← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:00]
Scott Becker
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Healthcare Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by Bill Gassen. Bill's the CEO and president at Sanford Health. Sanford Health has grown into almost a $12 billion plus system. It's the most prestigious system in the upper Midwest today. They've just an incredible job of handling rural areas, probably better than any other system in the country. What they do at what they do. We're to talk today a lot about Bill's leadership, also about leveraging technology to help continue to expand access and strategic partnership and transform healthcare. Bill, we're so thrilled to have you with us today. Can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Sanford Health?
- [00:47]
Bill Gassen
Yeah, I would love to. Scott, obviously appreciate the opportunity here to be with you. And I don't know if I should say anything else after that type of an introduction. I think it probably only goes down from there, but just let you know, I mean, it really is a pleasure to be at Sanford Health. We're blessed with an incredible organization of talented, dedicated caregivers, close to 56,000 team members that we have the privilege of serving with every day. And they come around the mission at this organization, which is to care, comfort, and cure. And that's really what the driving force is behind everything that we do. But we have background. I've been privileged to be at this organization now for 14 years, and healthcare is near and dear to my heart. I was fortunate enough to grow up in an incredible home where my father sort of always tells his story. He has two jobs. His first 24 years, he served active duty in the United States Air Force. And that really gave us an opportunity to move around and to see the world growing up. And at the same time, it gave my mother an opportunity to do something that she loved, and that was make sure that she had a career where she could serve, make sure that she had a career where she was able to be challenged and fulfill, both intellectually as well as from the heart. But she also needed to make sure she had a career that was portable. My father would get orders and we would move to a new Air Force base. And the perfect blend of that for her was nursing. And so I grew up in a home where my mother for nearly four decades served as a rn. And that was sort of my first foray into healthcare. And it really lit the fire for me on understanding and appreciating how critical it is to serve our patients. And then at the same time, my most important role in life as I get to serve as the husband and my wife, Jill, now just here in a couple of weeks, 21 years, we have five beautiful children that we get the opportunity to raise. And my wife serves in healthcare. For the last 20 years, she's served as a physician's assistant, working in general surgery for the VA Medical Center. And so between mom and my wife, they've done a great job of keeping me focused on what matters most, which is our patients. And I'd say that's really our driving force at Sanford Health, whether it's the most rural and geographically isolated communities that we have the privilege of serving or whether it's a little bit more densely populated. At the end of the day, we always say that every decision ends with a patient. And with that focus and then that commitment to channel all of the resources that we have here at Samford Health to serve those patients, that allows us to do some of the things that you've talked about, Scott. And so it's just a privilege to be able to share a little bit more about the great organization, the wonderful teammates that we have, and the great patients we have a privilege of serving.
- [03:40]
Scott Becker
Thank you. And for people that don't know, the Stanford serves a very rural area, a very broad area. I'm going to ask you about a couple trends today. And in those trends that you're watching today, I'd love you to take a moment to comment on expectations or concerns around changes in government reimbursement, the temperature and dealing with payers today. And do systems need to keep on getting bigger? Obviously, Sanford Health has gotten a lot bigger over the last 14 years since you started there. Talk to us about some of the trends you're watching, maybe tie in a little bit. And reimbursement concerns payers and whether systems got to keep on getting bigger.
- [04:15]
Bill Gassen
Yeah, first and foremost, like many out there in the field right now, paying really close attention to the promise of AI, as you mentioned, Scott, we're also paying really close attention to the power and the impact of sustainability that we're able to achieve through strategic partnerships. And again, at the end of the day, of continuing to maintain our focus on our patients, our people, and the communities we have the privilege of serving. I'll start off with really the promise of AI and as you know very well, Scott, you can't go very far without hearing a conversation about it. And I think that's for good reason. I believe that having leaned into technology throughout our history at Sanford Health, we've seen that continue to transform the work that we do. What we do never changes, but we believe very firmly that how we do that has to continue to evolve and change to meet the ever changing demands of, of our patients, of our people and the communities that we serve. And I think, as we see that very clearly over these last couple of years, we've seen a level of acceleration with technology that we haven't seen previously. And I don't know, as we look ahead to the future, if we'll see that again. But such a rapid increase in the advances of technology, and we've tried to usher that in. At Sanford Health, one of the ways that we've been able to look at bringing AI, just a small example, is by bringing that into the clinic spaces. Our physicians and our clinicians are interacting with our patients by leveraging ambient listening. And for us, using that has allowed us to return a greater level of joy to those sites of care. First and foremost, it allows our caregivers to spend more time directly face to face with their patients, which is what they want to do. And it's what their patients want to do at the same time that allows them to have a greater level of efficiency, to spend more time with more patients to help close some of those access gaps. And then very, very importantly, and we have testimony from one of our probably busiest primary care physicians who said that since having the opportunity to begin using and implementing ambient listening in his clinic, it's allowed him to actually leave the office in time to be able to get home to have dinner with his family for the first time in his career without feeling like he's shorting time with his patients. And so I think when we're able to hit on all of those areas where we're able to create greater connectivity between our patients and our providers, we're able to close that access gap and be able to deliver more care to more patients, and then to do and do so in a way that creates greater joy and satisfaction for our clinicians, allowing them to not only be great in the clinic, but also to be great at home and their lives outside of the workplace. We're doing really well, and I think that's the type of promise that we're being able to already see right away with the advent of artificial intelligence. But then I also think too, as we look forward and we continue to see that implemented in the ways in which we deliver care, we're going to continue to see an increase in that clinical precision. And I think that that has really unmatched opportunity for promise as we look ahead to the future from a sustainability perspective through strategic partnerships. Scott as you know, well, at Sanford Health we've benefited from years and years of great strategic partnerships. We've had a wonderful privilege of partnering with great community hospitals and health systems, great physician groups. We've had an incredible opportun to come together with other physician aligned and sponsored health plans as well too, which has allowed us to create this organization that we have the privilege of stewarding today called Samford Health. It's a big part of how we've been able to be successful and I think that'll continue to be a really big part of how we're successful into the future. For us at Sanford Health, it's never been about, nor will it ever be about size for the sake of size. But instead it's finding great mission aligned organizations where they have complimentary capabilities and that strong commitment to continue to serve rural America with world class care. As you talked about today at Sanford Health, the nearly two and a half million patients we have the privilege of serving, two thirds of those patients live in rural communities. In addition to that, we've got, you know, more than 70% of the residents who we serve through our long term and post acute side of the house come to us from rural communities. And, and then in addition to that, greater than 50% of the members through our health plans at Sanford Health Plan and Security Health Plan all come to us from rural communities. It's who we are, it's what we do. And we believe that's part of our special calling at Sanford Health is to make sure that we're delivering world class care to every single one of our patients, regardless of their zip code.
- [09:11]
Scott Becker
Thank you, Bill. Remarkable what you're doing. Take a moment. Diane, what are you most proud of and excited about this year? What are you most proud of that Sanford's doing? Sanford Dallas is doing? We've talked a little about ambient listening and working to give doctors and clinicians back some more time. You talked about the commitment to doing great, great work in the most rural of areas. What are you most proud of? And then what are you most excited about?
- [09:36]
Bill Gassen
Yeah, if I think back over the last nearly five years where I've had the privilege of serving in this role as the President CEO of Sanford Health, some of the things that we set out for some really bold and ambitious goals and objectives for this organization, first and foremost was to continue to improve the quality of care that we deliver to every patient, to every resident and every member. In addition to that, to make sure that as we do that work that we want to continue to make sure that we are the best place not only receive care, but, but to deliver care, to work at and to serve at and to make sure that we're doing that in a way that is sustainable from a long term perspective, both for our patients and our members as well as for our providers and our clinicians. When I think back of the things that I'm probably most proud about at this organization, probably the top of that list is really that march towards high quality, high reliable organization that we set out to be. We set a goal that we were going to reduce our serious safety events at this organization by 80%. That's a pretty bold target to set. Especially when we establish that at the end of 2020 for this organization. And I'm proud to say that today our leaders, our clinicians have worked really hard. We have markets within our system that have already achieved a greater than 80% reduction. And as a collective system we're nearing closer and closer on that with each year moving that appropriately across that trend line and firmly believe that we're going to hit that target and probably hit that target and ahead of the time that we set. In addition to that, measuring out our employee net Promoter score, we've continued to see over the last four years that continue to increase each time that we measure that throughout the system. Matter of fact, we just recently closed out our last employee net Promoter score survey. We had 36 was our employee net Promoter score, which for the those who know that matrix well and understand what that looks like within healthcare, that's near top quartile for healthcare providers across the country. And that's something that we're proud of. We're never going to be satisfied with it. We want to continue to see that increase. And then our patient satisfaction scores have continued to rise as well too. Both meeting and exceeding targets that we established within the organization. And so those are three things that I pay very, very close attention to. We share that information both internally and externally within the organization. We think that's important that people inside and outside of Sanford Health know that. They know that that's what we're focused on. And then of course, like all systems, we need to focus on making sure that we can do things in a financially sustainable way. Through the great stewardship, the incredible work of our clinicians, of our leaders throughout the organization. We were able to do all that this last year. And having achieved a 5.2% operating margin, that doesn't happen on accident. That happens because we have incredibly dedicated hard working people in this organization that are focused on doing everything that they can to create long term sustainability. And then really exciting. Over this last year we had the unique opportunity to bring into the organization two incredible new partners. Back in November of 24, we had the opportunity of welcoming to Sanford Health Black Hills Orthopaedic and Spine center and the Black Hills Surgical Hospital out in western South Dakota in Wyoming. Just incredibly talented market leading physicians running an incredible hospital there. We had the opportunity to join in with them at Sanford Health. And then just a few short months later, we were able to welcome in Marchfield Clinic Health System and its plan Security Health plan into Samford Health. And already in a few short months we've seen incredible strides in integrating the systems together and doing the things that are important to continue to advance care, to continue to innovate in special ways that allow us to do more for more patients.
- [13:43]
Scott Becker
Thank you. And Bill, you've had this tremendous leadership career. Lots of different experiences before. Fascinating about your father being in the Air Force, your mother being a physician assistant. What advice, Bill, do you give to emerging leaders? You must meet with. You got 56,000 leaders at your system. What advice do you give to emerging leaders?
- [14:03]
Bill Gassen
Well, I think we know this in healthcare everybody is a leader. Every single role is absolutely critical. And it takes everybody doing what they're supposed to do, working to the absolute top of their ability and their license in order to be able to deliver that world class care to our patients every single day. And so naturally, as you stated there, we have 56,000 leaders in this organization. But it's one thing to be born with the talents that are necessary and essential to be successful, but then it's always what do you do with those talents? And we talk a lot about that at Sanford Health. How are you stewarding the gifts that you've been given? And so that's the important part and we've tried to be really intentional here at Sanford Health is something we'll talk a lot about is that we want to take those leaders and invest in them. And so we have leadership development programs within our organization both for clinicians and non clinicians. We call our clinicians Leadership Development Program rises. And it's really an opportunity to say we recognize those God given abilities and talents that you have and we're going to go ahead and invest in those because like any talent, any ability, you've got to hone it, you've got to work on it each and every day. And so that's a message that I like to share with people is if you've been given the distinct opportunity and the privilege to be in a leadership role, you have to steward it very, very well. And one of the best ways that you can steward that is invest in it, to grow in it and continue to build that out.
- [15:33]
Scott Becker
Thank you, Bill. Words of encouragement in this challenging healthcare economic environment. Give us a few words of encouragement that you would share with your 56,000 caregivers or to any of us. Give us. I know you serve on the board of the aha. You also serve on the board of Oscar Health. Remarkable career. Give us a couple words of positivity and encouragement, if you don't mind.
- [15:53]
Bill Gassen
Yeah, Scott, I'll lead in with this. I have never been more optimistic about the future of healthcare than I am today. You certainly cite, Scott, some challenges, a few headwinds that are out there, a little bit of uncertainty that we're facing. For those who've been serving in healthcare for a long time, you know, that's not new. But what we do know as well is that every time you have these challenging situations in front of you, it's an incredible opportunity to innovate. It creates a great opportunity for us to continue to do what we do, but to do it differently and to continue to improve and to mature what we're doing. And I think with some of the things that we've talked about here today, the advent of technologies, the promise of AI and generative AI, I believe very firmly that we have untapped potential in front of us like we've never seen before. With the incredible advancements of strategic opportunities and partnerships, I think we're going to continue to see us do more for our patients, to do more for communities than we've ever done before. And I'm optimistic about the opportunity to partner with any administration on new ways in which we can innovate, new programs, new ways in which we can do a better job of stewarding our dollars to deliver better care. And I think all of that sits in front of us. And so, Scott, optimism would be the word I'd leave with.
- [17:16]
Scott Becker
You know, I love that. And I've got a chance to know you over the last several years. You're always incredibly inspiring. You're always great at also inspiring those around you in developing teams, which I think is one of the cornerstones of great leaders. Bill, it's always fantastic to visit with you. I always learn something. I've been to the Black Hill Surgery Center. I've seen it up front. I've talked to Marshfield Clinic for years and a wonderful clinic. Congratulations on all the success and what you're doing for people at Sanford Health. Thank you very much for joining us today on the Beckers Healthcare podcast.
- [17:49]
Bill Gassen
Thank you, Scott.