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This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Andy Anderson,
chief Medical and Quality Officer at R W J Barnabas Health. Dr. Anderson,
it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Thank you very much, Laura.
Now I'm excited for our conversation.
It'll definitely be a great one talking a lot about some of the key priorities
you're looking at today and where R W J Barnabas is headed.
But before we dive into the broader discussion,
can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background?
Absolutely. I'm a,
a general internist and continue to see patients as a,
a primary care physician and currently serve at R W J Barnabas Health as
the Chief Medical and Quality Officer.
I'm responsible for our patient outcomes related to to
quality, uh, safety and, and patient experience and,
and also steer our relationship, um,
with our academic partner, Rutgers University, which translates into our,
our pipeline of trainees as well as our, our research mission.
That's fantastic to hear. And you know,
given all of those responsibilities both on the health system side as well as
that relationship with Rutgers, what are some of your top priorities today?
What are you spending most of your time on?
Yeah, today my mindset is very focused on, on our,
on our people. Um, and when I say people, I mean both our employees,
including our nurses and doctors as, as well as the, the patients and,
and the communities that we serve. We have, um, you know, emerged out of,
of covid in, in a better way in terms of being,
I think more organized and, and integrated as a health system.
But there's still quite a bit of, of healing to do, and there's quite a bit of,
of pent up demand for, for patient care needs.
And some of those are related to managing chronic diseases.
Some of those are related to,
to procedures and surgeries that that need to be done.
And what we're really after is getting to those very,
very best patient outcomes and,
and making sure our patients are cared for in the best possible way.
That the experience in our,
in our hospitals and in our practices is at the highest possible level,
and ultimately that they achieve the,
the best possible health in terms of how we deliver healthcare
to them and how we help prevent people from getting sick. Um,
so a lot of great focus on what I'll call, um,
population health where we are out there actively promoting,
you know, healthy behaviors and,
and looking very closely at social determinants of health to make sure our,
our patients in our communities are, are healthy.
Absolutely.
I love that and certainly is such an important aspect of serving the community.
Well, you know, when you look at, uh,
some of the different ways that you're going about the prevention side of things
in, in population health, what's worked really well for you?
I know that's something that a lot of hospitals and health systems are trying to
figure out in their own communities and would just love to hear if there's,
you know, a, a project or initiative that you feel like, um,
has been really successful.
Yeah, we've worked hard to make, um, access, you know,
easier and when patients need to be seen, um,
for healthcare conditions. And, and some of those are,
are chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, you know,
ensuring that that patients can easily access our services and,
and some of that is having flexibility in terms of,
of having telemedicine available, for example.
But some of that's just simply making sure there's,
there's appointments available on the other side of that, there's a lot of,
of outreach and, and education and,
and some of that is through standard methods such as, you know,
sending emails and texts and, and some of that is providing, you know,
forums for communities to engage in questions and answers related to,
to chronic health conditions. And, and, and all this too,
I think is very strongly promoted by the, the branding of, of,
of healthier communities, um, and making sure that,
that we as a health system are,
are out there in our communities being the voice of, of health and,
and providing, you know, easy access and, and and just very clearly,
um, you know, managing our, our patient populations in,
in a very proactive way so that everyone feels comfortable coming to us to, to,
to find better health as well as better healthcare.
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. You know,
and is definitely a great way to look at it. Now when you are,
are looking at the future,
how do you see the health system evolving over the next two to three years?
What do you see as changing and really, um, becoming, uh,
better over time?
Yeah, we're becoming more integrated, um,
and more efficient because we're more integrated and,
and all that really centers around coordinated care for,
for patients and in our communities.
And part of how we're working hard at that is becoming more
regionalized and more service line oriented. And that creates, you know,
connectivity for our patients such that when a,
when a patient is in one of our hospitals or in one of our practices,
they have the, the whole armamentarium of, of specialists and, and services,
things like laboratory services and, and radiology services, et cetera,
that will enable our patients to get every aspect of their healthcare. And,
and again, as we talked about before, some of that is, is reacting and,
and treating acute diseases. Some of that is, is more proactive and,
and doing things like screening for breast cancer, colon cancer and,
and ensuring our patients are, are getting, you know, access to the,
to the best possible care.
So as we become more integrated in more efficient,
it's gonna be easier for patients to access and and navigate our services. Um,
one of our other very big initiatives is installing, um,
epic as our single electronic health record.
Historically we had multiple health records and,
and now we have a unified record that that centers on the patient, um, and,
and really provides that coordinated, integrated care that,
that our patients all deserve.
That's great to hear, and I know all of those areas just are,
are a huge undertaking,
whether it's looking at becoming more integrated and really, um,
connecting the dots there for, for the patient and the patient experience,
and then epic installs is certainly a huge undertaking as well. Yeah.
From the c clinical leadership side, you know,
what does it take to make sure that goes as smoothly as possible?
How do you make sure, um, from the people perspective, pe you know,
your team understands why you're making these changes, um,
and how important it is to really buy in and, um, you know,
move in this direction that'll be better for patient care overall?
Yeah, a lot of that is centered on what I'll call best practices and,
and doing things, you know, the right way consistently. So, you know,
having more of a standard operating model that incorporates those best
practices. Um, you know,
one of the ways that that epic is powerful is it enables you to,
to deliver that in the electronic, you know, health record forum. Um,
part of,
to your question about change management is we want to be
the absolute best at what we do. And, and so getting to that gold standard,
getting to that,
that best practice is something that everyone I think pretty easily rallies
around and, and understands. And the other, you know,
thing that we've gotten better at to the question before is,
is sharing best practices and making sure that are different leaders at
our different sites of service or talking to each other,
they're learning from each other. When something goes well,
we share that or vice versa, if something doesn't go well,
we share that too as a, a lesson learned so that that others cannot, you know,
have that happen. Um, again. And so, you know,
that communication, that integration, that,
that sort of interweaving of our different sites of service so that we are truly
performing at the highest possible level at,
at every sites of services is what we're after. And,
and so in terms of change management, people do get excited about that. They,
they want to be the best, you know, we want to be the,
the number one health system, um, in New Jersey, which I believe we already are,
but we want to continue to get better and better such that our patients and
communities get the best possible outcomes.
I love that. I think it's such an important mission and definitely, uh,
makes a lot of sense as a healthcare organization. Now,
before we wrap up our conversation,
I was wondering if you could share with us one change that you,
your team has made in the last year that has really yielded some great results.
Yeah, we've gone, I would say back to the bedside, you know,
during covid there was less opportunity to,
to have the face-to-face interaction that really makes us all human beings.
And we have purposefully as leaders in our health system, for example,
gone back to the bedside. So we have senior leader rounds, um,
once a week and,
and most of our hospitals where our senior team is going to the unit
in the hospital meeting with the, the staff, the nurses, the the technicians,
um, the, the individuals who are delivering care at the frontline,
listening to them, understanding what's working well, what's not working well,
solving some of their problems if there's issues with the supply chain or
there's issues with the electronic health record not working as, as well as,
as it should. We, we listen to those issues and, and go back and,
and put fixes in. The other part of that that's very powerful is,
is going to the,
the bedside of the patient and actually rounding on patients and listening to
patients. And again,
individuals will present issues that we can solve real time and or their
themes that, that emerge from those conversations.
So getting back to the,
the frontline to the bedside is so powerful for, for leaders to,
to help understand what is happening and to help in turn fix
issues that, that are happening and,
and really spreading those best practices across our whole system.
I love that it sounds like such a simple thing to do, but certainly, you know,
it makes that connection and can make everything, um,
seem just a bit more easy to, to make that change and,
and be better for the patients as well as your teammates.
Have you seen or heard any feedback from, uh,
since you started doing more of these bedside rounds as senior leadership team?
Yeah. The, the staff on our hospital units love it.
Um, they love the opportunity to interact with,
with senior leaders and to really be heard and, and, you know,
as we're solving problems,
some of them are simple things that we can solve within the hour.
Some of them are, are longer term problems. It,
it really yields those results that makes everyone feel better about their
workplace and, and then having the, the patient-centeredness and,
and really having our patients be truly listened to is,
is just very powerful and it, it brings us all back to why we do what we do and,
and that's to get to those absolute best outcomes for our patients.
Absolutely. Well, Dr. Anderson,
thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
This has been a really fun and interesting conversation and I look forward to
connecting with you again soon.
Thank you very much.
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