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This is Alan Connan with the Becker's podcast,
and I am thrilled to be joined today
by Kevin Fleming, who is the vice president
of the Orthopedic
Institute
at AdventHealth.
Kevin, delighted to have you on the podcast
with us today. Before we get get started
and jump into some questions, I'd love to
turn the floor over to you to hear
a little bit more about your role and
your background at AdventHealth.
Sure. Really appreciate the chance to be here,
and thanks for having us. So as you
said, my name is Kevin Fleming, and I've
served as a leader,
within health care, really, my entire 25 plus
year career.
Have been had the privilege to serve a
number of leading health care systems across the
country, but right now I'm the vice president
for the Orthopedic Institute for AdventHealth
here in Central Florida. And so this role
really builds on and utilizes
so many elements of my career that I've
had in my background because a typical day
will see me working on strategy, troubleshooting with
our hospital operators on care opportunities, or
maybe meeting with physicians to talk about alignment
or clinical quality,
all the while working with our team members
to make a difference for our clinicians and
our patients and the communities that we serve.
You know, since I've, in my career, worked
with medical groups, independent and employed,
had some hospital operations roles, and had the
chance to focus on service lines and physician
alignment
and other things that I've done, I feel
really lucky to be here at AdventHealth to
be in a position that lets me
lead in a space that's really exciting,
but that also lets me build on so
many of the experiences I've had in the
past.
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it sounds like really
on any given day, wearing multiple hats, focusing,
like you said, on strategy, could be operations,
clinical alignment.
So really kind of interested to hear what
are the 2 or 3 key trends that
you're really focusing on within the health care,
within the orthopedic space, and what are you
really focused on for the future?
You know,
there's a few things, and I think I'll
I'll start broad with health care. I think
this is probably something that applies to everyone,
but it's something that we're really focused on,
which is on building and strengthening and really
supporting our health care workforce, our team members
that make caring for our communities possible. Ultimately,
we've really tried to focus on putting a
great deal of effort, a great deal of
resources into
offering our current team members opportunity to grow
and learn and contribute in new ways, but
also to connect with the team members of
the future through some community partnerships we've done,
educational institutions and other organizations
where we can build awareness of the great
opportunities that are within health care and really
connect people to this mission that we serve.
And so that's kind of the first big
trend is how we're working with and strengthening
our workforce.
As we kinda dig deeper into my areas
of focus, which are kinda orthopedics and the
musculoskeletal
world,
one of the things that we're looking at
is our really just dynamic and evolving network
of care.
You know, AdventHealth is a highly visible preeminent
clinical care company. We've got so many connection
points with our patients.
We're trying to stay focused not only on
new locations and new solutions as we're in
communities that are changing and evolving,
but also on identifying and growing with affiliates
and with like minded physicians and caregivers that
share our commitment to our mission, our commitment
to our values, and really a focus on
whole person care that we really think separates
us
in the areas that we serve. And so
this has led us to be able to
identify some really cool alignment opportunities with physicians
and with other, care providers out there, whether
it's employment,
affiliations, joint ventures,
that really help us build a comprehensive network
of care and not just a series of
hospitals. And so,
you know, the one of the last things
I'll say is kind of a trend that
I'm looking at is is really just dealing
with growth. You know, we are
lucky to be based in Florida, and so
much of our care network is based in
Florida. So we're in a growing region and
a growing state,
and we've continued to, you know, build new
hospitals, but we've also really leaned into
strengthening
everything outside the hospital laws, our primary health
care offerings,
building out a network of off-site emergency departments
to be closer to where our patients are,
and then really trying to found the right
mix of ambulatory
services that are gonna give our communities what
they need. So for me in the musculoskeletal
space, you know, what are we doing in
outpatient therapy?
What types of ambulatory imaging
opportunities do we have? And are we building
a network of
outpatient ambulatory surgery centers that are gonna let
us really lead in that space as much
as we've been a traditional leader in the
hospital space?
Yeah. Yeah. A lot to unpack there and
so so much exciting things going on at
Alpen Health. The one thing I wanted to
circle back to when you were talking about
really expanding your your network of care,
one key partnership I wanted to just dive
a little bit deeper on is obviously that
partnership with, Raflat Orthopedics. I believe our our
team had connected recently with doctor Recaro there
and couldn't speak highly enough
about AdventHealth.
I'd love just to hear, how is that
partnership going? What how are you looking to
evolve and grow? Is it
identifying physicians,
ancillary services, new ASCs? And what's the next
step or the next evolution in your partnership
with Rockman Orthopedics?
You know, I I appreciate you bringing it
up because it gives me the opportunity to,
really share some of the great things we've
done and and start with, you know, our
admiration of and appreciation for Rockland Orthopedics as
a partner and really what they brought to
our health care system here in Central Florida
and the community that we're serving. You know,
they're so well known in the musculoskeletal
space.
We found a like minded partner that was
cloak focused
on whole person healing, innovation,
research,
quality,
really
providing the type of care that both of
our organizations
can be can be really proud of and
and take in what we're doing for our
community. And so this partnership that started in
2020,
we feel like has given us the ability
to raise the bar for our orthopedic services
and musculoskeletal
services in the communities, not just from a
surgical perspective, but also from a nonsurgical perspective.
And, you know, as we look ahead to
the rest of the decade, we're excited
about what we're doing. We've
just opened,
innovative state of the art ambulatory surgery center
together,
in our innovation tower that's in our, AdventHealth
Orlando campus.
We are looking at new office locations. We're
gonna be bringing in additional physicians.
And so we're always looking for ways that
we can grow and grow together because I
think I know from the AdventHealth perspective,
we've been so pleased with the care that
we've been able to provide to our community
through this affiliation with Rofflin Orthopaedics,
and we're just really excited about everything that's
to come.
Yeah. Absolutely. It tied right into my next
question. It really was what are you most
excited about right now. So I guess I
kinda just one quick follow-up on that before
I move to how how you're looking at
growth again a little bit deeper over the
next 12 months or so. But, you know,
we've seen in Florida particularly,
the last couple of years, really this huge,
huge market specifically for orthopedic care. We've seen
the likes of Rothman Orthopedics. Obviously, we talked
to that expanding to Florida through the through
that partnership with AdventHealth. But also,
Hospital For Special Surgery is another big orthopedic
provider who's also moved in there.
I just love to get your perspective in
terms of how is orthopedic competition,
among providers really evolving in this space in
such a a hot and booming market for
orthopedics?
Sure. You know, I would say that, you
know, it it's certainly fierce competition, as you've
said. There's certainly been a lot of new
entrants
to Florida over the last, certainly the start
of this decade.
But there was a vibrant orthopedic community in
place beforehand as well. And I think
Mhmm. These outside entrants and and
as we mentioned, one of them is our
affiliated partner, Rothman Orthopedics. I think what they
see is what the country sees,
a growing state, you know, one of the
the largest in the country with the just
explosive growth that's taking place. And when we
look at
especially for, like, a Rothman Orthopedics or a
hospital for special surgery,
you know, these large names in the musculoskeletal
space that have their roots in the northeast,
a lot of those patients
have relocated to Florida or, at the very
least, spend a lot of time down here.
And so there is some name recognition.
And so what we saw the opportunity to
do with Rothman was to
elevate our musculoskeletal
care and the offerings that we had by
partnering with really just a a best in
class care partner,
in Rothman Orthopedics. And so their commitment to
subspecialty care, to, you know, growing, to innovating,
it's really transformed the way that we provide
care,
certainly today, but also in the future. We
have launched an orthopedic residency with them
last year, and and this year, we've got
a primary care sports medicine fellowship that's launched,
in partnership with them as well. So we
see this as not only preparing us to
take care of this community that we are
serving right now in a better way, but
we're partnering with them for the communities that
we'll be serving for decades to come. Because
as we continue to train, as we continue
to grow together,
I think we're gonna be in a great
place to really serve Florida as it continues
to grow,
even bigger.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it's such an
exciting partnership. And like you said, I guess,
growing in tandem,
AdventHealth Orthopedic Institute with Rothman Orthopedics,
like you said, opened an ASC together at
the Innovation Tower,
adding a lot of top tier providers and
surgeons, the orthopedic residency that you've mentioned as
well.
Anything else to to note before we wrap
up, Kevin, in terms of how you're looking
ahead over the next, 1 to 2 years?
You know,
we've talked about the growth in Florida and,
you know, I'll use the quote from Wayne
Wayne Gretzky.
You know, he always said, it's it's not
going to where the puck is. It's going
to where the puck's going to be. And
I know I'm paraphrasing there, but we're really
trying to keep that mindset.
If we manage to and focus on the
community as it is today, we're never gonna
be prepared for the community as it's gonna
be when an initiative actually takes effect. And
so whether we're thinking about a new hospital
or new clinic locations or the types of
services that we plan to provide,
we always have to have an eye towards
the future and the needs for what they're
going to be.
And if we are gonna be a preeminent
clinical care company for the communities that we
serve,
we're gonna have to continue to have that
focus on our community and on our mission.
And so
we've tried to keep that as our true
north, and it's been serving us well. And
I think if we continue to have our
eyes on that focus,
we're gonna be really pleased with where we
end up.
Yeah. I think I love ending the podcast
on the Wayne Gretzky coat there as well.
A perfect way to wrap this up. And,
Kevin, a real, real pleasure to have you
on the podcast with us today. Thank you
so much. Thank you again for the opportunity.