massachusetts, I
think we're a leader now in outpatient total
joints.
From a surgery center perspective,
we are also a leader in outpatient spine.
I believe we're still the only
ASC,
network in Massachusetts that has an endoscopic spine
program.
We're the only ones doing vascular procedures in
an ASC in Massachusetts.
And, we're looking into cardiology and expanding into
the, different areas of cardiology,
once regulations,
allow for that, here in Massachusetts. And so
I think we do a lot. I think
we look at sort of what's that next
procedure, that next specialty.
And that in and of itself is exciting
for me. You know, I think there's a
number of things where we continue to deliver
the highest quality of care in orthopedics, especially,
and then some of the other specialties that
we we provide in our multi specialty centers.
But the higher acuity or the more complex
care
that routinely, at least in New England and
Massachusetts,
was predominantly hospital only until recently,
is sort of the area that excites me
the most. And and sort of your other
question of trends, looking at
trends. Spine is probably one of those where
the trends seem to go up one day
and then 2 steps back the next day.
And so it really keeps me excited to
say, well, what's next? How do we keep
moving this? How do we grow it? How
do we continue to offer outpatient
opportunity to to our patients and to our
communities and and continue to grow with our
providers that are looking to to navigate the
outpatient setting for for what used to be,
at least in New England, predominantly
hospital or inpatient only care. So helping to
keep continue to change change that trend in
and of itself. That's pretty exciting to me.
Thank you very, very much. It's a it's
a lot going on, and and Massachusetts has
been a unique place
with the the certificate of need laws, single
specialty laws, the challenges of multi specialty. The
hospitals have a control over a lot of
stuff there and so forth. How much is
your work with hospitals and health systems versus
independent surgery centers?
No. Great question. And so,
I think our DNA of shields health is,
steeped in partnership with hospitals and health systems.
We yeah. Back to our larger story of
MRI and PETCT, given a lot of what
PET does in, the healthcare continuum of care,
it's natural for us to have a long
and storied history of working with hospitals for
not only PET, but then also MRI. And
that dovetails into quickly,
sort of shields MRI identifies the problem, shields
ASC then helps remove it or helps fix
it. And so, we do a lot of
work, with our hospital partners. 3 of our
4 centers,
are directly affiliated with hospitals and and health
systems.
And then one of them is,
with an ACO,
a private practice ACO along with private practice
physicians. And so we have a good mix.
Our 4 centers, I call them all, snowflakes
in the sense that no 2 are the
same.
They all have different sort of ownership models,
different composition of specialties,
different age ranges in terms of the types
of patients we take care of, that dovetails
into the specialties we care for.
But,
given where we are, the landscape, the geography,
the the close knit health care community that
exists in Massachusetts,
it's imperative that,
we work with hospitals. And I and I
think we're fortunate that we've got some great
hospital partners, and we'll continue to work with
them in the in the future.
Thank you very, very
much. It's fantastic to speak with you, Prashant.
Talk about what advice you would give to
emerging leaders in healthcare, people trying to have
impactful careers in healthcare.
That's a great question. I think, emerging leaders,
I think one of the things I would
offer them
is to just be a lifelong student. I
think earlier in this conversation I mentioned sort
of my educational past, but not a day
goes by
where I'm not learning something new. And Scott,
I guess I have you to thank for
some of that, with just regards to the
publications you have and and sort of all
the news clips and and,
different stories that are coming out in healthcare.
So be a lifelong student. I think one
of the biggest things that I've seen in
my career
is an apprehension of asking questions.
Surgery, a lot of type a personalities, but
never stops me from asking world renowned surgeons
that I get to work with or or,
you know, 20, 30 year old long career
nurses that have been around and seen everything.
Love to be able to ask them questions
as sort of a leader on my side,
on the administrative side, the business side. Teach
me everything I can know about the clinical
so that we can partner together
to create an environment, to create
a place where people love to come work,
people love to come receive care. And I
think, in in doing that or trying to
create that, it's it's just because I'm continuing
to try to learn.
And so, put the ego aside,
learn as much as you can, ask the
questions,
and never hesitate to to to find find
a mentor and to seek assistance where you
can.
Thank you very much. Prashant Pal, what a
pleasure to visit with you today on the
Becker's Health Care podcast. What a great career.
Thank you for joining us and shedding more
light on what's going on in the surgeries
in our world. Thank you very much for
joining us.
Thank you, Scott.