← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
EJ Kuiper, CEO and President of Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System
00:17:27
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- [00:02]
A
@ Athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier a healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier patients. But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make it hard for you and your care teams to focus on what matters most. That's where athenahealth can help our AI native all in one solutions reduce administrative burdens, streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights when clinicians need it most. That means fewer clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice can be that much simpler. With Athenahealth, see how simpler is healthier at athenahealth.com.
- [00:44]
B
This is Laura Deardo with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by E.J. kuyper, Chief Executive Officer and President of Franciscan Mission of Our lady health system. E.J. it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:58]
C
Hey, thanks for having me.
- [01:00]
B
Absolutely. Now I'm excited for our conversation because I know there's so much happening in healthcare today. It's such an essential time for leaders to really look ahead, but also understand some of the big challenges that they have in front of them as well. So I'm excited to talk with you a bit more about this and your perspective on the future. But before we begin, I'm curious, could you introduce yourself and tell us just a little bit more about Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System?
- [01:25]
C
Absolutely. I've now served as president and CEO of FMOL Health for about a year and a half now, and prior to coming to Baton Rouge, served as the division president for the Midwest Division for Common Spirit Health, and prior to that worked for Franciscan Health System in Illinois and started my career with HCA. So it's been a great 18 months or so here in Baton Rouge. As you might know, FMOL Health is based out of Baton Rouge, but we're providing health services across the Gulf south in Louisiana and in Mississippi. And system has been around for well over a century now, and we're still going strong, we're growing, we have strong financials and margins and are poised for another successful year.
- [02:28]
B
That's amazing to hear and, you know, really truly a testament to the great care you're providing and service you're providing the community. And then to have the strong financial situation as well is certainly unique in this moment in time. So that's amazing to hear. When you think about all these things that are going well, what would you say is your biggest winner success story from the last year or so?
- [02:48]
C
Yeah, I think we have, like I mentioned a Strong balance sheet and we're posting very solid margins. And I have very supportive system board and the sisters that are serving on the board always have had the philosophy to invest every dollar that we're making right back into our team members and into our, into the communities that we serve. So, and that's exactly what we've been doing over the last year. We created a strategic plan for the next five years which is really centered around how we're going to grow as a health system. How are we going to provide more access to high quality health care for the patients in the communities that we serve. And so in the first couple of years, we're probably going to continue to focus on organic growth and in the back half of the strategic plan, start looking at inorganic growth. As you can imagine, with our strong balance sheet and our strong reputation as a reliable and attractive partner for collaboration, we receive quite a few phone calls from other health systems or hospitals or physician groups that would like to join our system. But what we want to make sure is that before we invite other members into our family, that we take care of our own people, that we continue to invest in state of the art technology, buildings, hospitals, clinics, et cetera. So that's the way the next five years is laid out. And very excited about the future.
- [04:27]
B
Absolutely. That's fascinating to hear and, you know, truly seems like a great place to be in heading into the next couple of years here. And you know, when you look at all of this, think about the position you're in right now financially, looking at, you know, how you continue to invest in your team and the community, as well as the potential for growth. What are the top two to three issues you're focused on? What's top of mind for you as you're thinking about the decisions you need to make and where you're headed?
- [04:56]
C
Well, like most healthcare leaders these days, we are focused on the impacts of the big beautiful bill and what it will mean for the healthcare industry in general and of course, for FMOL health in particular. We have been successful in moving most of the detrimental impacts of the bill towards later. Right. I think most impacts will not start till July 1 of 28, which gives us a little bit of time to continue to engage with the legislative leaders about the impact of the bill and potential reimbursement cuts. Health care, as you know, is not only vital to all the communities that we serve in, but also is an economic driver. And so we are concerned, just like many of my peers, our health system leaders are, that these cuts will lead to Reduction in high quality health care that's being delivered, perhaps closure of service lines and perhaps even closure of hospitals in particular in the rural areas. A lot of those independent hospitals are struggling already. So if we're going to see these cuts that are going to be implemented in the next few years, that may very well lead them to reduction of services or closure. So we're spending a lot of time on that and making sure that people in Washington, D.C. understand what the implications are of the language as it's written.
- [06:27]
B
In a bill today that makes a lot of sense. And certainly I think there's been a lot of talk about how you can really navigate these next couple of years before, as you mentioned, the impacts of the Ones in Beautiful Bill act come to pass, if they do as they were originally passed. When you take that time to connect with legislators on the local and national level, what is the message that you send? How effective do you effectively are you communicating with these leaders to make sure that as they're considering and evaluating the options, you know, that reimbursement isn't hit in a way that would be detrimental to providing access to care from the community?
- [07:11]
C
Yeah. I'm in particular concerned about the impact for the rural communities. Right. So these hospitals, many of those are still independent, simply don't have the balance sheet, the reserves to be able to sustain those kind of reimbursement cuts. And, you know, sometimes you hear people say, well, if we have to close a hospital in a small rural community, all they have to do is drive 45 or 60 minutes to go to the next hospital. And that sounds perhaps on the surface as something that's doable, except when you have perhaps a massive heart attack. Right. And you don't have the luxury of driving 30, 45, 60 minutes. And I think. I think it's important that people understand that having strong access points in those communities is very important. And we at FMOL Health have large hospitals in urban and suburban areas, but we are currently working on trying to strengthen those access points just in anticipation of perhaps the rural networks starting to weaken. So we have to expand access in our larger hospitals, which is exactly what we're doing right now. And we also have to make sure that we provide specialty and subspecialty coverage and perhaps primary care network coverage for those rural communities. Most of the US population is not in the urban and the suburban markets. As a health system, we really are thinking about in today's environment, where do we need to be? The sisters, when they started this health system 113 years ago, went where the need was identified and we now in 2025 need to do the same thing. And so we are assessing the impact of the bill, are investing where necessary and hope to be ready for what's coming our way in the next several years.
- [09:09]
B
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for digging deeper there. Now, when you think about growth, what are some big opportunities over the next few years? How do you see the health system really continuing to expand its reach and be able in a meaningful way?
- [09:26]
C
Yeah, at our health system, we are strategically positioned for significant growth over the next couple years. We are currently investing in capacity on the acute floors and also expanding our ambulatory footprint. What we anticipate happening is that more and more patients that are really sick need to be transferred to the larger academic centers like our lady of the Lake here in Baton Rouge. So we have about $350 million in capital projects in flight right now that are really focused on positioning ourselves for that increased need in the next couple years. And as you know, we need to invest today in order to be ready for what's coming two or three years from now. So we have a system board meeting coming up actually next week in Monroe. Are bringing another 2 million in projects for consideration, which is all about strengthening those access points in rural areas and increasing capacity in our larger markets. Because we have these favorable margins and a strong balance sheet, we have the luxury of doing that. But before we invested in buildings and state of the art technology, which is really important. The most important investment I think that we've made over the last year, year and a half is in our people, in our team members. We have about 20,000 team members now in our health system. And healthcare at the end of the day is still about people taking care of people. Right. So we're blessed to have state of the art technology and beautiful world class facilities. But if you don't have an engaged workforce that you're taking good care of, you're still not going to be an effective health system. So we're very proud to have been able to partner with the Gallup organization to do a lot of leadership development. We just did a 4% across the board pay increase for all our team members. We have enhanced our benefit package. So it's very important to me and it's very important to the system that we remember that taking care of our people is a leading indicator. Right. We have to make sure that regardless of where healthcare is going and the challenges that might be coming our way, that we always will need our people to get us through the challenges and seize the opportunities that are in front of us.
- [11:58]
B
Absolutely. That's fascinating to hear and really amazing to think about it. First and foremost, the capital projects you talked about getting ready for the future, understanding what's going to be necessary to care for patients, and seeing some of the movement of patients into the larger academic facility as well as more of the ambulatory care too. And then on the workforce side of it, it's just really cool to hear you talk about taking care of your team, making sure they have what they need, and looking at the leadership development as well as the across the board pay bump for team members. At a time today when many healthcare organizations are having to do layoffs or other tightening mechanisms, being able to do that is critical. How do you, I guess when you were connecting with your leadership team and making sure you had space to do this, how did you decide to make that 4% pay bump and what you've really seen as a result?
- [12:55]
C
Well, we were blessed to, to have a very strong financial year and I felt it was important to make sure that we rewarded all the hard work that's being done in the trenches, you know, right at the bedside and a couple of steps away from the bedside. And it shouldn't just mean that we're going to be able to invest in, in capital projects. It means showing our team members that they are a critical part of our current and future success. And you know, we, we organize our strategic tactical framework as a mountain climbing analogy where you start at the base with the mission and we always have every day when we make decisions, during difficult and during good times, we have to remember that those decisions need to be anchored in the mission. And then as you climb the mountain, you go from Camp one all the way to Camp four and ultimately Summit. And for us that means lower at the mountain. It should be focused, we should be focused on leading indicators. And then as you get higher up on the mountain and perhaps try to summit, it becomes more of a lagging indicator. So for us, Camp 1 is all about our employees and it's about our medical staff. You know, we need to make sure that those are well taken care of, that they're highly engaged, that they feel that they're being listened to, that they are part of the decision making structure. And if you have a highly engaged medical staff and you have a highly engaged work staff workforce, that leads to better quality and patient experience, outcomes that leads to brand equity, leads to greater market share and ultimately better financials. We believe that if you focus too much on the financials on the front end, that you have the risk of losing your people. Right. And that you are disconnected from the mission. So we are very, very focused on making sure that we focus on lower part of the mountain, our people and our mission, and that leads to great outcomes down the line.
- [14:56]
B
That's amazing to hear. Thank you for digging a little bit deeper there. Now, before we wrap up our conversation, I wanted to think about the future. What do you think it will take to lead a thriving organization over the next five years or so, given some of the tough challenges as well as big opportunities involved?
- [15:13]
C
I think we must be both visionary and strategic in how we approach growth. You can't just grow for the sake of growth. You have to make sure that you go where the most critical needs are identified. We are operating in an environment that is changing so quickly that we have to be flexible and adaptable as well. Right. I just told you, we wrote a five year strategic plan and it's good to have that, but you also have to realize that things change. And so a refresh has to happen on an annual basis to make sure that the plan is still in line with what's happening in the overall healthcare environment. I think the most important thing is that we create a strong leadership team which we have in place right now, and that we make sure that we take good care of our team members, of our medical staff. I want to make sure that all our facilities, all our clinics, all our hospitals are a destination for clinicians to want to work and for the people behind the scenes that support our clinicians. I want to make sure that when we have openings that people are lining up to apply for jobs at FML Health because the environment is conducive for delivering world class health care.
- [16:29]
B
Absolutely. I love that. Ej, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been such an inspiring conversation and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
- [16:38]
C
It was my pleasure, Laura. Thank you.
- [16:42]
A
At athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier a healthier business, healthier care teams and healthier patients. But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make it hard for you and your care teams to focus on what matters most. That's where athenahealth can help our AI native all in one solutions, reduce administrative burdens, streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights when clinicians need it most. That means fewer clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom lines. Practicing medicine is completely complex, but running a practice can be that much simpler. With Athenahealth see how simpler is healthier@athenahealth.com.