← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Advancing Whole-Child Health and Payment Innovation at Nemours Children’s Health
00:12:38
Loading summary
Transcript18 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is Madeline Ashley with the Becker CFO and Revenue Cycle Podcast. And I'm excited to be joined today by Caswell Sams iii, Executive Vice President and CFO of Nemor Children's Health. Caswell, thanks so much for joining me.
- [00:14]
B
Hello. Happy to be here. Looking forward to the discussion today.
- [00:17]
A
Same here. So before we kick things off, do you mind sharing with our listeners just a little bit about your background and NEEMOR Children's?
- [00:26]
B
Sure wanted to share with you real quickly. My name is Caswell Sams. As you said, I am the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Nemours Children's Health. You know, I can share a little bit about my background. You know, I've worked in healthcare for more than 27 years. Looking forward to the discussion today. I worked in a variety of different capacities as Chief Financial Officer from New York City Health and hospital Corporation to WellStar Health System to St. Joseph's in Patterson, New Jersey, which I just arrived from. And now as a part of a very special organization, Nemours Children's Health, which is highly focused on providing whole child health care to the pediatric population. We serve. And Nemours is one of the top pediatric health care systems across the nation. In multiple geography, we provide services to the pediatric populations in Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, just to say the least. And we do have a lot of patients who come internationally as well as across the United States to seek some of the special services that we provide here at Nemours Children's Health.
- [01:44]
A
Thank you so much for sharing that background there. I want to kick us off with by asking you maybe two to three trends that you're currently following in healthcare today, even more specifically in children's and in pediatrics healthcare, and why these trends are so important to you.
- [02:02]
B
Yeah, I probably would say there are very significant topics that I think all healthcare leaders are following. Number one, I'd probably say the impacts of the budget reconciliation bill as pertains to the pediatric population, especially specific to Medicaid funding. We are also a research organization, so we're monitoring the impacts of the NIH research funding as well. And then across all institutions, I think organizations are monitoring the impact of tariffs. As we continue to make investments in our organization. What I would probably say I think is the most important for our organizations at Nemours because we're not taking our eye off the ball. We're still focused on our strategic initiatives. We continue to focus on what I would say are value based care, ongoing work to prevent and mitigate childhood chronic illnesses, which is our primary focus. And also we continue to see what we can do to advance healthcare technologies, either through artificial intelligence or other mechanisms. That's both important to us from a top three perspective as it relates to no more children's health.
- [03:09]
A
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts here. Obviously this was big news recently. The GOP bill just passed the Senate. Now it heads to to the House. And I'm sure this could even change, you know, in the next few days. But how are you and your finance team kind of monitoring here? Are you coming up with a plan A, B and C? What does that look like for you?
- [03:35]
B
For Nemours, we are not in any type of panic mode. We are staying strategically focused. We are monitoring, we are advocating, we are talking about the importance of pediatric healthcare and the appropriate funding. But we are not going to panic. We are not going to take our eye off the ball. We are going to remain steadfast in our strategic investments to the community that we continue to serve. But it's as also organizations are doing. We are continuing to monitor what's happening, continue to make the appropriate advocacy, but also continue to make sure that we invest in growth, we invest in technology, and we invest in all the things that are required from a whole child health perspective.
- [04:15]
A
Could you share maybe some things that you're really excited about right now at Nemours, looking to the end of 2025, even into the next few years?
- [04:24]
B
Yeah, I can share a number of things. I'd probably say the first, I would start with our strategy around whole child health. That pertains to not just what we do inside the wall, but outside the walls of our pediatric healthcare population. Whole child health for us is a family centered approach which allows us to integrate healthcare and a different, more broader philos. We say probably one of the most fundamental problems in healthcare today. As Americans, we equate medical care with health. For us, whole child health really involves the whole person, not just separate organisms and body parts. We are really focused on how we can promote a child's optimal health by developing their well being, improving their quality of life, which we believe will lead to better healthcare outcomes and, and doing this through a multitude of even payment reforms as well as things that we can do by partnering with some of our community based providers and partnering with our pediatrics, looking at social determinants of health and also including the family and our approach to pediatric health that's critically important to us here at Nemours and the things that we're doing from a strategic perspective. Another item I think is critically important to us is we're pioneering a new payment model with Delaware. The first of any type of payment model which call referred to as our global budget. This allows us to realign our incentives from a financial perspective to more of a health outcome rather than volume. Just emphasize prevention, emphasizes addressing our non medical health drivers. Hopefully we'll be able to use this model and this investment that we're making in our global budget with the State of Delaware to be able to improve healthcare outcomes not only for our patient population, but also allow other organizations and other healthcare institutions to partner with their state to have a better impact on the value of life for the pediatric population. We just received our CMS approval in May of 2025. So looking forward to continuing this partnership with the State of Delaware as we continue to try and implement this new payment model which is going to be something that we believe will be second to none from a value perspect compared to anything you can do from a value based improvement for any healthcare institution and for the pediatric population that we're serving.
- [06:58]
A
Thank you for sharing some of those that exciting movement at the organization. You know, you've been with this system since I believe late March is when it was announced. So you know you have a few months under your belt. Could you share how you're thinking about growth over the next 12 months to even 24 months?
- [07:18]
B
Yes. For us, you know, I have the luxury of coming in on a great strategic expansion. So we're making some significant capital investments in our organization in order to expand what we're doing, I can tell you, in the Delaware Valley area, we're expanding our advanced delivery program which provides advanced care to high risk newborns and mothers. This will allow us to include a new labor and delivery unit, some antepartum postpartum rooms, as well as as operating rooms for both fetal and maternal care. The other investment that we're making here in the Delaware Valley area is our Lisa Dean Moseley Foundation Institute for Cancer and Blood Disorders. It's going to be a family centered design that will help us greatly expand care, provide immediate impact treatment and research as it relates to the cancer services we provide. Expand inpatient and outpatient services in our partnership with the Lisa Dean Moseley Foundation. That's going to be state of the art cancer services that you continue to receive at Nemours and a strategic investment that will allow us to expand and be able to provide these services to more of the pediatric population in the region we serve. The other item I would definitely add is our expansion in Florida. So we're currently focused on what we want to do to impact the pediatric population in Florida. Nemours serves over 300,000 children in Florida. So we believe that expansion in our Orlando campus as it relates to emergency room services, expanding our hospital beds as well as our observation rooms, growing our orthopedic program, limb correction program, as well as sports medicine, and creating new state of the art facilities and imaging at our Orlando campus will continue to help us impact the growth that we need within our organization. So that for us is second to none. The other thing we're focused on is access. Access is critical to us, so we're really focused on being able to provide immediate access to our patient population. So expanding access, whether or not it's investing in new services or locations like our Malvern location in Pennsylvania, but also expanding our virtual health platform, which right now serves over 100,000 businesses on an annual basis. And we continue strategic investments in primary care because we believe that is critical in order to provide additional access to our patient population that we serve.
- [09:50]
A
Sounds like a lot of exciting growth right now at Nemours. So thank you so much for sharing. Final question for you here. You mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that you've been in healthcare for, I believe you said, 27 years or around 27 years. Could you share with our listeners how you seen finance or the CFO role evolve in health care during your time and where you think it's headed?
- [10:15]
B
Wow, that is a great question. I probably say I have seen the CFO switch from being more of your normal accountant to be more of a strategic visionary. Somebody who is there to not only count what you do, but also be a strategic partner for the CFO and the executive operators. Be able to make sure that the organization is focused on growth, it's making the appropriate investments from an asset perspective, but also understanding what's important from a quality of care perspective, what's important from an inpatient experience perspective. So not only do I need to understand the financial aspects of our business, I need to understand our business. I need to be able to collaborate with our physicians, our operators. I need to be able to have discussions with the investments that we want to make and not only to explain it to the board from a financial perspective, but also have the operational insight that is needed to make sure that, hey, I can explain it to you as though I was a person being able to deliver the service and care myself. Like I tell the team all the time, you know, my goal is to be the number one cheerleader for the clinical and operator leaders of our organization. And I'm always committed to do that. So my goal is not only to just, you know, be there and support you from behind the scenes, but I want to be in there with you as we make the appropriate investments. I want to walk the walk and talk the talk. And I think it's critically important to have a CFO that's going to be not just a person who is looking at the numbers, but also understanding what's behind the numbers. And I spent a lot of my time with our regional presidents, with our system COO as well as our president and our board of directors, explaining what the appropriate investments are, but also talking about strategy with them as well.
- [12:11]
A
Some really great insights here. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Caswell. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you. I'm excited to see all the exciting things happening at Nemours, and I look forward to connecting with you again down the line.
- [12:24]
B
Thank you so much. I appreciate your time today. And you are correct. A lot of exciting things happen at Nemours. Children's Health.
- [12:32]
A
Definitely. We'll keep our eyes out. Thanks so much.
- [12:34]
B
Thank you.