Podcast Summary: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Guest: Dr. Harpreet Pall, MD, MBA, CPE – Chief Medical Officer at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center & K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital
Host: Scott Becker
Release Date: December 12, 2025
Duration: Approx. 13 minutes

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Dr. Harpreet Pall, a seasoned physician leader and the Chief Medical Officer of Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center and K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital. Dr. Pall discusses healthcare leadership, the importance of lifelong learning, pressing trends in healthcare, strategies for workforce sustainability, clinical variation, and concrete advice for emerging leaders. The discussion is lively and practical, offering a glimpse into Dr. Pall’s leadership philosophy and his vision for the future.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Organizational Overview

(00:24–02:07)

• Dr. Pall introduces himself and his dual role at Jersey Shore University Medical Center and K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital.
• Describes Jersey Shore as a "high acuity, high throughput" academic referral center known for both rapid growth and nimbleness, facilitating scalable innovation.
• Role as CMO:
  • Strengthening physician alignment
  • Driving quality improvement, patient safety, and reliability
  • Modernizing care delivery, including transitioning care to community and home settings
• Quote:

  "Our academic medical centers need to be built for the future and not just managed for the present." (Dr. Pall, 01:53)

2. Lifelong Learning and Leadership Development

(02:07–03:42)

• Dr. Pall’s commitment to ongoing education (degrees from McGill, Harvard, Amherst, Drexel).
• Emphasizes the need for leaders to "stay in touch" with teams, provide clarity and fairness, and "build a system where exceptional care is the norm."
• Lifelong learning helps Dr. Pall better navigate rapid changes, address team stressors, and connect healthcare teams to meaningful work.
• Quote:

  "People follow clarity. They follow fairness and purpose." (Dr. Pall, 02:52)

3. Current Healthcare Trends and Strategic Focus Areas

(03:42–07:01)

• Top trends Dr. Pall is monitoring:
  1. Workforce Sustainability:
     • Not just recruitment but designing teams for tenure and support
     • Reducing EHR documentation burden
     • Need for redesign rather than just hiring more people
  2. Reducing Clinical Variation:
     • Standardizing care to reduce costs and inconsistency
     • Weekly frontline team meetings for transparency and showcasing best practices
     • Quote:

       "If we don't intentionally reduce the variation, the system's going to produce variability by default." (Dr. Pall, 05:40)

  3. Transition of Care:
     • Treating transitions as a continuum
     • Emphasis on multidisciplinary rounding, medication reconciliation, virtual follow-ups
     • "A safety discharge is one of the most powerful quality interventions we have."
  4. Smarter Data Analytics:
     • Beyond collecting data: enabling practical, actionable information through dashboards and variation reporting at the frontline level
  5. Culture and Trust:
     • Change is paced by trust in leadership
     • Quote:

       "Change moves at the speed of trust." (Dr. Pall, 06:33)

4. Looking Ahead to 2026: Priorities and Excitements

(07:12–08:51)

• Proud of the work around clinical variation reduction and readmission/discharge transformation.
• Focused on high-risk patient cohorts and ensuring continuum of care post-discharge.
• Reimagining clinical leadership structure to align with quality and patient experience incentives; building a leadership "bench" for future growth.
• Strong credit is given to Vito Buccilato, the hospital president, for setting a positive cultural tone.
• Quote:

  "Our goal isn't just to manage our frontline clinical teams. It's to unleash their potential." (Dr. Pall, 08:24)

5. Advice for Emerging Leaders

(09:22–11:32)

• Lead through value, not authority: Cultivate clarity and purpose amid complexity.
• Connect teams to the 'why': Change is only resisted when unclear, not when justified.
• Be clinically curious: Avoid anecdotal leadership. Ask questions, understand pain points, and leverage data meaningfully.
• Be visible and build trust: Regular rounding and visible leadership foster credibility and prepare teams for effective change management.
• Quote:

  "Frontline teams don't resist change. What they do is they resist change when it's unclear." (Dr. Pall, 09:45)

  "Healthcare is just too complex for anecdotal leadership." (Dr. Pall, 10:35)

6. Institutional Pride and System Vision

(11:46–12:47)

• Excited by Hackensack Meridian Health's direction; “learning health system” approach enables rapid pilot sharing and adoption across the network.
• Focus on digital integration, systemwide reliability, ambulatory platform growth, workforce expansion, and building a "future-proof" model.
• Culture of questioning old assumptions and embracing innovation at scale.
• Quote:

  "Hackensack Meridian Health is a system that's willing to rethink old assumptions and look at how we're going to be able to build a model for the future." (Dr. Pall, 12:27)

7. Local Flavor: The Jersey Shore

(13:03–13:18)

• Host asks if the Jersey Shore lives up to its reputation.
• Dr. Pall enthusiastically confirms, “It is all that and even better, Scott… the Jersey Shore in the summer has nothing else like it.”

Notable Quotes

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:53 | Dr. Pall | "Our academic medical centers need to be built for the future and not just managed for the present." | | 02:52 | Dr. Pall | "People follow clarity. They follow fairness and purpose." | | 05:40 | Dr. Pall | "If we don't intentionally reduce the variation, the system's going to produce variability by default." | | 06:33 | Dr. Pall | "Change moves at the speed of trust." | | 08:24 | Dr. Pall | "Our goal isn't just to manage our frontline clinical teams. It's to unleash their potential." | | 09:45 | Dr. Pall | "Frontline teams don't resist change. What they do is they resist change when it's unclear." | | 10:35 | Dr. Pall | "Healthcare is just too complex for anecdotal leadership." | | 12:27 | Dr. Pall | "Hackensack Meridian Health is a system that's willing to rethink old assumptions..." |

Segment Timestamps

• 00:24–02:07: Dr. Pall’s background and hospital introduction
• 02:07–03:42: Lifelong learning and leadership philosophy
• 03:42–07:01: Healthcare trends and strategic focus
• 07:12–08:51: 2026 priorities and leadership development
• 09:22–11:32: Advice for emerging leaders
• 11:46–12:47: Hackensack Meridian Health vision and system approach
• 13:03–13:18: The Jersey Shore: Local perspective

Episode Tone

Dr. Pall’s tone is forward-thinking, pragmatic, and deeply focused on purposeful leadership. The conversation with Scott Becker is upbeat, candid, and full of actionable insights for healthcare leaders at every level.