- There's a small circle of people who truly
- understand what it takes to lead a health
- system right now. The decisions are enormous.
- The variables are constantly shifting, and the stakes
- of getting a call wrong don't stay contained.
- That's not a complaint. It's a structural reality.
- And it's why the most effective c suite
- leaders are deliberate about where they go to
- pressure test their thinking.
- Becker's fourteenth annual CEO and CFO roundtable
- brings together more than 1,500
- executive level attendees
- and nearly 400 speakers for four days built
- around growth, financial sustainability,
- workforce strategy, and the leadership questions that don't
- have easy answers.
- Join us November second through the fifth in
- Chicago.
- For the agenda and event details,
- visit beckershospitalreview.com
- and click on the events tab in the
- upper right.
- This is Laura Dirdo with the Becker's Healthcare
- podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
- doctor Liane Yanni, president and chief executive officer
- of the Illinois Physician Enterprise for Hospital Sisters
- Health System. Doctor Yanni, it's a pleasure to
- have you on the podcast today. Hi, Laura.
- Thank you so much for having me. I'm
- excited to have a conversation.
- Absolutely. This is gonna be a lot of
- fun, and I'm excited to learn more about
- what you're doing at Hospital Sisters Health System
- as well as how you're thinking about the
- future growth and more. But before we dive
- in, can you tell us just a little
- bit more about yourself and your background?
- Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm president and CEO of
- the Illinois physician enterprise for Hospital Sisters Health
- System.
- I've been in my role about a year
- and a half and I have had an
- interesting journey into leadership.
- I started as an internist. I worked in
- Richmond, Virginia for many years for academic,
- academic health care at Virginia Commonwealth University. And
- then I transitioned to a faith based faith
- organization,
- Bon Secours,
- now Bon Secours Mercy Health and worked there
- for a number of years, building up actually
- palliative medicine programs.
- I then,
- stepped into a chief medical officer role at
- a hospital in Richmond,
- which I value that experience tremendously. And during
- the same time,
- I received my master's of health care management
- through the T. H. Chan School of Public
- Health, in Boston.
- And that really propelled me to,
- a leadership level that,
- I
- wanted to achieve in terms of,
- overseeing an ambulatory group. That is really was
- always my goal.
- And here I am in Illinois, which has
- been my first venture out of Richmond after
- twenty five years.
- So, I'm thrilled to be in Illinois. I've
- loved it. And,
- working for a hospital, Sisters Health System has
- been,
- a great pleasure, the last year and a
- half.
- I love it. That's amazing to hear, and
- what an incredible career journey,
- in order to get where you are. I
- think especially, as you mentioned, building up the
- palliative care medicine. My ears perked up because
- my mom's in palliative care actually just retiring.
- So I know it's such an important service
- and and so helpful when you're thinking about
- everything else that goes into the care journey,
- for for patients and communities. So that's really
- incredible.
- So now given where you at today at
- House of Sisters Health System, can you give
- us a little state of the union of
- the Illinois Physician Enterprise? What's going well this
- year, and what are you focused on for
- the rest of 2026?
- Yeah. Absolutely. Well, there's a lot to pack
- in in that little answer. So first, I
- just wanna orient you, Laura, to Hospital Sisters.
- So we're a two state health system, 13
- hospitals, and,
- Illinois
- has the physician enterprise.
- And that's where we have an ambulatory group
- made up of, HSHS medical group and,
- pericardiovascular.
- And in those two, parts of our ambulatory
- entity, we have about 320
- physicians and APPs we work with. And we
- work at 60 core locations and we have
- 60 outreach locations. So we're everything from urban
- to rural.
- We have,
- a lot of rural communities that we serve
- and so certainly impacted by, some of the
- changes in healthcare that are impacting our rural
- communities.
- So what am I focused on? Well, when
- first when I came in, it was just
- orienting myself to a new state. That isn't
- something I had done before. So I spent
- a lot of time on the road. So
- driving,
- from, Springfield, which is where I where my
- base is right now,
- to Decatur, to Shelbyville, to Effingham,
- down to the O'Fallon area, including Breeze and
- Highland,
- the Shiloh and Fairview Heights areas,
- of that region and all the way down
- to Carbondale
- and then back up to Springfield. And so
- I've got my little circular route, and hopefully,
- I didn't forget Effingham in there, because that's
- one of our sites. And so we, certainly
- are spread across Central And Southern Illinois. And,
- again, I was on the road meeting everyone,
- just such a great group of clinicians, from
- physicians to APPs
- to frontline
- registrars,
- MAs, nurses. We really have,
- incredible staff that serve all of these communities.
- So my first few few months, really, ninety
- to one hundred and eighty days, were focused
- on communication and culture, really learning, about the
- culture here, and what we're doing well and
- where we have opportunity.
- We really focused in on standardizing our communication
- approach so that everyone knew what was going
- on and started a weekly newsletter just to
- get people up to speed.
- The second thing I was really focused on
- was leadership development. So,
- again, terrific clinicians and APPs,
- but getting them to the table to engage
- in leadership was critical to our future success.
- And so we established a set of executive
- medical director positions,
- got those filled. And really what I noticed
- about this organization is the incredible work our
- advanced practice providers do. And in fact, in
- our, in our complement of a three twenty,
- physicians in APPs, APPs, about half are APPs.
- So we need those those voices at the
- table to,
- inform us as an organization about how best
- they can serve and and practice at top
- of license.
- And I I needed some leaders there. And
- so we actually established a advanced practice provider
- council,
- and established some leadership positions, for our advanced
- practice providers. And we now have three excellent
- APP leads in those roles,
- working alongside in a triad model with our
- executive medical directors as well as our operational
- directors,
- really to help us in carrying out our
- strategy.
- So that sort of goes into the next
- part of what we focused on this first
- year, which was a strategic plan. So, our
- organization has done a lot of good work
- over the hundred and fifty years it's been
- in existence.
- Our ambulatory group has only really been here
- since 2008. So, it's a relatively young ambulatory
- group and we're still evolving.
- So we really needed a strategic plan to
- align with our HSHS overall strategic plan to
- drive us into the future. And so we
- really spent a lot of time together with
- those new leaders, with all of our physicians
- and APP input, as well as frontline colleagues,
- in developing our first ever strategic plan. And
- so, our role now is to carry that
- out and do great execution on the strategic
- initiatives,
- from 2026 into 2027.
- And I'll say the last thing that we
- really worked on, was recruitment. So, when I
- came in the door, Hospital Sisters made it
- clear that we were ready to grow and
- that we have done. So we have a
- physician workforce plan we're executing on, to recruit
- and align with over 150
- physicians,
- in the next three years. And so really
- positioning our organization for success moving forward, filling
- gaps where we have them in our communities
- for primary and specialty care. And we're really
- pleased that we've hired over 60 in our
- first year here. So recruitment's been a huge
- part of my role, a huge part of
- our leadership, role in our frontline clinicians as
- well. And we have, really,
- recruited top talent to Illinois and to the
- organization. So I'm very proud of that.
- That's awesome to hear. I think so much
- going on and, really incredible to have an
- understanding of just the the,
- vast community that you're serving so many different,
- cities and towns and areas. And I can
- imagine each has their own unique culture and
- approach there too. So that that's, so fun
- to hear. And to your workforce point, I
- I think to talk about recruitment,
- and retention, I think that's the best top
- of mind for so many clinical leaders today.
- So what have you seen work well, especially
- in more rural settings, and,
- what are you looking at trying in the
- next year or so?
- Yeah. Great question. So, you know, one of
- the even though we've been really successful with
- recruitment, we also have a lot of headwinds,
- like you mentioned, in recruitment.
- And we have challenging specialties that are that
- are just, on our top of list that
- we are trying to fill. And that includes,
- you know, cardiology,
- especially general cardiology,
- gastroenterology
- and orthopedics, as well as urology.
- So anyone listening, that wants to come to
- Illinois, you know, come contact me and, we'll
- we'll have a conversation.
- But, you know, in all seriousness, we,
- face the same headwinds a lot of other
- communities face, but maybe even a little bit
- greater in the in the Midwest and in
- the in the rural communities we serve.
- I, you know, I have to mention that
- the immigration challenges have, created additional headwinds for
- us. And,
- I've personally seen some of the impact and
- the barriers set before
- before some of these excellent physicians who were
- really unable to work through that process right
- now and that sets us back in serving
- the community. So that's been a big, big
- challenge.
- Having said that, we have still had great
- success in our recruitment. And,
- you know, what I would say a couple
- of things we work on, we really work
- hard on, helping people understand,
- the great service and joy that can come
- from serving rural communities. And, I think I
- mentioned to you, Laura, earlier that, I've initiated
- a podcast. It's not out yet, but it's
- in development and editing phases. And I I
- wanted to share a quote that one of
- the doctors
- that I interviewed,
- shared with
- me. And he said, I think people were
- meant to live in small towns. It is
- a much more natural way to live. It's
- not something you would know until you do
- it. But it's really it's the only way
- to live. It's much more normal to see
- your patients as neighbors and people that you
- may see around town and just than to
- see them in your box at a clinic.
- What do you say? I never see them
- again live amongst 4,000,000 people who don't know
- each other, and this is a much kinder
- and gentler and much nicer way,
- to live. So it was his perspective and
- there's, of course, many perspectives, but I just
- loved kind of how he said that. And
- I know I messed up the quote a
- little bit, but, he, was really passionate about,
- his choice to live in a smaller community.
- And so we really try to promote that.
- The quality of life in in living in
- some of these smaller communities,
- is very, very high. I've experienced that myself.
- And then we also, of course, work on
- the things that really matter to physicians and
- APPs in our recruitment.
- And that is a very fair
- compensation plan that's,
- there to support them and their quality of
- life,
- as well as their overall well-being. You know,
- administrative burden in health care is pretty high.
- We all know that. We talk about it
- a lot. And our electronic health record can
- be part of that burden or it can
- ease our burden. And we are one of
- the organizations that have invested in,
- IT innovation, and we are, offering Ambient AI
- to every every physician in APP that works,
- in our ambulatory group and actually across our
- hospitals.
- I have to tell you that I recently,
- got my Illinois license, which, you know, is
- never an easy feat in transferring all that
- information from another state. And I have the
- privilege of taking care of our own sisters.
- We are a faith based organization started by
- the Franciscan sisters. And I, of course, wanted
- to see what the physicians and APBs were
- experiencing, so I I,
- got myself set up on on the Ambient
- AI technology that we chose to partner with.
- And I will tell you, I cannot believe
- the difference. And I actually think back to,
- you know, my many years of practice,
- when my kids were were little,
- and the hours I spent on my notes
- because, you know, again, very attentive to,
- writing and making sure communication is effective.
- And, you know, the late nights I would
- get home, seven, eight, 09:00 was not uncommon.
- And it makes me a little sad that
- I didn't have this Ambien AI technology that
- could have done so much work for me
- and helped me balance,
- having a career with having kids at home.
- And I I just love seeing these days
- where, if if our,
- physicians and APPs are embracing that technology and
- using it effectively,
- that it truly can cut down and get
- them home to spend more time with their
- families. So, so important and that's critical for
- retention.
- I love that. I I think, you know,
- so many things that you said there really
- resonate strongly when you look at what you
- can bring to a rural hospital or organization
- and how important it is to have that
- kinda tight knit community, the ability to,
- you know, care so deeply about the people
- within the community and see them,
- as those neighbors and and family members and
- friends. So,
- that's amazing to hear. And I'm curious, you
- know, as you look at, continuing to grow
- and evolve the health system,
- what are some of the best opportunities you're
- looking at over the next two or three
- years as well as any other headwinds besides
- the workforce?
- Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, the biggest,
- areas that we're really focused in on, one,
- is advancing our IT and data structures
- to help inform us as to the direction
- of the health system,
- the trends and where we have the greatest
- opportunity for operational and financial efficiencies as well
- as maintaining the highest quality possible,
- as and with patient experience.
- That is really critical. So advancing our IT,
- direction is
- is critically important.
- I think the second thing, is I really
- look at the practices
- across the state that we have. You know,
- we, just like many other ambulatory groups, we
- were,
- established by a series of acquisitions really.
- That is generally how some of them began
- way back in the February,
- as the financial pressures for independent groups became
- stronger and stronger. And so
- many of these practices,
- you know, are functioning,
- still a little bit independently. And we really
- want to bring more standardization
- and,
- streamline efficiencies,
- again, to help the physicians, APPs, and frontline
- clinicians focus on what matters, which is patient
- care,
- quality, and experience. And getting those operational processes
- more standardized is critical. I think the other
- thing that I see there is is again
- sort of that model of that one to
- one care where it's all physician centric.
- Right? And what we wanna be able to
- do is have every single member of the
- clinical team be practicing at the top of
- license. And we need to bring in some,
- innovative ways of doing more integrated team based
- care. And I know there's organizations out there
- doing this really, really well. I'm going to
- be looking at sending some of my leaders
- to those organizations and learning from them and
- bringing in these team based care concepts, especially
- to primary care. You know, you know, I
- as we talk about the challenges in primary
- care, for example, and trying to limit turnover,
- we know that in basket management is a
- killer for so many people. And and I
- know there's hope that AI will help manage
- it. It still is so nuanced
- that you need humans,
- in the in basket to manage these messages.
- Right? Make sure that people get responses and
- they get high quality care delivery,
- regardless how of where the front door is,
- whether it's,
- through that in basket
- or actually walking through our front front door.
- And so we,
- really wanna help do a lot more team
- based modeling as to how do we manage
- the administrative task and the clinical task more
- as a team, again, practicing,
- top of license and freeing people up to
- really be face to face with patients as
- much as possible.
- So a lot a lot of work to
- do there. That's going to be one of
- our biggest focuses in the coming year.
- I think the other thing,
- is our population health accountability.
- So if you really think about, the evolution
- of population health and accountable care, we're we're
- moving across the country to downside risk. Right?
- And if there's, you're part of an accountable
- care organization,
- many ACOs are moving into that downside risk
- just like us, our organization.
- We also have the privilege of being selected
- to be part of the Teams model, which
- is a required,
- CMS model for several hospitals and surgical specialties.
- And, you know, we're learning a lot from
- that process, a lot of,
- population health strategies that can help,
- supply that in other areas and, again, build
- quality, build efficiency,
- to improve the patient experience, for integrated care
- delivery. So we're learning from those processes, from
- our population health accountability.
- I think the other opportunity
- for us, especially
- in our rural communities, is really connecting with
- our community health
- needs assessment and our community health impact plans.
- You know, we have a lot of public
- health data that is available to us to
- tell us in each area what the top
- morbidity and mortality,
- drivers are and then nuancing and adjusting our
- practices from a clinical aspect to make sure
- we're prepared
- to do more prevention,
- in those areas based on the public health
- data. And that's something I want to bring
- the teams along, with a little further. I
- have some public health background that's really important,
- to the application
- of our services in an ambulatory group.
- And so, you know, we know statewide data
- down to the census tract is available to
- us. And using that, not just for the
- comorbidities
- and
- such, but also for social determinants
- can really help us make a a stronger
- impact in our communities.
- I love that. I I think, it is
- such an important,
- way of looking at, you know, how you're
- supporting your teams,
- the different specialists that you have as well
- as primary care,
- a huge, huge topic today, I think, for
- all hospitals and health systems and communities. And
- then,
- looking at too, you know, what the community
- needs and how those are changing over time.
- It's just fascinating to see the,
- the areas that, you know, are are evolving
- and changing and some of the things that
- continue to, you know, stay the same and
- how hospitals and health care organizations
- are, trying new things and being innovative to
- meet some of those, challenges for social determinants,
- population health, and everything along those lines.
- So I'm curious, you know, as we wrap
- up our conversation here, I wanted to ask
- you about leadership as well.
- Who is the leader that you admire most
- really from any industry and why?
- Yeah. Well,
- I live in Springfield now, and it's the
- land of Lincoln.
- So I'll have to just say Abraham Lincoln.
- Right? And I'm from Richmond where, they did
- a lot of filming for the movie Lincoln,
- so it all sorta ties together.
- But, you know, when I think about Abraham
- Lincoln, I really think about,
- the Team of Rivals, that book,
- and his ability to bring people together and
- align them under a shared mission.
- The other thing I think about Abraham Lincoln
- is I think if he was a physician,
- he would have been a palliative care doctor.
- And I think that because,
- you know, he we as palliative care physicians,
- we really look for what the goal is
- in terms of in the patient's eyes. What
- is their goal for care? And we try
- to align all of our care around that
- goal or those goals of the patient and
- the family,
- in order to bring that to life,
- in the face of many challenges in serious
- illness. So I kind of think of Abraham
- Lincoln in sort of that same way.
- And healthcare leaders face a lot of what
- he faced is,
- challenges,
- factions of
- individuals with different ideas, and he had to
- figure out how to bring those together. And
- we're often
- as healthcare leaders facing that, as well as
- external pressures, right? A lot of the headwinds
- that we talked about,
- from some of the federal legislation,
- some of the challenges with social determinants,
- statewide and regionally,
- especially weather related changes,
- and the impact on health,
- and, you know, the payer strategies, which is
- really impacting our realization rates,
- and, you know, really making it a little
- bit more difficult for us to be reimbursed
- for the dollars that we, actually bill.
- And we're watching that happen right in front
- of us. And so he he I think
- he is a great example of, a leader
- that we can admire.
- And, you know, my work, I feel, is
- is really to listen and to bring people
- together and align them around a shared mission
- so that we can accomplish a lot for
- our patients and our communities.
- What a great leader to,
- model your leadership after. Abraham Lincoln clearly had
- a lot, a lot going on. I love
- that, in comparison to if you were a
- clinician,
- such a caring individual, but also very effective
- in bringing people together and, having an impact
- on what's happening. So,
- thank you so much for joining us on
- the podcast today, doctor Yanni. This has been
- a fun conversation.
- I learned a lot and look forward to
- seeing you in person as well at our
- CTO table. I know you'll be speaking on
- a panel there, and so it'd be great
- to dig deeper and, learn more.
- Great. Well, thank you for the opportunity, Laura.
- And I I just really appreciate your podcast
- and all you bring, all the information that
- you bring to us. So so thank you
- so much.