Hi, everyone. This is Erica Carbajal with Becker's
Hospital Review, and thank you so much for
joining us for this episode of the Becker's
Healthcare podcast.
Today, we're joined by doctor Waleed Javaid, chief
quality officer of WVU Hospitals.
Doctor Javed, happy New Year. Thank you so
much for being here.
Thank you so much, Erica, for inviting me,
and thank you to Becker's and you specifically
to,
allowing me to participate in this podcast. Thanks.
Yeah. Absolutely. And and as you know, we're
in middle of flu season right now, so
we appreciate you taking the time.
A big story that we're following right now,
so let's start there.
Can you share a little bit about if
there's anything that you at WVU Medicine,
if the system or hospitals you're overseeing are
doing anything differently to prepare for or manage
the surge in flu cases this year or
share maybe a capacity management strategy that you
see is is really crucial right now?
Yeah. So I oversee WVU hospitals, which is
a combination of three hospitals, Rue Ruby Memorial,
which is the West Virginia University Hospitals because,
centralized surgery care hospital, and then, children's hospital
as well as a smaller community hospital called
Fairmont Hospital.
And and and and what we are seeing
across West Virginia
and,
is not as intense of
a flu season that everybody else is experiencing
at the moment, but we have started
to see increasing numbers.
But as
our job dictates, we start planning ahead
of any increasing numbers and we are already
kind of making sure, first, our staff,
all our staff are vaccinated.
If they are not vaccinated for any reason,
that they are protected with masks and other
modalities,
we
educate our staff and
our patients as well to make sure that
we are trying to minimize the exposures.
And then, just preparing ourselves in terms of,
the potential issues that might occur. People are
calling in, say, how are we gonna deal
with those as well? But I think it
is, something that highlights the importance of getting
vaccinated, getting prepared,
making sure, that us, our families, everybody's vaccinated
at the moment.
Yeah. Thanks for sharing, doctor Javed.
I I know you started
your role just a few months ago. So
what has been something that you've been really
focused on, or what was your main goal
in in these first few months into the
role?
So I think,
thank you, Erica, again for this question. I
think the most important thing, as chief party
officer is to understand
really what the priorities of the organizations are
in terms of quality and then, making sure
the priorities
are what would make sense,
for patient care, what would make sense for
for benefiting
our our the people we serve, basically.
So I think
we've been looking at
the overall,
extent of the work we are doing.
As chief quality officer, I see see several
different departments. I
see patient safety, infection control.
We have patient experience,
quality and data analytics,
as well
as
heart and vascular registries,
other elements
that get involved in quality are also under
our purview.
So within
that, those areas, we've been actually making sure
that one, we are we are being very
efficient, and second, that we are providing the
best,
possible care. And third,
is making sure that within all our aspects,
we are we are being,
we are being more
cognizant
of
of the fact that patient is central to
all our activities
and that all our activities are are for
the improvement of the patient care themselves.
Yeah. Thanks for recapping that. And two, I
know we've been covering more about just, you
know, the ambulatory shift and and more care
moving to outpatient settings.
Do you anticipate that, you know, being a
focus in 2026
in terms of shoring up quality in across
outpatient footprint as as more complex care is
moving there and and CMS eliminating inpatient only
list?
So I think, I think with
the and thank you again for this question.
So
the for the last many years, there has
been an increasing push to increase the outpatient
work,
moving patients to more of the outpatient setting
versus the inpatient setting,
for several reasons. I think the one most
important reason
is that one hospital setting is extremely,
extremely expensive
and it's it is also very, very limiting.
So patient gets admitted, there are several days,
they're kind of confined to the hospital
walls and and it really is pretty
big disruption for our patients. So again, being
focused on the patient care itself,
outpatient setting is beneficial
for,
for majority of our patients to get their
care for. So
many services are expanding
into
our outpatient settings.
We have started to focus on the patient
experiences in those areas,
making sure the infection control side, that they
are compliant with all the regulations.
And then also from our end, increasing and
supporting our outpatient facilities
to address this increasing number of patients that
they they anticipate to see.
Yeah. Thanks, doctor Javed.
Are there any big headwinds you you foresee
throughout 2026
or
challenges that keep you up that you anticipate
maybe will take up a lot of your
time,
in 2026?
I think, so thank you again for this
question. I think that there are several headwinds
that not only our organization any other organization
would be facing
at 2026
and beyond.
And the most important thing about that really
is
is the fact
that,
that
the amount of money that is being spent
on
health care is eventually going to decrease from
different payers, including CMS and others.
And we
need to be extremely
efficient in what we are doing to be
able to match and provide the services
and to provide higher quality care. What other
movement I've seen I've been seeing from
the payer side really is that they are
emphasizing a lot on quality of care that
is being provided. Again,
that's completely under what I've been doing or
my work is is to make sure that
we optimize that care to to the highest
quality of care provided.
And that really would end us in a
situation where,
we either are able to match
and provide the highest quality of care, get
the best in reimbursement
and reinvest ourselves
into
our mission, which is a patient care,
or
that the hospitals are unable to match the
needs because the quality of care is not
adequate. So it's it's a balance. I think
the most important thing that we are trying
to one of the more important things we're
trying to focus is the social determinants' health,
that we are addressing the patient's needs beyond
just the health care needs as well and
trying to support them as well. That is
one of the quality metric, but more importantly,
that actually is something that we're trying to
get into,
from all angles to support our patients where
they are in their lives.
Yeah. Doctor Gervais, I think you you touched
on something that's, you know, on the minds
of of all health care hospital and health
system leaders right now in terms
of shifts from payers and,
decreases in in Medicaid funding.
Obviously, something that we're covering a lot of.
So
I wanted to just build on that more,
you know, as hospitals are preparing for a
potential rise in uninsured and underinsured patients with
the expiration of ACA premium subsidies and in
addition to looming Medicaid cuts.
What steps do you think that hospitals and
health systems should be taking
now to ensure that that quality doesn't suffer,
and that they're
they can try to wrap their arms around
patients who may be losing coverage.
Yes. I think understanding and working closely with
our financial
colleagues, our finance,
directors, and others is is crucial for for
any organization. We can continue to watch closely
how the, the financial
impact of different programs are.
The the way I think about this is,
just looking at broadly,
majority of programs, including CMS, has
quality programs, which ties a lot of,
lot of funding
with pay to performance.
So pay to performance or pay to reporting,
but major the cases that we are seeing
or majority of,
funding restrictions we see is with payer to
performance. Like, if our performance
the hospital's performance or any hospital's or system's
performance is is poor
in, for example, in,
in the elements of
healthcare quality or infection control.
If they are if they have too many
infections, then their payment gets cut.
In the past, that could have been okay,
because you can offset it with other funding
even though it's not okay from patient care's
perspective. This actually provides us a opportunity to
kind of
emphasize the need to optimize
patient care to a point that their
patient care is not compromised. The infections are
eliminated.
The quality of care that is being provided,
for example,
reducing the number of complications,
which are tied with reimbursement,
improve our performance, and use these
times
where the financial hardship would be to optimize
the care, to provide the best quality of
care, to make sure that we get the
the right and complete reimbursement
to the and we are not reducing our
funding from that end. That's one thing. So
once we
try the best and highest quality care, hopefully
that will
result in reduction in
complications, reductions in patient stays, reducing the oral
cost of the hospitalization,
and improving our financial conditions as well. So
I think the way I think about this
is, like, we really need to gear up.
I've told my team already is that this
year, next several years, but this year specifically
is gonna be a relentless
pursuit of excellence for us. We will be
just being relentless.
Anywhere there's an opportunity, we'll we'll get after
that. We'll make sure that we perform to
a point,
of excellence in every aspect to make sure
our
patients are getting the highest quality of care
and
then with the result that
they have better outcomes, that
we have as a hospital better outcomes for
our patients. And then our
and a side effect of that really would
be that our reimbursement
will also
catch up and hopefully will support our efforts.
So that would be the biggest focus for
us is to really maximize our improvement processes.
I know the funding concerns and all are
there
and I think there are bigger issues that
I think this question might be better addressed
by the finance people in the hospital, but
from my aspect is to optimize the care
to the best
possible
where
we reduce the costs
for patients.
Like, if I for example, like, I tell
my peep my my my my staff, so
I have all all my people I I
lead is that, hey. Nobody is in a
hospital,
because they want to be. Right? Patients don't
come to the hospital because they want to
be in a hospital. They are in a
hospital because of a need,
we and because of an illness or an
injury.
We we need to fix their illness,
their injury,
their need very, very quickly,
so that they are out and about back
to their lives.
And that really
is what we will see in next,
two to five years is optimizing care quickly,
making sure people are getting better very, very
quickly,
back to their feet outside the hospital. And
I think,
that will hopefully result in decreasing expenses for
the hospital
supporting the
decreasing the,
decreasing,
amount of revenue that might be coming in
or offsetting that that might be coming in.
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. It is interesting
to hear clinical leaders' perspectives
on this. And I think you raised just
such a critical point about how
sort of meeting the moment, if you will,
for for quality and and how it's more
important than ever to have quality and high
focus on delivering high quality excellent care and
having that show up in in in the
financial positioning of of the organization as well.
Doctor Gervais,
thank you so much for joining us.
We really appreciate your time and and insights,
and,
thank you so much. We look forward to
chatting with you again and following up on
some of the work and and quality improvement
initiative that you're leading later this year.
Well, thank you so much, Erica, for the
for the invitation. I think you touched upon
several
important factors or several important
elements. And I would love to continue to
have this conversation because this is an important
conversation for us to have for our listeners
to also to to also
understand how important it is to improve the
quality of care, for everyone's benefit.
Yeah. Absolutely.