Jason Mouzakes, MD, FAAP, President and Chief Executive Officer of Albany Medical Center Hospital and Professor of Otolaryngology and Pediatrics

Summary

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Guest: Dr. Jason Mouzakes, MD, FAAP — President & CEO, Albany Medical Center Hospital; Professor of Otolaryngology and Pediatrics
Host: Kelly Gooch, Senior Editor and Enterprise Lead at Becker's

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Episode Overview

This episode features Dr. Jason Mouzakes, recently appointed President and CEO of Albany Medical Center Hospital, reflecting on his deep institutional history, how it shapes his leadership, and the hospital’s evolving role as the region’s academic health system. Dr. Mouzakes shares insights on building a people-focused organizational culture, championing access to care, and the vision for Albany Med’s future.

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Dr. Mouzakes’ Journey at Albany Med

• Roots and Rise: Started at Albany Med as an 18-year-old in an accelerated medical program (00:31).
  • Progressed from student to resident, department founder, and eventually executive leader.
  • Emphasizes gratitude for mentors and the “people that allowed me to succeed in these opportunities on this campus.” (01:34)
• Leadership Experience:
  • Served 13 years as Residency Program Director.
  • Inaugural chair of Otolaryngology.
  • Most recently moved from General Director to CEO in late 2023.

Notable Quote:
“My deepest gratitude is for the people that helped shape my decisions and really helped mentor me.” — Dr. Mouzakes (02:20)

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Institutional Experience as a Leadership Asset

• Guiding Philosophy: Experience shapes all facets of care, dubbed the “human experience”—not just patients, but also learners, workforce, faculty, investigators, and visitors (03:22).
• Three Decision Pillars:
  • Patient Experience
  • Quality
  • Clinical Excellence

Notable Quote:
“We are really trying to promote very heavily on this campus, really three elements that are shaping the way we make decisions... patient experience, quality and clinical excellence as really the important pillars.” — Dr. Mouzakes (04:19)

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Physician Perspective in Executive Leadership

• Staying Connected: Uses Saturdays for in-hospital rounds; speaks with clinical and non-clinical staff (05:04).
• Workforce Engagement: Prioritizes listening and celebrating successes at all levels.
  • Facilities span 4.5 million sq. ft., nearly 10,000 employees.
• Learning from the Front Lines:
  • “I think being embedded as a person who was a former student learner, part of the workforce, part of the front lines, I can’t forget that.” (06:35)

Memorable Moment:
“My wife encourages me to leave early. I think she's got stuff going on at home. And I head into the hospital and I start rounds...I spend most of the morning into the early afternoon literally connecting with clinicians, non clinicians, our workforce.” — Dr. Mouzakes (05:14)

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The Evolving Role of the Academic Medical Center

• What Won’t Change: Commitment to education, innovation, and clinical excellence (07:47).
• Central Mission:
  • Access to healthcare is foundational, not a privilege.
  • Albany Med is the only children’s hospital, medical college, and Level 1 trauma center in its region (08:42).
• Workforce Challenges: Ongoing issue facing the sector.

Key Quote:
“Access to healthcare is a basic human right and should never, ever be considered a privilege. And I resonate that far and wide.” — Dr. Mouzakes (08:09)

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Looking Ahead: First Choice 2030 Vision

• Strategic Vision: "First Choice 2030" to make Albany Med the destination for patients, learners, and collaborators (09:55).
• Core Opportunities:
  • System-wide integration (“systemness”)
  • Deepening partnerships across hospitals, community providers, and affiliates.
  • Strengthening workforce engagement and retention.
• Biggest Challenge: Keeping the workforce engaged amid industry volatility.
  • Highlights issues like the “great resignation” and over-reliance on temporary staff.

Insightful Quote:
“To me, the day that somebody doesn't bring a concern, that, to me is the true, I would say, insidious enemy when a complaint isn't raised. It's that enemy that we call indifference.” — Dr. Mouzakes (12:32)

Closing Thoughts:
Momentum is strong under new leadership, with a renewed focus on people, access, and clinical excellence driving the vision for Albany Med’s future.

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Notable Timestamps

• 00:31 — Dr. Mouzakes discusses his introduction to Albany Med and early career milestones.
• 03:22 — Defining the “human experience” and decision-making pillars as CEO.
• 05:04 — The value of regular clinician rounds and listening to workforce concerns.
• 07:47 — The unchanging core values of academic medicine and the centrality of access.
• 09:55 — Introduction and discussion of “First Choice 2030” vision.
• 12:32 — Dangers of workforce indifference; importance of open communication.

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Tone Note:
Dr. Mouzakes is candid, people-focused, and deeply appreciative of mentorship and teamwork. His leadership approach is humble, rooted in frontline experience, and energized by systemic challenges and opportunities.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Kelly Gooch, senior editor and enterprise lead at Becker's and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Dr. Jason Muzakis, President and CEO of Albany Medical Center Hospital. Dr. Mazakis serves more than brings more than 35 years of experience at Albany Med where he has served a wide range of roles from surgeon and department founder to executive leadership before stepping into the CEO role recently. And Dr. Mazakis, thank you so much for joining me. And before we dive in, I'd love to have you introduce yourself and share a little bit more about your background and organization.

[B]

Great. And Kelly, I really appreciate this opportunity, so thank you for having me. So yeah, as you mentioned, I started here as a wide eyed, bright eyed, young 18 year old. As a high school senior there was an accelerated medical program with Union College in Schenectady. It was a seven year program. So I first set foot on this campus in 1988 and you know, foundational to all steps of my journey, I would say is, is really the people that allowed me to succeed in these opportunities on this campus. So not forgetting my learner experience and workforce experience, all of the scientists and the great clinicians that helped shape my academic career, I spent a short bit of time after my residency here in ear, nose and throat and went to Seattle, Washington to the Children's Hospital where I learned about pediatric ear, nose and throat. Spent a year with those individuals who are still my mentors and friends, returned to Albany Med as a practicing physician and spent the last two plus decades in clinical medicine. And throughout that time really was afforded again through the people that surrounded me, opportunities for leadership, starting with leadership in education. So serving as the Residency program director for 13 years, I know it's an exciting time of year. We have match day coming up in the nation tomorrow and a lot of exciting moments for people opening their destinations and their further training. So I haven't forgotten about that. And then thereafter serving as the division chief and then becoming the inaugural chair of the department of Otolaryngology here and then most recently in November 23, serving as the hospital General Director, so research responsible for the operations on this campus. And then ultimately Mr. Pickett, who I know you interviewed earlier this month as our system CEO nominated me and our board approved me in the role of CEO of the campus. So really exciting. But all steps of the way, my deepest gratitude is for the people that helped shape my decisions and really helped mentor me.

[A]

Absolutely. And such a rich history there. And yes, we'll Definitely be watching Match Day as well coming up. And that's so great to hear you just keeping an eye on that as well. And as you just outlined, of course, that's a lot of time there at just Albany and the organization as a student surgeon, current founder, hospital leader, and so now stepping into the CEO role. How does that deep institutional history really shape how you think about leading the organization today?

[B]

Yeah, it's a great, great point, Kelly. I think for me, I think about the word experience. I know that often we talk about experience and certainly patient experience is centric to what we do. But no doubt the experience really shapes not only our delivery of care to our patients, but we need to remember all elements of what I'm calling the human experience. So going back to again, my journey, not forgetting what it felt like to be a learner. So the learner experience, incredibly important. The workforce experience being shaped by the early days of my career and understanding some of the challenges. Our faculty experience, investigator experience for some of our basic scientists and researchers that are advancing some of the cutting edge discovery also remember and recalling what it feels like to be a visitor or a collaborator in our community. So all of those things I think have really influenced me in the way I approach my work is looking at experience. We are really trying to promote very heavily on this campus, really three elements that are shaping the way we make decisions. And certainly me as a CEO, I think about patient experience, quality and clinical excellence as really the important pillars that are driving our decisions forward.

[A]

Absolutely. And you just mentioned, of course, clinical excellence there as well. So I'd love to see if there's anything you'd expand on to. Of course, building as we've outlined, just building your career first as a physician and academic leader and just how that clinical perspective influence is just the way you approach decisions around operations, workforce and strategy.

[B]

Yeah, no, I, and this is really kind of a gift for me as a, an executive, that clinical experience is really invaluable. One of my favorite days of the week, and it'll probably make you laugh, but it's Saturday and Saturday is the one day where my schedule is fairly open, so I arrive very early. My wife encourages me to leave early. I think she's got stuff going on at home. And I head into the hospital and I start rounds. After a bit of a safety huddle that we do on Saturday mornings, we convene a group on the campus around 8 o' clock and, and I spend most of the morning into the early afternoon literally connecting with clinicians, non clinicians, Our workforce that supports us, our facilities folks, security workforce, and being on this campus, this campus itself, the infrastructure is about four and a half million square feet. So it's like a small city, nearly 10,000 employees. I try very hard to learn little bits and pieces about everyone. And so some of it is really just being exposed to all elements, certainly as a surgeon, ranging from our ed, the clinical spaces, including our perioperative spaces, our units where our nurses are working incredibly hard, our support staff that really foster a positive environment for our patients and visitors. So that's really my opportunity to listen. It's something that Mr. Pickett has really been a great influence for me is the importance of listening and empowerment of our workforce. So walking around, collecting intel on what are the opportunities for improvement, what are some of the highlights? Yesterday, our hospital affairs board meeting, I love sharing my kudos and shout outs to so many of the areas, both clinically and non clinically, what we do here on this campus. So I think being embedded as a person who was a former student learner, part of the workforce, part of the front lines, I can't forget that. And it's a constant reminder and it's been a huge advantage.

[A]

Yeah, that's amazing that you're using Saturdays in that way and just that knowledge that you're gaining too from, from really being on the ground. So that's, that's great to hear. And I wanted to ask you too just about academic aspect as well. Of course, Albany Med's only academic systems are in northeastern New York and western New England. So I was curious, as healthcare continues to evolve, how do you see the role of an academic medical center changing in terms of access, research and training the next generation of clinicians?

[B]

Kelly, I love this question, but I'm going to pivot a bit. I'm going to focus on perhaps what won't change at first. So what won't change is the need for incredible education, foundational education, provision of innovation to serve our advancements and understanding and certainly, as I mentioned earlier, the promotion of clinical excellence to serve the needs of our community. And to me, I think the word that you use that underlies all of this is the assurance of access. To me, access is absolutely foundational to our success. And I've reaffirmed this in multiple venues during my leadership. Access to healthcare is a basic human right and should never ever be considered a privilege. And I resonate that far and wide. Very fortunate that Albany Med embraces that. I know that currently healthcare is really tough work and it faces significant workforce Challenges we need to continue to search for creative opportunities to expand access, create capacity to serve our region, not unlike many regions of the nation. What I would say is we realize the incredible role, and profound role for that matter, that we play as an academic center. We are the only children's hospital, we're the only medical college for the region and we are also the only Level 1 trauma center taking on nearly 17,000 transfers per year. So we get to, yes, we understand our role in the community, but most importantly, the thing that won't change is the need to really reinforce and reaffirm access to health care.

[A]

Absolutely. Yeah, that's definitely across the board, a through line at Systems across the Board, that access component specifically. So great to hear more about that as well. And I wanted to also just more forward looking here. But as you're stepping into the CEO role, what do you see as the biggest opportunity or challenge for Albany Med center over the next few years? And how are you really thinking about positioning the organization for the future?

[B]

No, I'm glad you asked this, Kelly. Our vision for this next several years is first choice 2030. And I'm sure Mr. Pickett may have shared some ideas around this. And it's really the importance of first choice is that we want to remain the first choice in our region for our patients, for our patient experience, quality, clinical excellence. We want to be a destination, no doubt. We want to be that destination for our learners. For folks visiting and collaborating, I think the enormous opportunities to work collaboratively with our campus affiliates across our system. We are so lucky to have in our system four amazing hospitals, our visiting nurses association, our medical college, our children's hospital. On this campus, the Albany Medical center campus, we are embracing our tertiary quaternary identity and the importance of those community partnerships. Some of this also includes strengthening partnerships with our primary care relationships, again with the thought of improving patient access. I think the big challenge now is to continue vigorously our journey of systemness, which will really galvanize our First Choice vision. The challenge is that really I often think what keeps me up at night. I'm going to go right back to what we started this conversation with. It's about people. Our success, Kelly, is hinged on the success of our greatest asset, our workforce. Our industry is faced with a lot of volatility, shifts in the workforce, things that others have spoken about from the days of the great resignation and loss of deep institutional knowledge to our more recent over reliance on temporary travel staff. And we know that travel staff and temporary staff plays a role, but not a sustainable role. So, as I mentioned, our campus having nearly 10,000 employees, over 920 job types, it's imperative that we focus on the roles and development of each and every member of our team. This mission is really hard work, but we always must recognize and maintain awareness around the challenges of our teammates and the challenges they face. So I think the biggest challenge that we continue to face is keeping our workforce engaged. And that's really, as I mentioned earlier, active listening empowerment. That has to be fundamental. Again, I can't say it enough. I welcome our frontline staff to share their insights, their highlights, their opportunities. As I always mention to them, they often come to me, sometimes apologetically, bringing a concern, and I welcome those concerns because to me, the day that somebody doesn't bring a concern, that, to me is the true, I would say, insidious enemy when a complaint isn't raised. It's that enemy that we call indifference. And to me, that's. That's my role, is to keep people highly engaged, bringing forth problems and solutions. And again, our momentum right now, especially under Mr. Pickett's leadership, is so positive as we embrace our first choice 2030 vision.

[A]

Yeah, it's that. That employee engagement stuff, and it's. It'll be great to stay updated, of course, on everything that moves forward with First Choice and how everything continues to evolve. So thank you so much, Dr. Mizakis, for this fun and interesting conversation, and I really appreciate your time, and I look forward to working with you again soon.

[B]

Same, Kelly, and have a great day. Thank you so much.