Podcast Summary: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Guest: Dr. Alen Voskanian, COO & Vice President, Cedars-Sinai Medical Network
Host: Laura Dearda
Date: August 30, 2025
Length: ~18 min (content only)

Episode Overview

This episode centers on the operational innovations and leadership philosophy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Network, particularly focusing on the evolution of its physician-operations dyad leadership model, efforts to improve patient access to care, the integration of technology and AI, and strategies for building a resilient healthcare organization in the changing landscape.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Dr. Voskanian’s Background and Cedars-Sinai Overview

• Introduction to Role and Journey
  • Physician by training, still sees patients to stay connected with frontline issues.
    • “I always make time to see patients because I think as a physician leader, it gives me an opportunity to have my fingers on the pulse of what our physicians are experiencing.” [01:13]
  • Moved into leadership after realizing the impact of operational improvements, earned an MBA.
  • Cedars-Sinai Medical Network: rapid geographic and operational growth, foundation model, multi-specialty group, dominant primary care footprint across Los Angeles.

Physician-Operational Dyad Leadership Model

• Development and Impact

  • The model pairs each operational leader with a physician counterpart at every leadership level.
  • Aims to bridge common divides between clinical and administrative teams:
    • “Often the source of that conflict is when clinicians…feel like they do not have a voice in how operations are running. In my opinion, having a truly kind of well developed and a strong dyad leadership model helps in addressing those conflicts.” [03:56]
  • Benefits realized in clinician wellness, access improvement, and reducing burnout.

• Lessons Learned in Implementation

  • Right People: Must be collaborative, servant leaders, willing to focus on mutual goals.
  • Goal Alignment: Both dyads—including physicians—are educated on and accountable for budgets and key performance indicators.
    • “Now both dyads carry their department's budget target. That's just one example of creating alignment.” [07:47]
  • Training: Intensive education on lean methodologies and continuous improvement ­(“A3”/root cause analysis) to create shared understanding and process language.
  • Trust and Autonomy: Empower dyad pairs to innovate and problem-solve at the department level with minimal escalations.
    • “To truly rely on the system, you need to trust the dyad pair.” [09:18]

Top Strategic Issues for Cedars-Sinai

• 1. Patient Access to Care

  • Access is the dominant challenge—both technologically and operationally.

    • “Access is, I look at access from a patient centered lens. And access is when a patient wants to get care at a specific time, can they get that care at that specific time?” [10:43]

  • Patient expectations now shaped by other industries (e.g., booking restaurants, movies online).

  • Barriers include:

    • Scheduling difficulties (phone and digital)
    • Limited clinician availability
    • Historical constraints of office hours not matching patient needs
    • Long specialist wait times impacting care outcomes

  • Approach to Access Improvement:

    • Initial focus: building actionable data sets, dashboards, and KPIs to measure access.
    • Current phase: operationalizing improvement initiatives, setting targets, leveraging dyad teams for accountability and innovation.
    • “Access is such a big challenge that it cannot be fixed overnight. It's a journey that will take a few years. But I'm so excited that we are kind of in the middle of that journey.” [14:02]

Future Growth and Opportunities

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Technology:
  • AI will enhance—not replace—physicians by reducing administrative burdens and improving clinical focus.
    • “AI will add value in a way that will allow physicians to spend more time with their patients.” [15:13]
  • Examples:
    • Ambient listening/scribe devices: generate visit notes during patient encounters, freeing clinicians from documentation.
      • “When physicians...use ambient devices for their visits, they often rave about...being able to actually make eye contact with their patients and be fully present during that visit, and also the amount of time it saves for them with documentation after the visit.” [16:00]
    • Virtual care teams: using AI to pre-gather information for virtual visits, streamlining workflows and expanding reach.
      • “A patient engages with AI, answers questions, the AI creates a summary of that. So then when the physician is seeing the patient, they already have a summary and...provide the care virtually.” [17:00]
  • Virtual and remote care seen as vital to solving the access challenge nationwide.

Leading Healthcare Organizations into the Future

• What It Takes to Thrive:
  • Unwavering focus on patient care as the core mission—“our true north.”
  • Balancing quality care and patient experience with operational efficiency and resource constraints.
    • “Organizations that are able to manage the financial challenges...and provide excellent, great, high quality, high experience care with less resources...are going to be thriving...” [19:00]

Notable Quotes

• “I always make time to see patients because I think as a physician leader, it gives me an opportunity to have my fingers on the pulse of what our physicians are experiencing.” – Dr. Voskanian, [01:13]
• “Having a truly kind of well developed and a strong dyad leadership model helps in addressing those conflicts. Because clinicians become involved in operations, they have a voice and they partner with their leadership team in addressing some of the challenges...” – Dr. Voskanian, [03:56]
• “Now both dyads carry their department's budget target. That's just one example of creating alignment.” – Dr. Voskanian, [07:47]
• “And so what keeps me up at night and what I think is one of the biggest challenges in our healthcare system, in every healthcare system, is access to care.” – Dr. Voskanian, [12:13]
• “AI will add value in a way that will allow physicians to spend more time with their patients.” – Dr. Voskanian, [15:13]
• “Organizations that are able to manage the financial challenges...and provide excellent, great, high quality, high experience care with less resources...are going to be thriving...” – Dr. Voskanian, [19:00]

Timestamped Highlights

• 00:42–02:45 | Dr. Voskanian’s role, career path, and Cedars-Sinai’s geographic and operational expansion
• 03:06–05:36 | Success of the dyad leadership model and its advantages
• 06:06–09:38 | Lessons learned in implementing dyad model, goal alignment, and lean training
• 10:05–14:22 | Top strategic focus: improving patient access to care and leveraging data/KPIs
• 14:56–18:03 | How AI and virtual care are transforming workflows and expanding access
• 18:32–19:48 | Essentials for organizational leadership and thriving in the next five years

Takeaways

This episode underscores the transformative impact of collaborative leadership structures, data-driven access strategies, and technological innovation in healthcare delivery. Dr. Voskanian presents a vision where patient-centered care, operational excellence, and purposeful adoption of AI and virtual solutions pave the way for a thriving, resilient healthcare future.