This is where health care leadership comes together.
Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
speakers to Chicago
April.
This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
visit beckershospitalreview.com
and click on the events tab in the
upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
in Chicago.
This is Laura Dirda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by doctor
Mayank Shah, vice president and chief medical officer
at Advocate Condom Medical Center, part of Advocate
Aurora Health. Health. Doctor Shah, it's a pleasure
to have you on the podcast today.
Laura, thank you so much for having me,
and,
we're looking forward to our exciting conversation talking
about health care.
Absolutely. And, you know, what a huge topic
and important time to be speaking on these
things. I think, you know,
there's just so much happening in the health
care space, and I I'm excited to dig
into some of the things you've been doing
at Canada Medical Center as well as, you
know, how you're thinking about the future. But
before we dive in, can you tell us
a little bit more about yourself and the
hospital?
Absolutely.
So Advocate Condell Medical Center is a 275
bed,
facility located in the Lake County area in
Libertyville, Illinois.
We are the only level one trauma center
in the entire Lake County.
We serve roughly,
16,000
inpatient visits annually as well as over 200,000
plus outpatient visits,
throughout our facilities.
We see significant number of anywhere from,
1,400
to 1,500 deliveries a year.
We have a significant
number of patients and community programs
that go beyond that, and we're part of
the advocate health system,
that offers over 6,000,000,000
in community benefits annually to the communities that
we serve. So it's great to be part
of a larger system and also very focused
on the service that we provide to our
local community.
For myself, I've been the vice, the chief
medical officer at Advocate Condell Medical Center for
the last two and a half years.
Prior to that, I led the Medicaid plan
in Illinois
as the chief medical officer.
And prior to that, I was part of
the non,
not for profit health care system,
leading, as the CMO of the, physician,
PHO, essentially the the partnership organization
with our aligned physician groups, within the organization.
And I also had in the in the
middle of a stench with, Cigna Healthcare and
leading their primary care practice at home for
about three years.
So that's kind of my background. I've worked
both on the payer and the provider side,
and, it is extremely,
wonderful to be part of organization
at Condell,
not only focused
on delivering outstanding care to the communities that
we serve, but really thinking about all of
the health care impacts and how do we
navigate through the dynamics of health care changes
that we're seeing today.
I love that. I think that's,
so cool that you've gotten the experience both
on the provider side as well as the
payer side and,
now able to bring that into your current
role and really make an impact on the
community.
Now
based on,
the last year or so, could you tell
us about an initiative that you led? What
did you do, and what were the results?
Yeah. So, you know, coming into an organization,
you know, there's always a purview of what
is the role of the CMO. A CMO
continuously wears multiple hats at the hospital.
If you ask me this, you know, about
ten years ago, the focus for a CMO
was purely on the quality of care and
clinical programs at the hospital.
That is no longer the case. I think
the CMO really needs to be a diverse
role looking at all aspects. But the first
and foremost
accountability and responsibility we have as a CMO
is is creating a culture of safety and
quality.
And I'm very proud to say that, Condell
has achieved both of that in the years
that I've been here. When I started at
Condell, we were a leapfrog
c grade organization,
and we have moved towards an a organization.
The last three grades they were we've received,
are all a's, straight a's, you know, for
for Kondal. And that speaks to the amazing
quality of care provided, at Kondal. And being
able to show, demonstrate, and capture that has
been sort of the pride of accomplishments at
Kondal.
I would say the second and more, again,
important that the quality perspective, from a safety
perspective, another important aspect is creating this culture
of safety.
And what that means is being attuned to
anything
that puts patient safety at risk, being on
a journey of a high reliability organization,
which means continuously pursuing,
safety challenges, safety reports, and looking at all
of those tools and tactics such as preoccupation
with a failure and and integrating those tools
into our day to day operations
so that we could be the safest possible.
As you know, there are four hundred thousand
deaths predicted every single year,
from safety incidences occurring at our hospitals across
the country.
And our primary goal is how do we
minimize that? Hospitals should be a place of
recovery,
not a place of incurring injury,
and that is a fundamental principle we hold
very dear to our heart. And so promoting
that culture, creating that movement within our teams
to navigate
and,
continuously
pursue,
quality improvement and safety improvement has been some
of the best,
outcomes I think we've been able to accomplish
in 2024
and 2025.
And the outcome of this has been that
Condell currently leads the entire advocate health system
in terms of our safety reports that we
submit
month after month and year after year.
And that accomplishment came from working together as
a team and leading the efforts to create
the culture of safety.
That's so impressive to hear. And, you know,
coming from where you started with the organization
to where you're at today and being,
LeapFrog a
and leading advocate health, within, you know, your,
the quality care and improvements is is really
impressive. And I'm curious from your perspective,
when you look at the changes that you've
been may able to make over the years
that you've been with Condell and, you know,
what especially
has made a difference, I'm curious. What what
did you learn, I guess, during that process
and, you know, anything that surprised you or
or things that you feel like, really made
a difference to accelerate
that focus on high quality in inpatient safety?
You know, Laura, that's a great question. And
I would say that one of the, you
know, despite
health care advancing
so much in the last decade,
I have to say that we continue to
work in silos within the health care delivery
space.
And I think many times we lose
the vision of and purpose of our work,
until we come together and until we're able
to ground ourself in that vision
and continuously validate each other that we are
moving towards that right goal, I think we
lose that purpose and that vision along the
way. And this is what leads to a
lot of burnouts that we see, a lot
of discouragement and dissatisfaction
where people change careers,
and a lot of people shifting from hospital
to outpatient to different areas within the health
care market.
And I I feel that was the fundamental
change that we were able to make as
leadership team at Kandal is really aligning with
our goals of creating the highest quality and
safety environment
for everyone, whether it's our teammates, whether it's
our patients and families,
or whether it's our providers.
And how do we create that culture of
safety?
It really started with creating a vision and
a re a mission, a purpose,
and, having grounding ourselves in that. We call
it kind.
So what that means is really grounding in
that principle of what our identity should be,
who do we wanna be, in the market,
and with with our patients and communities that
we serve. And once that definition was clear,
it was very easy to get our teams
aligned
to do the right thing. And and not
only doing the right thing, but also creating
new ideas and new opportunities to create this
culture of safety and quality.
So, I would say that the fundamental change
was really grounding ourselves in that vision
of, our identity and how we wanted to
show up,
every single day, at work and in our
communities.
I love that. Thank you so much for
digging a bit deeper there. Now looking ahead
in 2026, what are some of the big
priorities and headwinds that you're focused on?
Another great question. I think the biggest,
you know, challenge that we face is a
lot of uncertainty in the health care market.
You know, with the shifts that are occurring
on the payer side, with some of the
regulatory changes and shifts that are occurring,
one of the key things that we need
to build in health care going forward is
a lot of agility. Right? Moving with,
with speed when it comes to change adaption.
And I think that is one of the
biggest headwinds that I see for us in
2026.
We need to build the right infrastructure so
we could be a far more agile in
health care than what we have been in
the past.
To give you one example,
in health care, there's a belief that when
a new study or a new,
treatment option comes out, it takes ten years
for us to adapt that into mainstream
practice.
That can no longer be true. Right? Going
forward, our health care, our delivery, our knowledge
is changing so rapidly
that I think we need to be a
lot more agile than waiting for ten years
to adapt those changes.
And so how do we create that agility
from ground up? I think that is one
of the biggest challenge
that we face as an organization and as
health care market. And so, we look forward
to partnering, we look forward to learning best
practices,
and we look forward to innovating in the
space so that we can continue to adapt
and change. It requires a very different mindset
from our physicians, from our frontline teams, from
our workers,
and then also requires an enormous level of
collaboration.
I was shared, a a, an image that
change management is like a rider,
that is riding on top of an elephant.
And an elephant has three parts. Right? We
consider the head of the elephant. We consider
the body of the elephant and then the
tail.
The head is sort of your leaders that
are continuously
helping you navigate through change. They're the visionaries
that help you at the front line. They're
the ones that are quickly adapting to change
and defining the path that you're gonna walk
on. Then the body is sort of the
rest of the the the system, the provider,
the teammates that really drag along with the
change process.
And then your tails are the people that
are normally resistant to change. They want things
to be the way they are. And so
when we think about that body, it's really
thinking about how do we create an infrastructure
that supports all three parts of the elephant.
Right? Of course, ahead,
we leverage the opportunity and the motivation that
those leaders have to create the vision and
the path. Then we create how do we
motivate and invigorate the body to continue to
move forward? And then how do we address
those people at the tail that really are
reluctant to change and bring them along through
the journey so that we don't leave any
parts behind and that we create no abrasion
and we create a holistic moment towards that
change? And then we wanna do that with
agility, with quickness, with, with,
fast paced approach,
with the number of changes coming our way.
And so I I feel like that is
one of the biggest challenge and barriers that
we continuously work through, and we're adapting and
and pivoting and and building in '26.
That's amazing to hear, and I think it's
so precious to have that understanding
of the mindset that needs to shift within
your teams and looking at that nimbleness and
the agility,
especially knowing,
what, you know, is coming down the pipe
and how quickly
things and changes and best practices need to
be adopted. And I appreciate,
the mental model too when you're talking about
the elephant and everything else. That's,
you know, a really helpful image when you're
thinking about, you know, how you're moving forward.
I I'm curious. What do you think the
hardest thing you'll have to do in the
coming year will be?
Oh, the there's many hard things coming our
way as we think about the headwinds, but
I think the hardest thing is, you know,
what's happening, from from the government side,
what's happening with our payer, limitations. And,
as parts of the health care markets get
squeezed,
it it truly becomes our accountability and responsibility
to meet the needs of our community. So
how do we expand our scope beyond what
we're doing today to continuously look at that
need and address? To give you an example,
many hospitals are struggling with their margins.
Although Advocate is doing really well overall,
we continue to think about what happens when
there's limited resources in our community, whether we're
talking about social resources,
whether we're talking about access to health care,
whether we're talking about payer specific resources,
with things like Affordable Care Act at risk,
you know, what when and lot of uninsured
and uncovered care increasing in our markets. How
do we continuously think about the challenges of
meeting those needs, keeping our communities healthy and
productive,
and continuously look at those opportunities of prevention,
before the care of, cost of care gets
out of hand. And so those are, you
know, sort of the key headwinds that we
continuously think about,
being creative in our model, thinking through opportunities
for expanding the scope,
of how we think about revenue generation
and then continuously thinking through how do we
fund that revenue to benefit the communities that
we serve. To give you an example, in
the Chicagoland area, Advocate Health has committed to
a $1,000,000,000
project in
putting up a hospital in the South Side
Of Chicago.
Again, you know, this is an area that's
been avoided and neglected. It's called a health
care desert.
You've heard stories about the age
discrepancy that we see across
a single street, you know, in that neighborhood.
And so trying to figure out how do
we serve that community, leveraging our scale and
scope,
to continuously meet the need of our Chicagoland,
communities that we serve,
and how do we think about the global
benefit that we create across the entire country?
So those are some key challenges that we
continuously think about. I think the unpredictability
in the healthcare market with the regulatory changes,
lot of changes in the health the dynamics
of what's happening out of Washington can truly
impact our local delivery
in a significant way. And so build building
cushions and ability for us to bounce back
and be agile to create programs and and
meet the needs of our community is constant
thinking that we, do as a team.
I love that. And I think, you know,
in looking critically at some of those things
that you mentioned,
how are you making sure that as you've
got all these dynamics happening, whether it's financial,
whether it's, you know, some of the other
headwinds that you talked about and then looking
at the change management that we've been discussing,
for those folks who
are the tails were, you know, at the
end that want them to stay the same
and,
are are really resisting some of these changes
that are gonna help you accelerate
growth and development and transformation,
how do you work with those folks to
really bring them along and and get them
into a position
to see that big picture and why what
they do every day, is so critical to
to change a bit?
Laura, that's such a great question,
and it's so insightful. And what I've learned
over the years is oftentimes,
those people who are resistant to change are
resistant
either because of a fear of that change,
creating something that is gonna create either more
stress
or create an imbalance in their own personal
life or in their financial life or in
their, you know,
individual life,
balance, overall. And so I you know, how
do we address that meaningfully? I think the
first and foremost is get digging deeper into
understanding
what matters to them most.
We talk about, addressing this with our patients,
but we need to do that with everyone,
whether it's our teammates, our providers,
our communities.
What is it that matters the most to
them? And then I think working around,
seeing the change differently.
Instead of saying that change is disruptive,
I think seeing the change being collaborative and
helpful,
and how can it address
and and really redesign
our workflow to help us in that direction,
could be a huge way that we begin
to uplift. And you will still find some
people that are resistant. They're gonna see how
the change is adapted and done with others.
And oftentimes,
leveraging their peers and other people who can
really
show them that they trust, I think, could
be a great way. The other opportunity that
I see is really
redeveloping and building trust in health care overall.
There's a lot of dissonance and and separation
that's beginning to occur with administration
and people in the front line of care
delivery, with how we manage the business of
health care, with how we deliver care and
the vision and mission of what we do.
And sometimes that malalignment
as, you know, venture capital investments and others
get into health care,
leads to a lot of abrasion
with how our providers view,
health care overall.
And so I think bringing them along and
helping them see the good that we can
create,
with appropriate change management and making sure that
they,
have a vision and a stake in the
process
can be hugely helpful in navigating through and
bringing everyone along. But it definitely requires a
lot of effort. It require it requires infrastructure
so that we can find out those deeper
thoughts and deeper concerns
and then continuously build our vision around that
to support them as well.
But, you know, it's an effort, but,
like I said, if you build it correctly
and if you do it the right way,
it could be hugely helpful as we navigate
through,
the changes that are coming our way in
health care. To give you one example,
we deployed
Dex Nuance,
which is our,
platform for
ambient listening and note generation.
And initially, there was a lot of thought
about, wait. This is gonna create disruption. I
have one more task to do in the
day.
But once we found those early adapters and
they were able to come back and they
were able to share with others that it
really decreased down their pajama time. The notes
were amazing,
and it captured so many things. And then
we started to collect safety events and episodes,
like things that were found
by ambient AI that perhaps would have been
missed by providers who were relying on their
memory to document,
things that we could comment on in terms
of patient experience and,
what what was the patient's,
perception of that encounter.
Like, those are deep insights that we now
we could learn that perhaps were missing from
our prior approach. And once that vision was
created and that depth of, information was shared,
it was very easy to now expand the
adaption. So we're still working through that, but
it's been invigorating to have the peers promote,
the change themselves and then create this process
of adoption.
I love that. And what a great example
of how you can really,
work with those team members and empower that
the growth and the adoption and everything else.
I I love that example, and it's so
helpful to illustrate everything you've been talking about
today. And before we wrap up, I wanted
to just touch on growth as well. How
do you see the big opportunities for growth,
coming through at a Condell Medical Center, and
what do you see as being some of
the things that you're most focused on for
the next year?
Another great question, Laura. And I think, you
know, there's a short term plan, and there's
a long term plan as we think about
our strategic planning and how we think about
growth.
I think the reality is that, you know,
our perception and our health care market
has been very hospital centric,
and that is quickly shifting.
As we look at alternative places of care
delivery, we look at different models
and innovation when it comes to health care,
the adoption of AI and, you know, shifting
of care more in the community setting.
I feel that there's an opportunity for us
to think differently about health care and expanding
the scope
beyond the hospital. And so I think hospitals
will, in the next,
few years, we'll really be looking at their
model of care and thinking about how do
we integrate with lot more services,
preventative services, and things,
that previously
affected the bottom line of the hospitals, but
truly in the long run benefit us in
in creating health and wellness in the communities
that we serve. I think that shift is
coming,
and, that is truly
the the
the prominent way that we are,
pivoting to think about growth for Khandel is
truly looking at our community needs and how
do we meet those needs through creation of
programs and innovation within health care delivery model.
I love that. Doctor Shaw, thank you so
much for joining us on the podcast today.
This has been such an informative and and
fun conversation,
and I look forward to connecting with you
again soon as well as at the annual
meeting in April. I know you'll be speaking
on a panel there and really touching on
many of these themes and and digging a
bit deeper. So it'll be great to connect
and and, you know, look forward to seeing
you.
Laura, thank you for the opportunity to be
interviewed today, and I love Becker's for all
the great information and best practices you all
bring forward to help all of us in
the health care community. So thank you.