Elevating Workforce and Patient Experience with Keisha Mullings Smith of UChicago Medicine

Summary

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Summary

Episode: Elevating Workforce and Patient Experience with Keisha Mullings Smith of UChicago Medicine
Release Date: July 22, 2025
Host: Chanel Bunger
Guest: Keisha Mullings Smith, Vice President and Chief Consumer Experience Officer at UChicago Medicine

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Introduction and Background

In this engaging episode of the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, host Chanel Bunger welcomes Keisha Mullings Smith, the Vice President and Chief Consumer Experience Officer at UChicago Medicine. Keisha provides an insightful introduction to her role and the mission of UChicago Medicine. She shares her extensive background in academic medicine, emphasizing her dedication to enhancing both patient and caregiver experiences. Keisha highlights her passion for integrating workforce experience into patient care, aiming to transform how employees and clinicians are trained and supported to serve their communities effectively.

Keisha Mullings Smith [00:22]: "I’m transforming the way our employees, our clinicians are trained, deliver care, experience care, caring for them as whole people and individuals serving our community."

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Current Healthcare Trends

Keisha delves into the key trends influencing UChicago Medicine’s strategies. She emphasizes the importance of workforce development, focusing on retention and cultivating a robust talent pipeline from within the organization while attracting top-tier professionals. Additionally, she discusses the critical role of innovation and technology in reducing clinician burdens, particularly regarding load management for those directly interacting with patients and families.

Keisha Mullings Smith [02:37]: "We’re watching trends around our workforce development trends specifically around retention, ensuring that we can grow our talent pipeline from within the organization."

She also mentions UChicago Medicine’s plans to expand its footprint beyond Hyde Park, notably through the development of a new cancer pavilion set to open in 2027, designed as a smart hospital to cater to evolving patient and community needs.

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Future Focus and Excitements

Looking ahead to the second half of 2025, Keisha shares her excitement about integrating the voices of both the workforce and patients into the organizational strategy. She explains that UChicago Medicine is merging the workforce and patient experience tracks to build a unified culture that supports employees’ well-being, which in turn enhances patient care. This integration includes redesigning benefits to accommodate the personal lives of employees, such as caregiving responsibilities, ensuring they can perform optimally at work.

Keisha Mullings Smith [04:02]: "We are focused on more integration at the University of Chicago, pulling in more of the voice from our different entities across the campus… ensuring that those voices are represented and the work that we do."

This holistic approach aims to create a supportive environment that empowers both caregivers and patients, positioning UChicago Medicine as a leading health system.

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Proud Initiatives and Projects

Reflecting on the past 6 to 18 months, Keisha highlights a significant initiative focused on designing care sites that prioritize workforce well-being. This project aims to eliminate barriers for employees and clinicians to access care, ensuring they receive high-quality services from the clinicians they work alongside. A key aspect of this initiative is addressing clinician burnout by enhancing organizational fitness and integrating ambient AI technologies to streamline workflows, allowing clinicians to be more present with patients.

Keisha Mullings Smith [06:12]: "We are designing care sites that allow us to ensure that we are keeping the workforce well, eliminating barriers for our employees and our clinicians and faculty to get care… integrating ambient AI to allow our clinicians to be more present with our patients and families."

She proudly notes that these efforts have contributed to UChicago Medicine maintaining its status as a top hospital for patient safety, celebrating its 27th consecutive "A" rating from the Leapfrog Foundation. The collaborative spirit across the entire enterprise has been instrumental in achieving these successes.

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Actionable Advice for Evolving Leaders

When asked to share advice for emerging leaders, Keisha emphasizes the importance of being deeply involved and knowledgeable about operational workflows. She advocates for leaders to partner closely with frontline staff who interact directly with patients, ensuring that leaders gain firsthand insights into patient and employee experiences. This approach enables the design of effective processes and systems that proactively address current and future needs.

Keisha Mullings Smith [08:26]: "Be very in the know in how the work happens. Be close to the work and alongside your efforts… you are better in tune and you have an opportunity to design processes and systems that meet their needs."

Keisha believes that maintaining a close connection with both workforce and patient sentiments is crucial for creating a supportive and efficient healthcare environment.

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Final Thoughts

Before concluding the podcast, Keisha reinforces the necessity of integrating workforce and patient voices in managing organizational changes. She stresses that understanding and acting upon real-time feedback is essential to meet the demands of an aging population and the dynamic nature of healthcare needs.

Keisha Mullings Smith [09:34]: "We can’t do this work and meet the demands of the future without hearing their voices and putting them right at the center."

Keisha’s commitment to placing both employees and patients at the heart of UChicago Medicine’s strategies underscores the organization's dedication to excellence in healthcare delivery.

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Conclusion

Chanel Bunger wraps up the conversation by thanking Keisha Mullings Smith for her valuable insights and contributions. Listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of how UChicago Medicine is pioneering workforce and patient experience initiatives to lead the healthcare industry forward.

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This episode of Becker’s Healthcare Podcast offers a deep dive into the innovative strategies employed by Keisha Mullings Smith at UChicago Medicine, providing valuable lessons for healthcare leaders committed to enhancing both workforce satisfaction and patient care.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. My name is Chanel Bunger and today I'm thrilled to speak with Keisha Mulling Smith, the Vice President and Chief Consumer experience officer at UChicago Medicine who joins the podcast today to share insights on her background healthcare trends she's keeping an eye on and a bit more. Keisha, thank you so much for joining me. Could you get us started out by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about your background and organization?

[B]

Sure. Thanks so much for having me. Kesha Wellingsmith, Vice President and Chief Consumer Experience Officer at UChicago Medicine I come to the organization after a number of years in academic medicine, primarily with an incredible passion for improving the patient experience, the experience from our caregivers and families. And now under my organization and umbrella is something incredibly exciting that I've wanted to do for a number of years is integrating the workforce experience into all that we do and ultimately transforming the way our employees, our clinicians are train, deliver care, experience, care, caring for them as whole people and individuals serving our community. Incredibly thrilled to share a number of great things we're working on at the University of Chicago Medicine to achieve just that, the ultimate experience and care for our patients and families in the south side of Chicago. By way of background, I am someone who has spent time in operations, performance improvement, systems management and improving the patient experience in academic, community and urban areas, areas where we deliver complex care and serving the communities with high needs and vulnerability, allowing us to achieve best outcomes for those in underserved communities and those who seek care at our facility from across the world. So really happy to talk about the ways in which we are transforming care using a number of tools, innovations and resources that we draw from our community and our resources within our own doors through the ideas and ideation from our workforce. Perfect.

[A]

Thank you so much for that introduction. I'm looking forward to digging a little bit deeper into what you're doing at UChicago today. Well, to get us started into the meat of the podcast a bit, can you talk about what trends in healthcare you're currently watching in your world today.

[B]

Are yeah, we're watching trends around our workforce development trends specifically around retention, ensuring that we can grow our talent pipeline from within the organization. So development of our own existing workforce, but attracting the best of the best to the University of Chicago. Also watching trends around innovation and technology improvements to allow our clinicians to do their best work to reduce burden, particularly around load management for those who are directly interfacing with our patients and families. Also looking at ways in which we can expand to meet the needs of our community and beyond. So looking to grow our footprint outside of Hyde park in our local campus and bringing the best innovations in care, we are growing our cancer footprint by standing up a brand new cancer pavilion which opens and 2027, and ensuring that that is a smart hospital meeting the needs of our patients and families.

[A]

Got it. So a lot of exciting things happening at UChicago right now and kind of in that same vein and looking to the future a bit, can you talk about what you're most focused on and excited about going into the second half of 2025?

[B]

Sure. We're incredibly focused on combining the the voice of our workforce and how we manage and the patient experience at University of Chicago. For years past, we've looked at the experience of the workforce and that of our patients and families in different tracks. At University of Chicago, we've combined both drawing on the ideas and the experience from those who care for our patients and ensuring that we're building a culture and we're strengthening the foundation of our workforce to meet their needs so they can deliver their very best. That means from taking a look at those things that may be burdensome to our employees, redesigning benefits for today's generation and the needs that they have outside of our organization. Many of our employees are caring for their own children, but also parents, ensuring that what we offer allows them to live their best life outside of our organization and come into the organization feeling as though that they can give their all to those who seek care. At University of Chicago, we are focused on more integration at the University of Chicago, pulling in more of the voice from our different entities across the campus, from our Biological Services division and then also our Pritzker School of Medicine, ensuring that those voices are represented and the work that we do and how we build our talent and retain our talent going into the future. So bringing all of those streams together to designing the culture and the experience that meets all the needs for those that deliver care and those who seek care at the University of Chicago makes us a health system leading at the forefront.

[A]

Got it. Got it. Love it. And now that we've looked into the future a bit, looking back at the last six to 18 months, can you talk about an initiative or a project that you're most proud of?

[B]

Initiative. A project that we're most proud of is something that's also brand new to the organization is designing care sites that allow us to ensure that we are keeping the workforce well, eliminating barriers for our employees and our clinicians and faculty to get care, where they deliver care by the same top notch clinicians that they partner with, they work alongside, but allowing them the time and the space in order to take care of themselves. So focusing on the fitness of our organization, the well being of our clinicians, of our employees, to lighten the load around burnout, to really dig into those things that burden their day. Looking at efficiencies through our technology, integrating ambient AI to allow our clinicians to be more present with our patients and families. Having the voice of our workforce and also our patients serve as advisory in everything that we do. So looking to their feedback as we design new workflows, new processes, how we ensure that we continue to be among the top hospitals for patient safety as we celebrate our 27th consecutive A @ the University of Chicago as awarded by the Leapfrog Foundation. So incredibly excited. Continue to continue that work. And what we're most happy about is the continued collaboration across the entire enterprise. So ensuring that everyone gets a say and what we do in designing safe workflows, designing our workforce, wellness benefit offerings, and how do we make access easier to our patients and families at the University of Chicago.

[A]

Wonderful. And now in the short conversation, I can definitely tell that you're passionate about what you do. And with that, can you maybe share some actionable advice for evolving leaders maybe looking to have the same impact and success in their careers as you have?

[B]

100%. Be very in the know in how the work happens. Be close to the work and alongside your efforts. Partner with those who are seeing our patients, those who can share firsthand the sentiments of our patients and families and how the different changes impact the front line. And what we find is that when you have insight outside of your bubble, outside of your lane and the operations and those challenges facing the workforce, facing our patients and families, you are better in tune. And you have an opportunity to design processes and systems that meet their needs, but proactively meet the needs that we know the future of our workforce will have. So coming into the door so that we can continue to be a nest of sort and caring for our employees as well as our patients.

[A]

Excellent advice. Well, Kesha, I want to thank you for your time today. But before I let you go, is there anything else that listeners should know?

[B]

Listeners should be very focused on integrating the voice of the workforce in patients and how we manage change that is undoubtedly at our front doors today. We can't do this work and meet the demands of the future without hearing their voices and putting them right at the center. And it sounds cliche. However, with rapid change, we know that in order to be as successful as we need to and continue to meet the growing needs of an aging population, we have to better understand what's most important to them in real time and act on the sentiment that they've shared with us.

[A]

Absolutely. Well, that's a great spot. And Kesha, I want to thank you once again for your time today and for sharing your insights on the Beckers Healthcare podcast. Thank you.

[B]

Wonderful. Thank you so much.