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Welcome to Becker healthcare care podcast. I'm Mariah

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Taylor, assistant editor, and I'm thrilled to interview

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Peggy Dug, Executive Vice president

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chief physician executive and Chief Medical Officer at

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Tampa General Hospital on the podcast today.

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Peggy, thank you so much for joining me.

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I'm excited for our conversation because you're 1

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of our upcoming panel at our Ceo Cfo

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conference and we're excited to get the sneak

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peek into some of your thought leadership. But

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before we dive in, I'd love for you

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to introduce yourself and tell someone anyone bit

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about your background?

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Sure. I'm super excited to be here as

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well. My name is Doctor Peggy Dug. I'm

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the Executive Vice President, and chief physician executive

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at Tampa General. I've been here for about

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3 years, just a little over 3 years

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now.

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As the physician leader for the organization,

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it's a very dynamic place, and we're doing

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a lot of exciting work here.

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Prior to coming to Tampa general, I spent

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about 22 years in the mesh Uber system,

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and with the Cmo at 1 of their

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hospitals

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prior to joining T h. So really excited

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to be here and have been in physician

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leadership now for about 25 years.

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That is an impressively warm career, 25 years.

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So in your

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long career in leadership, what has been 1

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of your most successful projects or initiatives?

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And what did you do? And what were

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the results?

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So I have a couple I'd like to

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touch on, but 1 of the more exciting

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ones is. We've done a a lot of

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work at Tampa general

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around what's called regional visualization. So a lot

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of hospitals

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just based on the way things are designed,

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have, you know, based nurses and based pharmacies.

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So the same team is on the serve

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on the floor on the regular basis. But

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the patient may be distributed in a way

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that the physicians are kinda going from floor

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to floor. That limits the ability to really

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communicate with the team. So this year, at

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Tampa General, actually, it's been over the past

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18 months. We started in our critical care

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units and really doing 2 things. 1 is

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regional the physician. So assigning physician coverage,

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or advanced practice provider or resident or learner

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coverage

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to the Icu, and those team members stay

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in the unit and tear for those patients

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during their shift and work with the same

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team kind of over and over so that

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we get

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physicians,

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nurses,

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physical therapist,

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pharmacists and all the other people who care

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for our patients at the bedside, working together

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toward the same goal.

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That's been an

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incredible

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opportunity for quality safety,

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decreases risk improves

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all of our metrics, including

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know, central line infections and urinary tract infections

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because the team is working together and focused

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on what is that patient need

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today, you what can we remove or not

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use today and can we move that patient

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to a lower level of care are they

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ready? And so that's been incredibly impactful.

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We've also then taken... And this is more

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in a

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advanced work phase,

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but taken our hospital medicine teams and started

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to assign them to you it as well.

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And are really seeing patients satisfaction

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improvements,

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decreased in infections and falls within injury and

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improved scores in our patient experience. So just

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having really good experience.

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It's a lot of work, and it's really

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hard to get people on board initially. But

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once they do it, they really feel great

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about,

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developing these physician nurse

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and other clinical teams to really move the

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needle for our patients.

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That's amazing

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kind of along those lines, looking ahead, what

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do you think is the biggest challenge you

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expect to face in the next year? And

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how are you preparing for it?

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So I think Tip general, it's biggest challenge

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is similar to lots of academic medical centers.

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How are we creating the access to care

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our patients deserve and need, when we are

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also

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seeing an increase in number of patients in

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our emergency departments and really

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quite busy.

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So we've done a lot of work on,

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what we'll call access and length of day,

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and 1 of the things and we've seen

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this in a couple of other articles that

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I've been involved with is we focus on

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as much as we're focused on efficiency. Right?

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And trying to progress the patient's care so

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that we can be as efficient as possible,

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and move the patient to the next level,

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creating capacity for other patients in our system.

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We measure those things, but where we're talking

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about it, We're really talking about care delivery.

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What does my patient need today? Are they

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getting what they need today? Because if they're

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not,

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then we need to fix that problem so

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they can progress through their care.

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And we provide that care in an outpatient

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setting,

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and how do we coordinate that, so the

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physicians have the confidence the patients get what

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they need. And can we be sure that

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the patients get follow up in the system

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so that they don't get... We admitted to

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the hospital. They, you know, they continued their

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care in their new level. So we have

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a system wide

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initiative

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where, lot of initiatives are working, but the

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primary goal is to make sure patients are

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getting what they need when they need it

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in the lowest acuity setting.

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Fascinating.

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I love how hyper focused you and your

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system are on getting those patient satisfaction

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and experiences

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so everybody's really enjoying this. Like, being at

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the hospital because as you know, it's not

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a grand place to be when you're the

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patient.

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It's super motivating for our physicians and our

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nurse is to have that focus. I mean,

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that's 1 of the things we really love

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is our teams are motivated because really, what

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they come to work to do every day

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is care for our patients.

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Absolutely. I love that.

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As you mentioned in your little introduction, you

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have been in, like, chief leadership for a

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long time. So In your experience, how have

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you seen the chief medical officer role evolving?

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Yeah. I think that chief Medical officer role

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is a role that can be different based

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on the needs of the

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organization. And so traditionally, right, Chief Medical officers

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are response before utilization of resources that's very

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usual,

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quality safety risk patient experience. Those are the

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things that fall into a traditional,

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Cmos bucket along with

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physician relationships and medical staff credentialing, which is

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a big

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bucket gonna work.

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What I see is different over time is

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in order to achieve those goals,

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chief medical officers are most successful when they're

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involved in and capable of doing,

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hospital operations.

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So it's really hard to drive quality.

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If you don't understand how the operation works.

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So 1 of the things I've done and

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1 thing I would recommend any Chief Medical

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officer do to spend a lot of time

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with the operations team and really motivating them

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to

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drive quality based on the operations work doing.

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And that... Again, that's super motivating for people

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who are caring for patients. But the operations

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team working with the Cmo with our clinical

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teams. Really is the most powerful way to

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drive improvement at age.

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I love that.

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And what kind of advice do you have

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for people who aspire to be a Cmo

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1 day?

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Yeah. 1 of the things I think a

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successful Chief Medical officer does is understands the

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impact of the work. And what I say

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that I need, when we do good work.

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You also

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by and large in the vast majority of

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time, you're actually creating cost savings.

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So 1 of the things I've done early

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in my career here, particularly Tampa general because

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we have a really,

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engaged and wonderful chief

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Financial Officer,

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we partner all the time to show that

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the highest quality care also drives efficiencies in

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his

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save cost. So we have a unified discussion.

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And so I think that's 1 thing is

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I were starting again as a Cmo.

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Getting involved with the financial team and getting

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involved with operations as early as possible,

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understanding their worlds,

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and being able to speak their language

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will definitely help you move the needle in

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improvement in patient care. And it's great to,

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work as a team. And so I've really

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got 1 of our vice presidents, our senior

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Vice President for Finance

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has become very expert at judging

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whether proposals are gonna drive a quality improvement.

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And so we've really worked together, to train

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each other on the importance of our world.

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And crossing over to be successful.

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Excellent. That's some really good advice.

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Well, This has been amazing in a very

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informative discussion, so thank you again for joining

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me on the podcast.

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If you wanna catch more of Peggy, you

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can find her at our up coming clinical

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leadership form at the Becker Ceo and Cfo

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round table, which happens November eleventh through fourteenth

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in Chicago. We have a limited number of

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space 4 attendees and sponsors. So if you

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want to learn more contact us at agenda

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team at becker healthcare dot com.