← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Holly Lee, Vice President and Chief Audit Executive at Parkview Health
00:12:25
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- [00:02]
A
The most important healthcare decisions don't happen in isolation. They happen when leaders come together. Becker's 16th annual meeting brings together more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives this April in Chicago. With 800 speakers from Ascension, Cleveland Clinic, Common Spirit, and more, the conversations get real. Leaders will share how their scenario planning for policy shifts brief breaking through value based care barriers and building clinical teams that translate new ideas into real world care. Join top decision makers in the room April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit BeckersHospitalReview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right.
- [00:46]
B
This is Laura Deardo with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Holly Lee, Vice President and Chief Audit Executive at Parkview Health. Holly, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:57]
C
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
- [00:58]
B
I'm excited for our conversation because I know there's so much happening in healthcare and particularly just some really important things that you're doing at Parkview. So we'll dive into that. But before we begin, can you introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit more about the organization?
- [01:13]
C
Yes, absolutely. So again, Holly Lee and I lead the internal audit function at Parkview Health for the health system. A little bit about Parkview. We're a not for profit health system serve northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio. Our mission is pretty simple, but it's also pretty powerful. We're focused on improving health and inspiring well being. So for internal audit, really our role in that is to provide assurance and insight that really helps PARP achieve its mission from a responsible and ineffective perspective. So whether that's managing risk or staying compliant or finding ways to operate more efficiently, we're really focused about supporting great care, our patients in our communities.
- [02:00]
B
I love that. And you know, what an important thing to be focused on, especially in a year so busy and transformative as 2026. But before we get into that, can you tell us a little bit about last year? What is the most important initiative that you did? What did you do and what were the results?
- [02:17]
C
Yeah, so for last year, I joined Parkview in 2023, and so moving into 2025, I was really focused on laying the foundation for what's known as integrated assurance. And we did this by aligning enterprise risk management, which I'm sure a lot of us are familiar with. We align that within the internal audit function. And so the real idea is kind of simple in that we want to move beyond their traditional internal audit assurance role and create a more connected approach to risk oversight for the organization. Because when these two entities work together, it should really enable leadership to get one clear view of risk and assurance across the organization instead of these fragmented reports. And so when I'm explaining this of thinking of it like coordinating care for a patient with multiple specialists, you know, if each doctor works in isolation, the patient runs a risk of getting conflicting treatments. And we can all understand what happens when, when that occurs. But when we share information and follow a care plan, outcomes generally improve and risk go down. So that's really what integration integrated assurance is meant to do for the organization. It's to really treat the system as a whole and not just the individual risk symptoms in siloed functions. So for looking into 2026, this means we're going to have to rethink some of our governance. We're going to have to improve risk reporting for that single language, single lens, and strengthen our collaboration even more. And, you know, ultimately the payoff from their work that we did last year is that we end up with a clear vision of emerging risk. You know, we have less duplication because we're leveraging resources across these different silos, bringing them together, and we have more confidence in, in the decisions that shape our strategy here at Partview.
- [04:20]
B
That's fascinating to hear about, you know, really cool to understand how you've been looking at making sure that you've got a great plan in place to improve outcomes and improve some of the results that you're seeing for patients. And then looking at the governance in risk, I know that's something that is no easy task. And so being able to zero in on that in this next year and continue to sharpen what you're doing for patient care is critical. And now looking into 2026, what are some of the big priorities and headwinds you're focused on?
- [04:51]
C
Yeah, so looking ahead in 2026, you know, in leveraging the work we're doing with internal integrated assurance, we're, we're really prioritizing data agility and resilience within internal audit. So for our data, we're advancing our analytic capabilities for auditing so that we can provide leadership with real time insights into the financial, operational and compliance risk that come along with those headwinds for 2026 and beyond. For agility, we're building flexible audit plans and integrated assurance processes that I highlighted earlier so that we can pivot quickly to anticipate and respond to evolving and emerging risk. And for resilience, you will really focus on strengthening that cybersecurity as digital health expands, planning for those workforce shortages that, that continue to challenge us, and embedding risk management into those strategic decisions. So whether it's like economic pressures such as tighter reimbursement, arising costs, workforce burnout, and of course, constant regulatory changes, these headwinds are real. And internal audit's role is to turn that uncertainty into actionable insight so part of you can stay resilient, compliant and focused really on our mission of delivering exceptional care.
- [06:17]
B
That's helpful to understand and I think it's really cool that you've got this view of having some of those audit plans and processes in place and looking at the organization as a whole and how, whether it's technology or workforce or clinical care delivery, you're seeing things from a very high level view in helping each department improve it and work better together to deliver on the health system's overall mission. I think, you know, you've touched on a couple of these challenges in the past in our discussion. Looking at, you know, whether it's workforce shortages or other things that may be a challenge this next year, what do you think the hardest thing you'll have to do will be?
- [06:59]
C
Yeah, I think this is something that's probably shared across healthcare as a whole. And for many of us, you know, the hardest challenge I think this year will continue to be balancing growth in innovation with limited resources. So many of us across healthcare, there's a constant real pressure to deliver more, better access, better care, but also that pressure to do that while reducing costs. And that really means that we have to make some tough choices. We have to prioritize initiatives that truly move the needle on things like improving patient outcomes, strengthening our compliance, and managing risk not just effectively, but also efficiently. Our hope for internal audits play a critical role in enabling this responsibly. And we provide assurance that major projects such as, let's say enterprise resource planning, ERP platform modernization or AI adoption initiatives, we work on those projects to provide assurance that they're governed well, they meet regulatory requirements, align with strategic priorities. And so our work helps leadership clearly see both risk and opportunities so decisions are informed and progress supports quality, compliance and trust, even in an environment where efficiency is essential. So again, like the challenge of balancing the growth to play those roles and to support leadership and be innovative with the resources that we have. And facing those headwinds we discussed earlier really will be, I think, the hardest thing that we'll have in front of us.
- [08:41]
B
That makes a lot of sense and certainly isn't an easy task to try to you know, push forward both the challenges as well as the opportunities, the risks, and innovation at the same time. Do you ever find yourself pulled in multiple directions or do you feel pretty grounded in, you know, the team as you're working with them?
- [09:01]
C
Yeah, it can be very challenging. I think that's why it's really hard, important to have a structure in place that guides your decisions and your priorities, such as starting with the organization, strategic goals, initiatives, priorities, and aligning your work to that, so that when you do get those competing priorities, that you have that structure in place to make the decisions on where you're going to put your resources, time, people, effort. So when those challenges come along, that's what really keeps us grounded, is making sure we're aligning back to those strategic priorities for the organization.
- [09:43]
B
I love that. Thank you for digging a bit deeper there. Now, before we wrap up, where do you see the best opportunities for organizational growth?
- [09:51]
C
So when I think about the best opportunities, I was talking about this with some of my colleagues, and I found myself to be a little bit of an outlier. But when I think about this, you know, the best opportunities for growth in health care, I don't necessarily start with technology or expansion. I really start with readiness. And I think that's because in internal audit, we see some really great ideas struggle, not because the strategy was wrong or the technology wasn't there, but because the foundation that is being built on this growth is being built on isn't strong enough. And so for the biggest growth opportunities that I would highlight are investing in people, building a culture of accountability, and then turning data into insights that actually drive decisions. So people, accountability and actual insights. And when we invest in our people, we ultimately, we build resilience and adaptability for those growth opportunities. When accountability is clear and supported, it can really become a driver for performance and innovation. And when data really moves beyond dashboards into actual insights, leaders can act faster and smarter. And those three things really, to me, create the organizational readiness that leads to strategic agility. In an environment like healthcare and many others of constant change, that agility really allows organizations to pursue growth confidently while staying true to their mission. And so for me, again, it's pretty simple. Growth isn't necessarily about just scaling up, but it's really strengthening the fundamentals. And to me, when you do that well, you're not just prepared for those growth opportunities, but you're. You can really be positioned to lead those growth opportunities.
- [11:43]
B
I love that. Holly, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been a really fun conversation, learned a lot, and truly, truly helpful to understand some of the things that you're thinking about in working towards at Parkview. And I look forward to seeing you as well at our 16th annual meeting coming up in April. I know you'll be speaking on a panel there, and truly will be great to dig deeper into some of these themes and continue to talk about the transformational times we are in healthcare. So thank you.
- [12:15]
C
Yeah, thank you so much for letting me, you know, share a little bit about our journey. And, and I look forward to the conference.