This is Laura Dierda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
doctor Hussain Morandi, who's the president of SSM
Health Cardinal Gwen and Children's Hospital as well
as assistant vice president of pediatric services. Doctor
Morandi, it's a pleasure to have you on
the podcast today. It's a pleasure to be
here.
Now I'm looking forward to our discussion because
I know you've got a lot going on
at the children's hospital there, and in particular,
you know, getting your perspective on how to
continue to grow and succeed in the future.
But before we dive in, can you tell
us a little bit more about yourself as
well as SSM Health? Of course. So my
name is Hossein Miranda. I have the privilege
of serving as the president of SSM Health
Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and assistant vice president
for pediatric services
across SSM Health. I am a board certified
pediatrician,
and over the last two decades, I've dedicated
my career to leading
multiple nationally recognized children's hospitals and working alongside
some of,
the most dedicated physicians, nurses, and caregivers in
our field.
Pediatrics has always been my calling, so this,
is a purpose that I have every day
to be able to to create systems that
really deliver care, not just from a clinical
excellence, but really with a deep compassion and
commitment to the patients that we care for.
As far as SSM Health, we are one
of the, nation's largest Catholic, not for profit,
fully integrated health care systems.
We serve communities across four states of Illinois,
Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin
with more than 40,000 dedicated team members and
thousands of professionals delivering care.
Our mission is to reveal the healing presence
of God by providing exceptional health care and
by being a steadfast partner for our communities
that we serve. Now Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital
is a proud reflection of that mission. We
were the first freestanding Catholic children's hospital in
The US, and I've cared for children in
the St. Louis community
and the surrounding communities for over seventy years
now. We've consistently been ranked as one of
the top children's hospitals,
and families travel to us from across the
Midwest, nation, and internationally
for our specialized expertise,
especially in cardiology, cardiac surgery, neonatology,
and, many other areas.
But really beyond any of those rankings or
awards, what truly defines,
SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital is the
way we care for every child and family
with dignity,
respect, and an unwavering commitment to serve.
I love that. What a great mission and,
amazing,
historical background the Children's Hospital has there that
can really, you know, continue to serve the
community well. I'm curious, you know, when you
think about the last year or so, what's
your biggest winner success story?
So, overall, 2024
was a banner year for us.
Over the last year, one of our greatest
accomplishments
has been building a more integrated and coordinated
model of pediatric care that truly puts patients
and families first, and I believe that will
be the blueprint for the future.
When I took this role two years ago,
I could see that we already had all
the pieces for a well functioning care delivery
system, but they were in silos and disparate.
So the vision was very clear to me,
and it was, to connect everything together.
We aligned,
Cardinal Glenn and Children's Hospital and its employed
physicians and clinics
with our,
Saint Lucia University
physician group where our specialists and subspecialists live
as well as the SSM Health Medical Group
pediatric network. So by combining all of those,
we created
a system where families have seamless access
to some of the region's top pediatric clinicians.
So whether the child needed routine care, advanced
specialty care, or the most complex, surgical procedure,
they had access to a unified continuum
of care with less fragmentation
and fewer hurdles to get the right care
at the right time. And that really resonated
as we looked at what we were achieve
able to achieve in 2024.
As I mentioned earlier,
we were recognized again on the national level
by US News and World Report,
as one of the top 50 children's hospitals.
Now eleven years in a row, we've received
that designation.
And, we ranked in more specialties this past
year, seven in total than we have had
ever, in the past.
We also were able to be,
redesignated
as a magnet site. Again, only 10% of,
hospitals across the nation have that, and it,
just goes to show the strength and dedication
of our nursing teams and the culture that
we've built built here. So, overall, 2024
was truly, a year that we are very
proud of.
I love that. And, you know, particularly a
really amazing recognitions of all the things that
you've been doing in order to, as you
mentioned, become unified and provide less fragmented care
and really get the better results and outcomes
that you're looking for. Now in thinking where
we're at today, what are some of the
top issues that you're focused on right now
and spending most of your time thinking about
and troubleshooting?
Yeah. How much time do we have? No.
No. No. All joking aside,
let me start with something positive first. So
although not an issue, but rather than truly
a once in a lifetime opportunity,
our focus mainly has been on creating the
future of pediatrics in our community. And that's
why building a brand new Cardinal Glenn and
Children's Hospital,
here where it'll be a transformative
14 story, 200 plus beds, state of the
art facility that will open later on in,
late twenty twenty seven. And it's this is
more than just a building that we're building.
It is truly our commitment to reimagining
what children's health care should look like for
the next fifty years.
More NICU rooms with natural light, something that
I never got a chance to train in.
Advanced pediatric and cardiac ICUs, larger ORs and
rooms for the families, and creating family centered,
healing spaces.
Every detail of the building we're designing
has been with the input of our patients,
families, frontline staff.
Really wanted to make sure that we ensure
the best outcomes they experiences.
So that's taken a lot of our time,
and it's a great thing to do. But
as you mentioned, we've got issues also that
we have to deal with. And when I
think about those,
the two or three, it's
always
workforce shortage
and financial challenges that keep me up at
night.
In general, children's hospitals often serve a smaller
population of patients with complex chronic conditions, and
these conditions really require
coordinated highly specialized care teams with unique unique
expertise in their field.
This leads to really financial and workforce challenges
when we talk about delivering that specialized care
appropriately,
safely, and with the best outcomes. So I
talk about workforce and supply side. So when
you look at the workforce,
pediatric specialty and subspecialty staffing shortages are an
an all
time
high, critically low across the nation when I
talk to all my colleagues. A recent study
by Children's Hospital Association in 2023
actually outlined the shortage where nearly 50% of
the children's hospitals
in The United States were short staffed in
specialties
such as neurology, developmental behavioral,
genetics, pulmonology, and many more. And there's a
significant
imbalance between the supply and the demand. So
on the supply side, what we're seeing is
that training positions in many specialties are left
unfilled, so there are not enough specialists that
are being trained. And then on the other
side, we're seeing many specialists that are reaching
retirement age and choosing to retire early.
Add to that, all of us in the
children's space are competing for those same small
number of specialists out there.
And these shortages are not just
limited to our physicians. Nonphysician professionals,
such as respiratory therapists,
imaging technologists,
and most importantly, our wonderful nurses are at
a high demand.
Now at the same time, we've seen an
alarming surge on mental health and behavioral needs
in pediatrics also, especially since the pandemic,
and that has created the significant shortage of
psychiatrists and psychologists
to take care of these patients.
Now we're diligently working to recruit and retain
our top talent,
finding innovative
and possibly sustainable care models that are different
from today
and try to assure that there's no gaps
in care, but that's becoming more difficult every
day.
Add to that the financial standpoint.
Now we're tackling some of the same challenges
that every health care system faces. We've got
significant financial pressures from rising expenses,
labor, drugs, medical supplies, and more. We'll see
costs continue to go up, and this is
especially challenging for children's hospitals due to that
specialized care that I mentioned and our overwhelming
dependence
on state funding and Medicaid.
So what we're seeing is the cost of
care continues to increase while the reimbursements
for that care have not kept up and
in many cases, as we see, have decreased.
So we have
started to work with our continue to work
with our state and federal legislators to advocate
for payment structures and models to protect access,
for these services because our families need it.
Absolutely. That's such an important aspect of what
you do, in terms of being able to
protect access to care and educating lawmakers, legislators,
and the community at large just about, you
know, how the economics of health care work
and what it it will take in order
to preserve this access to care and ability
to continue to serve patients. I'm curious, you
know, when you look into
that aspect of your role in as more
of an advocate or educator of lawmakers and
community,
what have you found works well? How do
you really go about,
successfully
spreading that message and and being able to,
bring aboard, you know, folks who are influential
to make sure that, you know, the right
legislation,
comes down so that you are able to
get what you need in order to care
for the community.
As I've spent, more time in legislative,
facilities across many different states, it has become
clear to me that many of our,
lawmakers
do not understand the day to day
challenges and opportunities that we have within health
care. Obviously, many of them are not, from
a health care background, so it requires us,
to be teachers also. But at the same
time, there's nothing better than seeing it firsthand.
So one of the things that I have
found has worked very well for me in
every stop is to have those legislators actually
spend time in the hospital, have them come
here and talk to our team members, see
our patients who are walking through our halls
or in their wheelchairs going to their next
appointment in the oncology or orthopedics
and be able to truly have that connection
to the caregivers as well as the patients
and understand that a decision that's made,
at a far place on a piece of
paper truly has
effects that are felt by our parents, by
our
patients, by our community, and by our caregivers.
So having them live our world, we have
a great program here called Glennon one zero
one where we open our doors,
for a full day, and we bring in,
community members, bring in, legislative
representatives
to come here and put on a white
coat, and we assign them to a specific
area of the hospital and have them walk
through and, the proverbial walk in my shoes
for a day and help them understand. And
that has made a significant
impact on them. Many of them, we have
seen with tears in their eyes as they
finally understand
what it takes to care for children, and
that has helped to be able to move
that needle a bit when we needed the
care and when we needed those laws and
we needed that support on those areas.
What an amazing idea in program and ability
to welcome those lawmakers and community members into
the hospital and and share firsthand,
you know, the the stories and true true
things that you see every single day,
challenges of caring for the pediatric population as
well. Now when you look into the future,
what are some of the opportunities that you
see for growth and development over the next
few years?
So recently,
a leading national health care consulting company cited
that the main opportunity for children's hospital growth
is mergers and partnerships,
particularly
those that make,
geographic sense. And we've already seen that, arrangement
in the past year multiple times where you've
seen children's hospitals come together. It is difficult
to provide this service. But when we see
this deliberate shift toward the increased partnerships
and, creating these economic models,
we're starting to see emphasis
on more collaboration rather than competition.
And I truly believe that will reshape the
pediatric health care in the future. We have
to start to find ways where instead of
competing, we work closely together, not only with
other health care systems, but with other community
members and others that have the same goal
in mind.
Another area that we're seeing,
rapidly
move and change is the digital health care
space and AI.
I don't think any one of us
have really understood
and can imagine how AI will transform the
care, especially from a health care standpoint in
the future. What we're seeing already and with
all the institute is AI assisted documentation,
ambient listening
for our physicians to get their notes into
the EHR. We're leveraging technology to reduce clinician
burnout,
increase their efficiency, and then create more time
to get back to what we did, that
personalized
high touch care,
trying to automate routine tasks, leveraging AI for
documentation scheduling
for predictive analytics to understand how to take
care of patients better. What we're looking to
do is to free up our clinicians to
focus on what we all went into this
for, which is to care for patients and
families.
And I'm really excited that as this technology
evolves, I think we're gonna find more and
more ways to enhance,
not replace, and I wanna emphasize that enhance,
not replace
that personal connection that are at the heart
of pediatrics.
I don't want our physicians in a room
typing on a computer. I want them looking
at that child, building that relationship with those
parents because that's what pediatrics has been based
on is that personal touch. So I think
AI will help us with that in the
future.
It's fascinating to hear and and truly,
amazing to think about how technology can make
a big difference, not only in how care
is delivered, but the personalization aspect of it
too, and then allow for more relationship building
and more of that human connection in the
health care space, which I know is so
important and especially
with the pediatric population.
Before we wrap up here, I'm curious. What
do you think it will take,
to lead a thriving organization over the next
five years or so given everything we've talked
about today with the technology evolution,
financial challenges, other dynamics within the broader economic
and political landscape?
What do leaders need in order to make
sure their organizations are successful?
As a lifelong learner, I I like to
read every day. And most recently and as
I was reading, again, we always wanna stay
up to to date with everything that's going
on. There were a couple of concepts that,
that I read about that truly resonated with
me. The first one that I really fell
in love with was future proofing.
How do we make sure that we create
a future that we can continue our calling
and
mission and deliver the care the way we
want to? And that really resonated.
And then second was changing our
mindset, thinking, planning, acting differently than we are
today in order to build that better future.
So I truly believe we have to be
visionary.
We have to be resilient because we know
there's change, and we gotta be deeply rooted
in the mission to care for patients.
And how do we do that? I think
as we talked already, we must be innovators,
embrace this new technology, models of care, better
ways to do things differently than we always
have,
learn how to be good partners with others,
build these strong, supportive relationships with our physicians
and caretakers,
but also with other health care systems where
previously we competed with.
As I mentioned also, we must be advocates.
We have to be able to be the
voice for those children, especially because they do
not get a chance to vote. We have
to work with local, state, and federal legislative
bodies to ensure that
there's sustainable funding and policies that protect the
way we care for patients and make sure
that we don't do something that creates harm,
for them.
Beyond that, I would say we gotta be
a champion for our people.
We gotta create these cultures. We've got such
talented clinicians, nurses, and physicians, and we've gotta
be able to wrap our arms around them,
make them feel inspired, make them feel valued
and supported in the work that they do
because it is easy to always harp on
the negatives, but there's so much positives. And
I think at the end of the day,
I've always been one to believe that we
must lead with empathy and have the courage
to make tough decisions, but then have the
humility to realize
it's not about us. It's about the patients
that are in front of us and the
patients that come in through our doors to
take care of them. And as long as
we stay true to that, we listen to
those families, we learn
every day, adapt to change, I think we're
gonna have a good future.
Oh, it's amazing to hear and such an
inspirational words to leave us with. Doctor Morandi,
thank you so much for joining us on
the podcast today. This has been an amazing
conversation, and I look forward to seeing you
as well at our CEO and CFO roundtable
in November and just continuing to talk through
these points and and providing additional context as
well as ideas for the future. So thank
you.
Thank you very much for the time. I
appreciate the opportunity.
Have a great day.