Tag Archives: CEO

Ex-CEO of Louisiana hospital’s fundraising arm allegedly embezzled $810K

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/ex-ceo-of-louisiana-hospital-s-fundraising-arm-allegedly-embezzled-810k.html?origin=rcme&utm_source=rcme

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The former president and CEO of Our Lady of The Lake Foundation, the fundraising arm that supports Baton Rouge, La.-based Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, stole more than $810,000 of donations, according to an independent auditor’s report cited by The Advocate.

John Paul Funes headed the foundation for more than 10 years and led several multimillion-dollar fundraising campaigns for the hospital. He was fired in November after a third-party investigation revealed “a pattern of forgery and embezzlement of funds.”

The hospital hired Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu to review documentation that led to Mr. Funes’ firing.

“We’ve identified approximately $810,000 lost due to fraudulent activity committed by Mr. Funes,” Baton Rouge-based Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, which owns Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, told The Advocate. “Over several years, he orchestrated a series of fraudulent transactions that involved the purchase and distribution of gift cards, charter flights and payments to individuals, including forged documents, invoices and signatures. He misled hundreds of people in and outside of our organization.”

Over the next 30 days, the Franciscan Missionaries will replace the $810,00 in lost funds. The organization plans to seek restitution from Mr. Funes.

CEO of Hahnemann, St. Christopher’s hospitals ousted

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-executive-moves/ceo-of-hahnemann-st-christopher-s-hospitals-ousted.html

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Suzanne Richards, CEO of Hahnemann University Hospital in Center City, Pa., and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, is no longer employed at the organizations, according to The Inquirer.

A spokesperson for Paladin Healthcare, the owner of the two hospitals, confirmed to The Inquirer March 7 that Ms. Richards was dismissed. The spokesperson did not comment on the reason for her dismissal.

Ms. Richards assumed the role two months ago, after several years of experience at hospitals in Southern California.

In 2018, Paladin created an affiliate, El Segundo, Calif.-based American Academic Health System, to buy the two hospitals as well as their related operations from Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare. American Academic Health System replaced several top executives at Hahnemann University Hospital after its purchase.

 

 

 

CEOs shouldn’t pick their replacements

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/viewpoint-ceos-shouldn-t-pick-their-replacements.html?origin=ceo&utm_source=ceoe

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While CEOs may be intimately familiar with their companies, their opinion should take a backseat to the organization’s board of directors, according to Stanford (Calif.) University business school professor David Larcker, PhD, and researcher Brian Tayan.

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, the authors note that while it was once general practice for CEOs to pick their successors, changes to corporate governance in recent years have shifted the balance of power to a company’s “independent, professional, outside directors.”

The authors claim that allowing a company’s CEO outsize influence on the hiring of their successor is a mistake because the CEO may not have the right perspective on evaluating candidates and may intentionally or unintentionally control the information presented to the board about candidates, shaping the board’s decision about those individuals.

“At the end of a long career, many CEOs are concerned about their legacy. This can bias them toward favoring candidates who will guide the company in the same direction — and in the same manner — that they themselves led it,” they write.

Instead, the authors argue that a company’s board should be responsible for the final hiring decision and use the CEO’s input to help come to that conclusion.

“Hiring the CEO is a fiduciary duty. The board owes it to the shareholders … to get it right. A subcommittee of independent directors with previous experience in succession at other companies should manage the process, with an open invitation to all board members to participate. If the board doesn’t have depth of experience in place, it can bring in an outside adviser to help,” they write.

To access the full report, click here.

 

Top Six Healthcare Executive Challenges in 2019

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http://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/executive-express/top-six-healthcare-executive-challenges-2019

The pace of change in healthcare is not slowing down; in fact, it is accelerating. Healthcare organizations that are most successful in 2019 will know what challenges and changes are coming down the pipeline, and they will prepare accordingly.

To help ensure you don’t get left behind, we’ve assembled the top six challenges the industry will face in 2019.

1. Shifting the focus from payment reform to delivery reform. For the past few years, C-suite leaders at healthcare organizations have been focused on navigating healthcare payment reform—attempting to preserve, improve, and maintain revenue. Amidst those efforts, delivery reform has sometimes taken a back seat.

That will need to change in 2019. Organizations that are the most successful will focus more on patient care than revenue, and they will see improved outcomes and reduced costs as a result.

Many organizations are already exploring delivery reform with initiatives that focus on:

  • Remote health monitoring and telemedicine;
  • Population health management;
  • Patient engagement;
  • Social determinants of health; and
  • Primary care.

In 2019, however, they will need to bring all of these initiatives together to implement sustainable improvements in how healthcare is delivered.

An added bonus? Organizations that accomplish this will see enhanced revenue streams as value-based reimbursement accelerates.

2. Wrestling with the evolving healthcare consumer. Healthcare consumers are demanding more convenient and more affordable care options. They expect the same level of customer service they receive from other retailers—from cost-estimation tools and online appointment booking to personalized interactions and fast and easy communication options such as text messaging and live chats.

Organizations that don’t deliver on these expectations will have a difficult time retaining patients and attracting new ones.

That’s not the only consumer-related challenge healthcare organizations will face. In 2019, millennials (between the ages of 23 and 38), will make up nearly a quarter of the U.S. population.

This generation doesn’t value physician-patient relationships as highly as previous generations. In fact, nearly half of them  do not have a personal relationship with their physician, according to a 2015 report by Salesforce.

Finding ways to maintain or increase the level of humanity and interaction with millennials will be a key challenge in 2019. Patient navigator solutions and other engagement tools will be critical to an organization’s success.

3. Clinician shortages. Physician and nurse shortages will continue to intensify in 2019, creating significant operational and financial challenges for healthcare organizations.

The most recent numbers from the Association of American Medical Colleges predict a shortage of up to 120,000 physicians by 2030. On the nursing side, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a need for 649,100 replacement nurses by 2024.

The implications of the shortages, combined with the fact that healthcare organizations face a number of new challenges in the coming years, are many. Fewer clinicians can lead to burnout, medical errors, poorer quality, and lower patient satisfaction.

Healthcare organizations that thrive amidst the shortages will find new ways to scale and leverage technology to streamline work flows and improve efficiencies.

4. Living with EHR choices. Despite the hype and hopes surrounding EHRs, many organizations have found that they are failing to deliver on their expectations.

A recent Sage Growth Partners survey found that 64 percent of healthcare executives say EHRs have failed to deliver better population health management tools, and a large majority of providers are seeking third-party solutions outside their EHR for value-based care.

The survey of 100 executives also found that less than 25% believe their EHRs can deliver on core KLAS criteria for value.

As we recently told Managed Healthcare Executive, that statistic is striking, considering how important value-based care is and will continue to be to the industry.

Despite the dissatisfaction surrounding EHRs, switching EHRs may be a big mistake for healthcare organizations. A recent Black Book survey found 47% of all health systems who replaced their EHRs are in the red over their replacements. A whopping 95% said they regret the decision to change systems.

Hospitals and physician may not be entirely happy with their EHR choices, but the best course may be to stick with their system. Highly successful hospitals and health systems will find ways to optimize workflow and patient care which may involve additional IT investments and best of breed investment approaches, rather than keeping all of the proverbial eggs in the EHR basket.

5. Dealing with nontraditional entrants and disruptors. In 2018, several new entrants entered and/or broadened their reach into healthcare.

Amazon acquired online pharmacy retailer PillPack, and partnered with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to create a new healthcare partnership for their employees. Early in 2018, Apple announced it was integrating EHRs onto the iPhone and Apple watch, and recently, Google hired Geisinger Health CEO David Feinberg for a newly created role, head of the company’s many healthcare initiatives.

New partnerships have also arisen between traditional healthcare entities that could result in significant healthcare delivery changes. Cigna and Express Scripts received the go-ahead from the DOJ for their merger in September, and CVS and Aetna formally announced the completion of their $70 billion merger November 28.

Read more about the top two ways the CVS-Aetna merger could change healthcare.

All of these new industry disruptors and mergers will impact healthcare organizations, likely creating new competition, disrupting traditional healthcare delivery mechanisms, creating price transparency and pressures, and fostering higher expectations from consumers in 2019. Keeping an eye on these potential disrupters will be important to ensuring sustained success in the long term.

6. Turning innovation into an opportunity. From new diagnostic tests and machines to new devices and drug therapies—the past few years in healthcare have seen exciting and lifesaving developments for many patients. But these new devices and treatment approaches come with a cost.

One of biggest 2018 developments that best exemplifies the challenge between innovation and cost is CAR T-cell therapy. This new cancer treatment is already saving lives, but it racks up to between $373,000 and $475,000 per treatment. When potential side effects and adverse events are accounted for, costs can reach more than $1 million per patient.

Finding the best way to incorporate new treatments like this one, while balancing outcomes, cost, and healthcare consumer demands, will be a top challenge for healthcare organizations in 2019.

 

 

 

Financial worries keep hospital CEOs up at night

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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/financial-worries-keep-hospital-ceos-up-at-night/546982/

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Dive Brief:

  • Financial challenges, including increasing costs, shaky Medicaid reimbursement, reductions in operating costs and bad debt, ranked No. 1 on the list of hospital CEO worries in 2018, according to an American College of Healthcare Executives poll.
  • Government mandates and patient safety and quality tied for second place in ACHE’s survey of top issues facing health systems. Workforce shortages came in third.
  • A little more than 350 execs responded to the survey and ranked 11 concerns their facilities faced last year. Behavioral health and addiction issues, patient satisfaction, care access, physician-hospital relations, tech, population health management and company reorganization filled in the remaining slots.

Dive Insight:

No matter which cog in the healthcare system one blames for the skyrocketing costs of healthcare (big pharma inflating the list prices of drugs; hospitals for upmarking services; insurers for leaving gaps in care resulting in surprise bills) consumers’ pocketbooks aren’t the only ones affected.

A separate American Hospital Association-backed study predicted health systems will lose $218 billion in federal payments by 2028, and private payers (whose dollars would normally help hospitals make up the difference) have been curtailing reimbursements as well.

Bad debt was another fear in the ACHE report. Uncompensated care costs peaked in 2013 at $46.4 billion and, though the figures have decreased slightly since then, hospitals shelled out $38.3 billion in 2016. Wisconsin alone was on the hook for $1.1 billion in uncompensated care in fiscal year 2017.

“The survey results indicate that leaders are working to overcome challenges of balancing limited reimbursements against the rising costs of attracting and retaining talented staff to provide that care, among other things,” ACHE president and CEO Deborah Bowen said in a statement.

Other financial concerns included competition, government funding cuts, the transition to value-based care, revenue cycle management and price transparency.

And 70% of hospital CEOs were worried about shifting CMS regulations in 2018, along with regulatory/legislative uncertainty (61%) and cost of demonstrating compliance (59%) — unsurprising, given the current administration’s track record of unpredictability.

Patient safety and quality of care was also top of mind for health system CEOs, with over half of respondents anxious about the high price of medications, involving physicians in the culture of quality and safety and getting them to reduce unnecessary tests and procedures.

Also of interest was the high rank given to addressing behavioral health and addiction issues, according to Bowen, which ranked fifth in its first year of being included in the survey. The topic has been front and center in the industry of late, in line with the increasing recognition of social determinants of health and the breakdown in silos of care.

Ranking of the issues has remained largely constant since 2016, though in 2017 more hospital CEOs were concerned about personnel shortages than patient safety and quality.

 

Hahnemann University Hospital, St. Christopher’s to share newly-appointed CEO

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Hahnemann, St. Christopher’s were recently sold by Tenet Healthcare to American Academic Health System, a newly-formed affiliate of Paladin Health.

The California healthcare firm that owns both Hahnemann University Hospital and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children has combined leadership of the two well-known Philadelphia institutions under one new chief executive.

Paladin Healthcare created a new affiliate, American Academic Health System, to own and operate Hahnemann and St. Christopher’s. A memo sent to staff this week said that Southern California hospital executive Suzanne Richards took over as CEO for both hospitals Monday,  according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Neither of the previous CEOs, Hahnemann interim CEO Anthony Rajkumar or St. Christopher’s leader George Rizzuto, were mentioned in the memo, the report said.

THE IMPACT

Hahnemann University Hospital is a 496-bed academic medical center affiliated with Drexel University School of Medicine. St. Christopher’s staffs more than 220 pediatric experts and offers both general pediatric care and pediatric specialties including cardiology, ear, nose and throat, gastroenterology, oncology and orthopedics, as well as one of only three Level I pediatric trauma centers in Pennsylvania and the only pediatric burn center in the Philadelphia area.

The hospital also touts an expansive primary and specialty care network that reaches into the Philadelphia suburbs and New Jersey.

THE TREND

The Inquirer report said this is one in a line of management changes American Academic has made since it acquired Hahnemann and St. Christopher’s from Tenet Healthcare in September.

In August, St. Christopher’s laid off 45 people in its physician practices and eliminated an unspecified number of positions also in its physician practices, which amounted to roughly 7 percent of the workforce in the hospital’s practices. Quoting a hospital spokesperson, the report said those being laid off were given severance or offered positions at other American Academic Health System facilities.

Paladin Healthcare formed AAHS to own and operate academic medical centers and general acute care hospitals across the country. Paladin currently manages four Southern California general acute care hospitals as well as the 145-year-old teaching hospital Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC.

Tenet netted roughly $170 million from the sale of Hahnemann and St. Christopher’s, comprised of $152.5 million in cash at closing and a promissory note in the amount of $17.5 million.

ON THE RECORD

At the time of publishing, requests for comment made to Hahnemann, St. Christopher’s and American Academic Health on the change in leadership had not been returned.

On the sale of Hahnemann and St Christopher’s to Paladin/American Academic: “Our leadership team has extensive, first-hand experience in operating hospitals in the Philadelphia market and understands the vital role Hahnemann and St. Christopher’s play in the Philadelphia healthcare delivery system,” said Barry Wolfman, president of Paladin Healthcare. “We appreciate Drexel University College of Medicine’s support and look forward to working closely with the entire physician community to continue the longstanding clinical and academic excellence of both hospitals.”

 

 

Top 5 Areas of Extreme Interest to Healthcare Executives

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http://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/mhe-articles/top-5-areas-extreme-interest-healthcare-executives?rememberme=1&elq_mid=2619&elq_cid=876742

What issues are currently of greatest strategic importance to hospital and health system executives? The Health Care Advisory Board research team conducted the “Advisory Board Research Annual Health Care CEO Survey” to find out.

“While the survey tests interest in a wide range of topics, issues related to margin management—whether through revenue growth or cost control—rose to the top for 2018. In a particularly notable contrast to years’ past, cost control eclipsed revenue growth as executives’ most urgent strategic priority for the year,” says Yulan Egan, practice manager, Advisory Board Research.

The nationwide survey of 146 C-suite executives was conducted between December 2017 and March 2018. This year, the researchers asked respondents to rate 33 issues on a scale of “A” to “F,” with “A” indicating the greatest interest in learning more from Advisory Board researchers about the topic.

Here are the top five areas of interest to hospital and health system executives, based on the survey.

  1. Preparing the enterprise for sustainable cost control

This is the No. 1 concern for hospital executives (62% said they were extremely interested). That’s a higher percentage than any other topic received in the last four years, and 5% higher than for any topic received in 2017.
“The focus on long-term sustainability reflects a belief among healthcare executives that today’s margin pressures are permanent and structural in nature,” says Egan. “As a result, the current focus on cost control does not center on the types of temporary campaigns organizations have historically pursued to weather an economic downturn or a sudden shift in reimbursement policy.  Instead, executives are looking for strategies to permanently bend the expense curve; doing so will require radical improvements to cost structure, such as redesigning staffing models, rationalizing service lines across their market, and even transforming their facility footprint,” she says.

2.  Innovative approaches to expense reduction

For the second year in a row, C-Suite executives voted this as the No. 2 area of interest (56% of executives were extremely interested)

The healthcare cost problem has executives looking to go beyond the tried-and-true cost strategies of the past, according to Egan.

“Of particular interest today are strategies for controlling expense growth while avoiding mass lay-offs and other major drivers of employee disengagement,” she says. “Executives are also exploring the need to invest in innovative new technologies—like artificial intelligence—to drive drastic improvements in productivity and efficiency.”

3.  Exploring diversified, innovative revenue streams

This number 3 area of interest (56%) has ranked near the top for the past two years.

“Executives increasingly believe that relying on conventional determinants of market share—such as competing for referrals from independent physicians—will be insufficient for driving necessary levels of revenue growth,” Egan says. “Instead, hospitals and health systems are shifting their focus to include nontraditional sources of growth, such as contracting directly with employers, commercializing intellectual property, and launching innovation hubs.”

4.  Boosting outpatient procedural market share

This response has also ranked near the top for the past two years, with 50% of executives being extremely interested in this topic this year.

Technology advancements, reimbursement shifts, high deductibles, and evolving patient expectations continue the outmigration of care away from the inpatient setting, according to the survey.

“With lower barriers to entry in the outpatient setting, health systems find themselves in an increasingly competitive landscape, despite having made heavy investments in ambulatory care in recent years,” Egan says. “Successfully securing and growing outpatient market share will require hospitals and health systems to compete on the basis of convenience, service, and affordability—not just their clinical capabilities or brand.”

5.  Meeting rising consumer demands for service

According to the survey, 50% of executives are extremely interested in this topic.

“As transparency in healthcare has grown thanks to services such as Yelp, service experience is becoming more important than ever before,” Egan says. “Hospitals and health systems are also facing pressure from a growing number of consumer-focused competitors who are raising the bar on experience before, during, and after episodes of care.”

The goal, according to Egan, is to not only meet—but exceed—consumer expectations. For this, “executives will need to think holistically about improving patients’ experience with their system, from the moment they search for a provider to the point at which they ultimately pay their bill,” she says.

 

GOOGLE NABS FORMER CLEVELAND CLINIC CEO TOBY COSGROVE

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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/google-nabs-former-cleveland-clinic-ceo-toby-cosgrove?utm_source=silverpop&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20180724_HLM_Daily%20(1)&spMailingID=13929895&spUserID=MTY3ODg4NTg1MzQ4S0&spJobID=1442043383&spReportId=MTQ0MjA0MzM4MwS2

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The tech giant is looking to the former exec for guidance on addressing healthcare improvement in a way that could reduce burden on providers.

Toby Cosgrove, MD, the Cleveland Clinic’s former top executive, will share a stage Tuesday afternoon with several colleagues from his new employer: Google.

Cosgrove, who served as the clinic’s CEO from 2004 through 2017, signed on as an executive advisor to the Google Cloud Healthcare and Life Sciences team, the company announced in a blog post last week. An update to his LinkedIn profile indicates he’s been in the role since January.

As part of his new role, Cosgrove will join National Institutes of Health Chief Information Officer Andrea Norris for a conversation Tuesday about how advances in cloud computing are changing healthcare.

Those advances can help stakeholders go beyond achieving the triple-aim of healthcare improvement—better patient experience, improved population health, and reduced cost—to add a fourth aim, according to Gregory J. Moore, MD, PhD, vice president of healthcare for Google Cloud, who will moderate the conversation.

Although advances in technology have added to the recordkeeping burden on healthcare workers, people like Cosgrove can help companies like Google improve the work experience of physicians and their staff, Moore wrote in the blog post.

“Technology may have been the cause of some of these challenges, but we believe that it can also be the cure,” Moore wrote.

Cosgrove, who retired from Cleveland Clinic in January, also joined the board of Denver-based healthcare IT company RxRevu, as HealthLeaders Media reported last month.

Cosgrove’s successor, Tomislav “Tom” Mihaljevic, MD, has been the clinic’s CEO since January.