This is Laura Dierda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Aaron
Hajjart, chief operating officer at Community Medical Center
and RWJBarnabas
Health Facility. Aaron, it's a pleasure to have
you on the podcast today. Yeah. Thanks for
having me. Now I'm excited for our conversation
because I know we've connected in the past
and, you know, it's always really interesting to
hear how what you're doing and how you're
thinking about things, as well as where we're
headed in the future. But before we dive
in, I'm wondering, can you tell us a
little bit more about Community Medical Center and
what makes it unique?
Sure. So, Community Medical Center is a 592,
bed acute care hospital. We're in Toms River,
New Jersey.
We, started our journey into,
teaching,
about,
3, 4 years ago. So we've
morphed into,
a very large robust teaching hospital.
We're part of a large system, RWABarnabas
Health, which is has 17 hospitals across,
some adult children's and behavioral health platforms and
is the largest,
academic health care sent system in the state
of New Jersey and affiliated with with our
friends at Rutgers University, which has been a
great partnership. And here in in Toms River,
we've been able to really leverage that relationship
with Rutgers over the last few years and
are, you know, very excited to bring, teaching,
medicine out to,
Ocean County.
Well, it's great to hear. You know? And,
certainly, it seems like it would bring a
lot of advantages, but what does it take
to really transform into that type of,
teaching facility where you're not just providing care
for the community, which is so important, but
also training,
new clinicians
and really taking on that more of a
academic role?
Well, for sure, it takes a lot of
planning. So,
you know, I've been
in health care in academic health care my
entire career. So, you know, moving into a
role where it's new, to the hospital has
been a interesting experience. But I can tell
you,
you know, with our partners at Rutgers, we
did a lot of planning to make sure
that we've covered our bases and have identified
the right programs.
And I think a lot of that is
both around community needs. So,
you know, our our programs in internal medicine
and general surgery really,
besides being the basis of GME, we're really
focused at, you know, 2 areas where we
had community needs. And we've been very fortunate
to recruit and retain some of the internal
medicine graduates, which our first graduating
class was this past summer, and we're able
to keep some people here.
And and then, you know, as we've started
to,
you know, get into,
you know, the the kind of final phase
of our GME growth, we've identified
some other programs.
1, pulmonology critical care where we had a
lot of community needs to
bring new physicians into,
our our community, and we're able to,
you know, get that program up running. We'll
take our 1st class,
in in July and are excited because one
of our graduates is from our program, and
the other one is a
IIM graduate who is from the local area.
So I think we have 2
outstanding,
young physicians who hopefully in 3 years will
be able to
set up shop in in the Ocean County
and treat our community. And that's really been
the focus of of our program develop and
is making sure that we are able to
recruit retain those
those graduates and, you know, use those dollars
we in time we invested in them to,
help
bolster the physician community in Ocean County.
Oh, that's great to hear. And, you know,
definitely a lot to be excited about. Now
I'm wondering, you know, beyond, some of this
continued growth and evolution of the, teaching hospital
g and e and more, what are some
of your other big organizational goals for 2025?
Yeah. So, yeah, we've really been focused in
the last year and and will in 2025
as well on improving our access, both from
an emergency room standpoint, but also ambulatory care
centers.
Our system is really focused on ambulatory densification,
which I think will help put the providers
where the patients need them. And and, so
we just opened up our, ambulatory care center
just down the road,
which includes our, ambulatory surgery center, our a
large primary care practice, an orthopedic practice, some
other,
colocated,
physician practices, which we're very excited about. And
so that's something we're really focusing on in
in 2025, but also,
you know, bolstering our service lines. We're a
service line led, health care system. And so
we've really been partnering with our system leadership
around our core service lines to,
you know, provide them the local support and
leadership that they need to,
implement their vision around service line coordination. And
then, also, you know, we as, you know,
the
evolving
tertiary
center,
you know, we really need to focus better
coordination amongst ourselves and our, tertiary and quaternary
centers where we, you know, they may have
things that we don't do, you know, particularly
around cardiac surgery and some few other things.
So, you know, we are working really closely
with them on being more tightly aligned and
making the patient experience
from one site to another,
better and and quicker. And then and then
finally,
you know, just as our health system is
focusing on improving our patient experience, you know,
we're doing that here well as well.
We had, a lot of improvement in 2024,
but, are doubling down on some nursing and
and other,
care coordination
opportunities that we've seen, and and, we hope
to see a pretty successful 2025.
That's great to hear. And definitely, you know,
exciting to have so much growth. I know,
in in particular for some organization, it's been
a challenging few years and seeing, you know,
some of the contractions. So to have that
ability to add service lines, to continue to
grow, and and, realize more of this, vision
of being that, revolving tertiary center is just
really cool to see. Now from your perspective,
I I know a lot to be excited
about, but I can imagine also some headwinds
you have your eye on as well.
What are you kind of thinking about or
planning around for the next year?
Yeah. Yeah. We have headwinds. Right? We we
all have them, and I think, some of
them are the same. And and we have
some of the same that, you know, we
hear kind of,
profession wide across health care, which is really
around recruitment and retention of of nursing and
technical staff. And I think it really comes
down to the fact that, you know, when
many of us were getting into health care,
health care was a destination profession that we
all kind of aspire to.
And that that kind of lasted through COVID,
and I think there was a little bit
of a rejuvenation of that, you know, during
2020 and 2021.
But really as we've gotten out of and
further away from from those years, it's, you
know, really been a challenge.
We all know we lost a lot of
people
to early retirement,
during COVID, and we've not really been able
to replace that workforce. We have an aging
population,
across the country, but here in Ocean County,
we definitely have an aging population, particularly
in our physician and nursing staff. And so
while,
you know, we we know this is a
challenge,
you know, we've been taking some steps to
mitigate that, really partnering with some of our,
nursing schools and and technical programs
to
to improve the training experience here at the
hospital
to keep those students engaged, to retain them
upon graduation.
But also looking at other ways, alternative, you
know, pathways
to,
to education so that we get, you know,
some people who may be in nonclinical
or more entry level roles here in the
hospital
interested and engaged into
other training programs and and technical fields. And
so we have some of that stuff that,
you know, we're really looking at hard. And
then,
know, capital investment has been on everybody's mind.
Right? We
even though we're all at capacity, you know,
there's so many financial pressures that we're all
under that even if we're, you know, making
money, it's not, you know, at the same
rate that we were making 5, 6, 10
years ago. And so how do we
reinvest,
you know, that money into
ways to continue to deliver first class care?
You know, many of our facilities are aging
or, you know, our hospital
is, you know, we have buildings that are,
you know, a few decades old. And so,
you know, we're really looking at how do
we hit that head on the next, you
know, year to 2 years.
And then finally,
we may not be different. I feel that
we're different. Everybody says they're different, but, you
know, we definitely have a changing patient population
in our region even though we had historically
been kind of a super senior population with
a lot of patients over the age of
80.
We actually are seeing, you know, the age
gap
increase. We're seeing a lot of obviously older
patients, but we're also seeing some very young
patients. And so not as much, you know,
the middle age, you know, twenties, thirties, but
a lot of, you know,
increased childbirths, increased teenagers in our market. So,
you know, really thinking of how do we,
continue to shift what we're doing here to
meet the needs of those, you know, kind
of diversion patient population. So it's been a
little bit of a challenge, you know, to
to rethink who we are, but it also
gives us opportunity to be creative.
That's fascinating to hear. You know? And and
really truly,
that opportunity to
see what's happening,
within the marketplace, see what, you know, the
population changes, and then trying to think ahead
or plan ahead for that, seems like it
would be a fun challenge to have.
When you are are thinking through those type
of conversations and future planning, I know it's
always hard because you never know exactly
what's gonna be thrown at you. But,
you know, how do you,
really
kind of bring those conversations and ideas to
life today,
while also, you know, not
skimping on, I guess, what's needed for the
patient population right now? Yeah. That's a great
question. I it's it's
for sure, we've been fortunate. You know, I've
only been here at community for a year
now, but, you know, we were fortunate in
the fact that the hospital leadership,
you know, made concerted efforts 2, 3, and
4 years ago to really build
programs and recruit physicians and clinical support staff
that enabled us to meet needs today that
we, you know, anticipated, you know, years ago.
So, really, what we're doing today is focusing
on what do we need to, do to
enable us to be successful in additional 2
or 3 years. And so right now, we're
recruiting,
providers in areas where we may not have
the immediate need, but we know based on
changing demographics that we're gonna have that need
in the very near future. So it's it
it does create challenges because people think, well,
you know, that's not the need
we we have right now. We have, you
know, this thing. Well, this thing is gonna
be very look very different in 5 years.
And so,
it it's, it's really about,
sticking to the plan and maintaining focus on,
you know, success in 2 3 5 years,
not in 2 3 months.
I love that. That's, you know, really, really
great perspective.
And, you know, speaking of that type of
thinking and leadership,
how are you evolving as a leader, especially
to meet the needs of what,
you know, community medical center will have over
the next few years?
Yeah. You know, first of all, I'm getting
more gray hair, but I don't think that's
because of a leadership role. It's because I'm
getting older. But I think most importantly, you
know, I think we have to all recognize,
and I've really recognized that the different workforce
generations are you know, they they interact interact
differently. They have different expectations.
You know, we were all thinking about millennials
5, 6 years ago in the workforce. Well,
those millennials are now
middle and senior managers and they think and
act differently than than I do,
you know, with who are being a few
years older.
And then, you know, the most interesting experience
I've had is with gen z,
You know, as they're entering the workforce,
and having, you know, new grads, new college
grads who are part of that, you know,
that generation,
they they definitely,
think about different things. They have different expectations.
They care a lot less about money and
career advancement than I think we did,
you know, other generations did. And so it's
made me really have to rethink how to
connect with them as coworkers
and how to collaborate.
But it's been a really interesting experience because
I think many things that
that I,
you know, felt were important,
you know, having a lot of independence,
having my voice heard, and those things are
really super important to them. The difference is
in my generation. We were a little more
willing to to wait, right, until we got
further up there, the totem pole or ladder
to to have the expectation that people were
listening to us. But I think today's,
you know, Gen z generation is definitely looking
for those that independence and that voice,
you know, now when they they get into
the workforce. And so, you know, you gotta
incorporate that, which has made me, you know,
I think a better listener. At least my
wife may not say that, but I think
I I've tried really hard to to become
a better listener and and spend more time
coaching and mentoring than, you know, doing the
more traditional
direction and, you know, directing people and telling
them what to do. And,
I think that's been,
really fulfilling. It's also made me more patient,
which,
you know, everybody I think can probably use
more patience and having a generation that,
you know,
is gonna expect you to be more patient
with them and supportive.
You know, they really think about things around
personal time and their mental health and well-being,
as so much more and key to what
they're expecting from you as a boss or
as a leader.
So it's been a really interesting experience.
I'm really excited to have a 14 year
old daughter, and I'm really excited to see
her grow up because,
you know, I think this the this, you
know, generation z is definitely
they may come out of this
better ahead, you know,
enjoying retirement a lot more than my generation,
because, you know, their their entire life is
focused around,
how they wanna live, not necessarily
how we as, you know, culture want them
to. So it's been a really interesting experience.
And it's fascinating to hear, you know, and
certainly, just a great perspective on leading the
different generations and understanding how to connect with
them at their level and then,
really truly building that culture that makes a
difference,
and gets the best out of whoever,
you're working with in coaching and mentoring.
Aaron, 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. Yeah.
Thanks,
Laura.