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 13 through the sixteenth. 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 Scott Becker with the Beckers Health
Care Podcast.
Thrilled today to be joined by somebody who's
an example to me, who's an inspiring
surgeon,
a leading hip replacement surgeon in the country,
certainly the best regarded in our area. We're
talking to doctor Ravi Basial.
Doctor Basial is the leader of the hip
sort of program hip replacement at the Endeavor,
Orthopedic and Spine Institute in Skokie, Illinois.
They've built a hospital around orthopedics. Just done
a tremendous job at that institute.
Ravi, doctor Bashel, can you take a moment
and introduce yourself? Then I'd love to touch
on today, what are you most focused on?
What are you most excited about this year?
You've got tremendous positivity, which I love, but
but take a moment and introduce yourself to
the audience.
Thanks, Scott. It's great to be with you
as always. And, you know, what's really energizing
me right now is seeing how we're able
to combine advanced surgical care with a system
level focus on access and recovery, and the
results for our patients have been really exciting.
By way of introduction, I'm I'm Ravi Bashal.
I'm an orthopedic surgeon focused on minimally invasive
hip and knee replacement,
and I work with the orthopedic team, here
at Endeavor Health. And my work kinda sits
at the intersection of high quality surgical care,
innovation, and improving access for patients across our
our community, especially as Endeavor continues to grow
and really working through a a way to
innovate and standardize care across the system, but
remain close enough to a community to stay
very patient centered. So that's sort of the
background of of of who I am and
and what we're working on.
The orthopedic
hospital that Endeavor
built
that you helped lead with some other great
leaders is become the busiest orthopedic place for
surgery
in the state of Illinois
just over a a a really a short
five to ten years, it feels like. Talk
a little bit about that evolution and how
that happened that it became about the busiest
place for hips and knees and orthopedics in
the state.
Talk about that a little bit.
Thanks, Scott. Yeah. I'm certainly very excited,
about,
the growth that we've seen in our orthopedic
hospital and the work that remains,
to be done. In terms of, I think,
how we got there, I think it's really
about
putting the patient at the center.
What really excites me the most is seeing
how operational excellence and human centered care don't
compete. They actually reinforce each other. And I
think that's been
a core culture for us as we've worked
through this journey in our hospital. And and
I really kinda
love the story of of where we started,
where we are now, and and, frankly,
where we're where we're going. We've been really
focused on improving the patient journey from education
before surgery to smoother pathways after surgery,
understanding how technology and best in class,
you know, care, both from a surgical standpoint,
technology standpoint, implant
standpoint, all come together. And and for me,
this culture is the multiplier, and the technology
and the and and the techniques that we
use just amplifies it.
Fantastic. And and and talk you mentioned a
little bit about
trying to system wide
way of care
for orthopedics,
almost like the hospital for special surgery.
Talk about that thought process
of taking what's going great. I think 7,000
plus procedures a year being done now at
the orthopedic hospital.
Talk about how you make that system wide
across a larger system
with yes. Focus in orthopedics and spine, particularly
the higher acuity cases where you're at. But
how do you turn that into a system
of care,
so ultimately, you know, play at the same
level as the hospital for special surgery and
places like that? Yeah. I mean, this is
a question of scale. And so what we
really try to focus on when we when
we started here, was, as I said, putting
that patient journey at the center, making sure
that we have the best team members, the
best,
you know, the best surgeons, the best anesthesiologists,
the best nurses, the best therapists, the best
administrators.
So we kinda started with this mindset of
of of having a small core group that
provided great quality with the patient at the
center. Okay? That's really where we started. And
then as that began to earn trust within
the community and the system, as patients began,
to really put their faith into what we
were doing, the idea became the the the
thought became, how do we now amplify and
and and grow this? And really in orthopedics
is is a lot like aviation where pathways,
protocols, and standardization
can go a long way. The the the
potential
risk is
if you forget that the patient is at
the middle of that. And so what we
really have focused on is understanding
that
health systems are moving towards standardizing pathways, not
to reduce individuality,
but to reduce unnecessary variation. And
it does not have to be impersonal. Scale
does not have to be impersonal because
when we support our patients and our teams,
best outcomes come from this sort of culture
as much as surgical technique,
as much as, you know, the data driven
science that we use. It's all of these
things coming together. And what we found is
it really has some exponential growth, when you
put all those things kind of into the
pot. And as you said, we have the
busiest single hospital,
in the state of Illinois for orthopedic procedures.
We do more total joint replacements, hip and
knee replacements out of that single center,
than any other hospital in the state. And
we're and we're really proud of that because
we're not just pumping out a lot of
total joints. We're providing high quality care that
our patients are really appreciating.
You know, our outpatient joint program is an
example of that. There's just a lot of,
a lot of amplification that's happened when you
start with this core culture and put this
patient journey at the center.
Thank you. And and talk about your own
specialty.
I I know you've become this
incredible sort of beacon of hip replacement in
our area.
I mean, I mean, I'm I'm a little
bit, I think my mother won't be upset
with me, but you've done my mother's hip.
You recently did one of my closest friend's
hip replacement.
Any advice with Bill trying to build a
great career
where there where there sort of, you know,
become special at what they do? And I
don't I know you're a humble person, but
but any thoughts on how do people sort
of focus to become really great at what
they do, not just one of many, but
but really well really good at what they
do?
Well, I I really appreciate those kind words,
Scott. And and, you know, I'm I'm it
it was an honor and a privilege to
take care of your mom and and your
friends and and and other,
acquaintances in in the in the, Chicagoland area
and and and even from outside of there.
It's it's been a great honor to be
able to do that. How you
build
towards that, I think,
has a couple of key tenants.
One is to sort of
remember
why you're doing this job. You're here to
take care of patients and to get them,
in my case, with what I do, back
on their feet. And I think it's very
important early in your career to sort of
maintain the the humility of what you're doing.
It's a great honor and privilege to be
given the opportunity to operate on a patient.
It's a very sort of sacred bond, between
surgeon and patient. When you take that knife
to somebody's skin, you're involved with them in
a very different way than almost any other
relationship,
that that you would have, professional or social.
And I think maintaining that humility
of that bond and really understanding what that
means is the core. It's not about you
as the surgeon or the great techniques that
you're using or the implants that you're using.
It's about that patient, and I think you
have to lean into that. And then I
had the good fortune of being part of
a system where I can focus on just
two operations. You know, I joke around with
my partners.
If I'm if I wanna sound, you know,
simple, I say I do two operations, hip
replacement and knee replacement. If I wanna sound
more complicated, I say I do four. Right
hip, left hip, right knee, left knee. And
so a little bit of of of humor
around that, but really being in a system
that allows me to subspecialize and focus in
in what I want to do gives me
the repetitions to become,
you know, hopefully much better at doing that
procedure. The more you can focus in on
one or two things, the better you will
become at doing those things.
No. I I think that's great. And and
how did you get focused towards really where
you focus on doing the things that you
do? You've also got a great holistic approach
to medicine
while you specialize in those couple procedures.
How did that evolve to where you really
started to specialize just in doing that?
Yeah. You know, I I think it it's
a it's a great question. I think that
surgical skill, technical skill on its own is
not enough. You can do
a perfect operation on somebody, but if you
don't understand
where they're coming from, what it is that
they're looking for, their challenges, their fears, their
concerns,
their outcome won't be as good and you've
done that patient a disservice.
And so it's no longer the metric of,
hey. The X-ray looks perfect. You know, I
don't really care about the rest. You gotta
understand that patient's story and their journey. And
so it's sort of a self fulfilling, self,
you know, growing
philosophy in that if you want happy patients,
which all of us want, if you want
to continue to be busy, which comes from
happy patients, the best way to do that
is to do a good operation but to
take care of the patient all around. It's
also the right thing to do. It's also
what makes you feel good as a person
when you're able to connect with that individual
and, you know, so somebody comes to you
and say, hey. I can't play golf. I
can't do stuff with my grandkids. I can't
play this. I I I take care of
a lot of people that are younger, in
their forties, in their thirties. They can't do
the things that they wanna do. And and
being able to be a good person to
them and understand their struggle, combine that with
surgical skill,
ability, technology, whatever that might be, then you
get a really good outcome. You can't just
do the operation in a vacuum, and I've
been a big advocate of that. We need
to understand where our parent patients are coming
from and what their own concerns are aside
from their arthritic hip or knee. It's more
than that. They're they're not just an X-ray.
They're a person with you know, that that
lives their daily life with that arthritic hip
or knee.
Well, but but I think that's one of
the beauties of how you practice. You're you're
technically fantastic at what you do, but you
have this uncommon understanding of the patient of
people, which is, I think, that powerful cannot
combination for a doctor, for a specialist,
that that ability to be great at what
you do, but really understand that you're doing
it for a patient with a patient for
their their holistic care. I think it's it's
it's not everybody does it that well and
understands
their mission that clearly, and I think that
mission clarity is probably a lot of part
a lot of what makes you great at
what you do.
I really appreciate that, and and I will
just throw in, you know, one one, little
tidbit on that.
I think, you know, as you know, we
do some work overseas with our charity organization,
Operation Walk Chicago,
and
I think that
having a chance every year to go do
that resets that
compass, that that, that humility compass or that
sort of understanding what people are going through
compass. And that's really been something unique that
that I've been able to be a part
of for the past fifteen years that I
think leans into that story that you're talking
about. I think when we're here and we're
talking about innovation and scale, and all the
things that I love doing on the administrative
side,
you know, you have to have a reminder
of why you're doing this on a day
to day basis. And you can certainly do
that without having to travel overseas. But for
me,
you know, the the annual trip that I
make to Nepal, to participate,
with Operation Walk really helps to reset that
that guidance for me on an annual basis.
That's amazing. Literally amazing. Doctor Basheo, I wanna
thank you again for joining us on the
Becker's Healthcare podcast. We love watching your crew.
We love watch watching what you do. And,
obviously, we're we're up here in the Endeavor
health area, so we're huge fans of Endeavor
and the other area health systems.
Thank you so much for taking the time
with us today. Just fantastic.
Thanks, Scott. I always appreciate the time. I
I think what excites me the most about
where health care is going is that we're
really learning how to combine innovation with humanity.
We've been talking about that. And, frankly, at
Endeavor, we're seeing that when you align great
teams, thoughtful technology, and a real focus on
patient experience, you can really safely move care
forward at scale. And and it's been a
great journey, and we're continuing to grow and
learn.