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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare

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podcast, and we are live at the CEO

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and CFO roundtable.

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I'm joined right now by Rhonda Bagby, who

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is the head of finance and business strategy

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at Yale Health at Yale University. Rhonda, thank

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you for being here. We'd love to have

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you start off by introducing yourself and telling

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us a bit more about your background.

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Okay. Good morning, Grace, and thank you for

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inviting me to participate

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in the podcast this morning. As Grace stated,

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I'm Rhonda Bagby, head of finance and business

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strategy for Yale Health at Yale University.

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I have been a healthcare executive for over

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25 years, spending most of my career working

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with publicly traded companies, but also spending some

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time with private equity backed companies as well.

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I have been with Yale for only a

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few months now.

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So I'm still relatively new in my role

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and learning, much about the organization.

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One of the main,

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factors

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that,

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Yale found attractive about me for the role

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in which I'm currently serving

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is my extensive background in the payer environment.

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So I'm bringing a lot of that thinking

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to, the university.

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Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here. And

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let's start our conversation

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talking about your growth strategy over the next

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year or 2.

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So my growth strategy over the next year

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or 2 involves learning a lot about the

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university

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and,

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continuing to build strong relationships

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with key business partners across the university.

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In addition to that, for the business units

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that I manage at the university,

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helping to

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modernize,

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some of the business office functions

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and

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connect some of the fragmented activities across the

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organization.

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That is a priority area for me for

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growth.

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The more we can improve the member experience,

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the more we can understand about our members

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and our patients

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that we see at our organization,

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the more effective we can be in attracting

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new members and also retaining our existing members.

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And I'd love you to tell us about

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the most exciting and impact of initiative or

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project that you're working on right now.

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The most impactful initiative I've been working on

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is

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really understanding

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our cost of care.

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So,

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my team and I have,

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conducted

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a lot of work

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around understanding both our internal cost of care

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related to the health care the piece of

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health care that we employ as a staff

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model HMO,

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but also our external cost of care.

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So with that, we have,

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learned a lot about our unit cost, our

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utilization

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patterns,

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and we're working across the organization with internal

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partners, as well as with external partners

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to optimize that cost of care. In the

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long run,

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we know that

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care has to be kept affordable

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and we need to find areas of inefficiency

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and opportunity.

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So we are working,

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very much in that area

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to improve

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our cost.

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And rounding out our conversation, I'd love to

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know what you think the most important thing

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health care executives should do now to make

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sure their organizations are successful in the future.

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Understanding the customer

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is the most important thing health care organizations

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can do.

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And this means giving the customer an opportunity

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to have a voice,

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really hearing what the customer wants, where the

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customer sees value,

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and then tweaking business strategies to meet those

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needs.

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Because at the end of the day,

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all of us are in the healthcare space

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as leaders

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because of our customers, whether they're members in

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the payer environment or they're patients in the

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direct care environment.

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And through better understanding,

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their wants and needs,

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we can be more effective

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as organizations

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and have a longer,

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pathway ahead of us.

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Wonderful. Well, Rhonda, thank you for taking the

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time to join me today on the Becker's

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healthcare podcast. Again, we are live at the

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CEO and CFO roundtable.

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Thank you so much for inviting me.