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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Donnie Rosario, System Vice President of Laboratory Services at CommonSpirit Health
00:14:44
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- [00:02]
A
Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings healthcare leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues facing the industry. And every year, those conversations shift in profound and unexpected ways. This April, more than 3,500 healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's 16th annual meeting. 795 elite speakers will offer new lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what comes next. Join us April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalview.com and click on the events tab in the upper right.
- [00:38]
B
Hello and welcome to the Becker Healthcare Podcast. My name is Chanel Bunger. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Donnie Rosario, system vice president of Laboratory services at Common Spirit Health, who joins the podcast today to share insights into his background healthcare trends he's keeping an eye on and. And a bit more. Donnie, thank you so much for joining me.
- [00:57]
C
Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.
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B
Perfect. Well, to get us started out, could you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about Common Spirit Health?
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C
Sure. Well, I'm Donnie Rosario and I lead laboratory services for Common Spirit. And Common Spirit is one of the largest not for profit health systems in the country. We operate 138 hospitals with a significant ambulatory presence across 24 states. And so what that means really from a lab perspective is we support over 4300 laboratory professionals and perform just about 100 million billable tests per year, supporting anywhere from academic medical centers all the way to critical access hospitals. A little bit about me. My path in healthcare, I would say, is pretty diverse, spans over 25 years. I started my career actually in the Navy, which really kind of shaped how I think about leadership and accountability and how I approach operations. And then from there I went into leading hospital laboratories at the facility level, then moved into divisional performance improvement roles. And that work really did extend well beyond the lab. Focused more on hospital quality and on throughput utilization and capacity management. And then later I transitioned more into strategy and business development as well as advanced analytics. And that really kind of deepened my appreciation for a lot of different areas within healthcare and healthcare business. And really that's, you know, all that comes together now and how I show up in my role today and, you know, working alongside teams and driving operational consistency across laboratory services for Common Spirit.
- [02:44]
B
Got it. Thank you so much for the introduction. And now moving forward into the meat of the podcast a bit, can you talk about the trends that you're watching either in laboratory services or. Or just healthcare overall?
- [02:55]
C
Great question. When I step back and really look at laboratory services and even the broader support services space. I think there are a few trends that rise to the top. For me, I would say one area is human capital. What we're seeing is that the conversation is moving away from just hiring and filling vacancies and it's really become more about how the work itself is designed and challenging. How we've historically looked at things like skill mix and workflow and ensuring that our people are really spending time on the work that truly requires their level of training. And you know, I think how we responded to that is with a lot of input from our team leaders by developing more sophisticated staffing models. You know, those models incorporate skill mix expectations and productivity benchmarking and they're scalable based on volume and complexity. So the goal there is really about giving leaders a clear, data grounded understanding of what good looks like so that staffing conversations are much more consistent, much more objective, and they're easier to act on across very different settings. I'd say the second trend that I think about is financial pressure and capital positioning. It's no secret that reimbursement and inflation pressures continue to shape how we operate. What's been critical for us is having strong partnerships and particularly when it comes to the lab and lab capital, our partnership with the finance teams and with supply chain and IT and with real estate and facilities, it's really bridging the gap with these teams to be able to function in a much more consistent way and have capital or evaluate capital in a much more intentional way. So by aligning those kind of common ROI logic and looking at life cycle planning the same way, we've been able to make capital decisions in a much more predictable way and are able to better align with capacity needs as well as our long term strategies. Then I would say the third area is, is around data automation and digital enablement. And you know, at our scale, variation is, is inevitable. But what really matters is how well we understand that variation. We've been very fortunate to work with strong analytics and operational teams to develop strong and informative data and, and that's really given our leaders the opportunity to have data and information to use and to hold themselves accountable to. So, you know, internal benchmarking has been especially helpful and not, not just as competition, but as a way for, for us to learn about one another and, and really be able to identify some of those best practices that are working and be able to scale that. And when we've leaned into automation or digital tools, it's been very targeted, it's been focused on reducing manual work and really optimizing those workflows, that makes a lot of sense.
- [06:10]
B
And I'm curious to hear, when you think about your work as a healthcare leader, what achievements make you the proudest of your team? And what are you most focused on and excited about right now?
- [06:20]
C
That's a great question. I think our biggest focus right now is building a laboratory operating model that not only can sustain itself, but one that evolves quickly. Especially when you think about being, you know, AI, adoption, etc. But keeping quality and access and cost and workforce resilience at the center. You know, I think that strategy is really not the hard part. That's easy. Execution is really where it gets challenging, especially at our scale. So what I'm, what I'm most proud of is really the progress that we've made together in closing that gap. And I want to kind of dive into a few specific areas. One would be our decision infrastructure and the way we approach change at the size of common spirit. The risk is not whether or not we have ideas, we have plenty of those. It's really about the potential of having slow decision making or inconsistent adoption and, or strategies that don't really translate into practice. And so working closely with our regional and market leaders, we really have focused on building work groups across each of our laboratory specialties that are made up of operators throughout the system. And their role is not just about reacting to direction. They're the ones that really help us shape the strategy, they help validate it and also they translate into operational reality. So that workforce structure, that work group structure really has strengthened our trust and improved adoption and has really helped us accelerate our decision making process while still protecting that local need and local expertise. And then I'd also say, you know, when we think about strategy into action with input from our leaders across the system, we've been very deliberate about documenting the pathways to success. And each strategy that we've devised is really broken down into specific tactics and then those tactics drill down into service level KPIs which then cascade into role specific goals. That level of clarity has really helped us provide leaders, leaders across the organization with, you know, being able to have clear conversations that are grounded in data and that are, that are not based on just opinion. It's, it's more about having that shared accountability and them feeling supported to be able to execute. And then I would say test stewardship is another area where we've really excelled and that we're proud of as well. We've, you know, framed that initiative really around clinical appropriateness and unwarranted variation, it's led to a lot of cost savings and efficiencies across the organization. And physician partners and lab leaders were really part of building that approach and building that solution, and that's made the adoption really great. So collaboration has been key there. And then I would say the last piece would be our capital positioning. I mentioned capital earlier, but, you know, historically capital decisions were more locally driven and in partnership with finance teams, we really elevated that to more of a system level approach. And that's really kind of brought more operational consistency and helped us look at how we evaluate and deploy capital with a much more strategic lens. And a big part of that has been developing equipment formularies. We've gone into very specific equipment categories to understand which vendors are we going to partner with, what technology do we need, and then what kind of capacity do we need to support the facility and their complexity. So that's been a very thoughtful process and I think the document that's really important.
- [10:37]
B
Absolutely. And I'd love to hear from your perspective, drawing from your time, from the Navy and your healthcare leadership journey, what advice would you give to the next generation of leaders stepping into the field today?
- [10:48]
C
Well, that. That's a great question and I always appreciate being able to share my perspective on that. And, you know, I think a few things kind of jump out to me. One would be leading with clarity. I think people are far more resilient and capable than we sometimes give them credit for. And they can handle the hard work, they can handle complexity, and they can handle the change. But where we get into trouble, I feel, is if things are unclear or ambiguous, that can slow teams down. And so being clear about priorities and expectations and what success actually looks like is what creates momentum. I would say that trust is another area, or building trust and then supporting that with precision and with competence. As you move higher in an organization or within your profession, having direct control really kind of just diminishes. So trust becomes really your operating system. Really trust alone is not enough. It has to be reinforced with, with competence and with clear data and with goal setting, et cetera. But really trust and competence go together and really building a bridge and being able to be successful in any organization. And then third, I would emphasize that change leadership is probably something that has really evolved over time. And change leadership over change management, I think is key as well. Change management is more about individual tasks and timelines, whereas change leadership, we really focus more on helping people understand the why and the how and the what and really bring them to the table. When it comes to the how and the what. And I've been fortunate enough to work with leaders and partners who are willing to engage in that dialogue and challenge assumptions and help shape the solutions. And that's really been a big difference for me. And then finally, I'd say that staying curious and inviting feedback, the process of getting better is never ending. Some of the most meaningful growth that we, I think, experience and that I've experienced in my career has come from mentors and peers and teams who were willing to be transparent with me and give me constructive feedback and challenge my ideas. So I think creating a space for that kind of dialogue definitely builds strong leaders and better outcomes over time.
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B
Excellent advice. Well, Donny, I want to thank you for your time today, but before I let you go, is there anything else that listeners should know?
- [13:38]
C
Well, I would say healthcare is complex and it's certainly moving fast. I think what's helped me and what's helped us some, you know, is really staying grounded in the fundamentals is investing in people and being disciplined with data and with capital and translating strategy into clear, actionable work that we can all understand and then be able to tell the story about. So I'll end where I started or where I mentioned earlier. I really do think that trust and precision are accelerators. And when teams trust the process and trust the data and you understand what's expected of you, and of course, the teams understand what to expect, I think complex work really moves quickly and really nothing becomes impossible.
- [14:30]
B
Love it. Well, Donny, that's a great note to end on, and I want to thank you once again for your time today and for sharing your insights on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. Thank you so much.
- [14:39]
C
Thank you very much.