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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Leading Through Change: How Healthcare Executives Can Turn Disruption into Momentum
00:16:54
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- [00:00]
A
Hello, everyone. This is Erica Spicer Mason with Becker's Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series today. So today we're going to talk about what it means to lead through disruption, change and innovation in healthcare. And joining me for this conversation, we have with us Tammy Kenobi, the Executive vice president at KoroHealth. Tammy, welcome to the podcast. It's so great to have you with us today.
- [00:25]
B
Yeah, thank you, Erica. I appreciate you asking me to join you. Look forward to the conversation.
- [00:31]
A
Oh, we look forward to learning from you. And before we get into the meat of our conversation, I wanted to see if you'd like to share just a little bit more about yourself and your work in healthcare with our listeners.
- [00:42]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So I will tell you that I've been in healthcare for close to 25 years. I think I started when I was about 15, just to keep it on the straight and narrow. But on a more serious note, I started my career in the provider space. So I've worked in academic medicine, acute care facilities and post acute care. Absolutely love the work I did. And probably the back half of my career has been more categorized by working in the vendor partner space. And mostly I think what I've gravitated towards is the healthcare technology and technology enablement. So I've been with Coral Health since about the end of April and I'm very excited to help lead some of our Chargemaster and our clinical revenue integrity teams.
- [01:28]
A
Fantastic. Tammy, thanks for sharing a bit more about you and it's great to know that you've seen it sounds like a lot of corners of health care and I think that's really going to set us up for such a great conversation and one that's really looking at your high level of perspective and how you're viewing leadership right now. That's where I wanted to have us start. Here is this idea of leadership, especially in an environment where right now leaders are being asked to rethink, it feels like everything, whether that's operations, the workforce, technology, innovation and just high level strategy. And they're having to kind of reckon with these forces all at once. So how do you approach leading through this level of disruption and what principles have guided you in turning uncertainty into forward momentum?
- [02:16]
B
Yeah, Erica, I think it's an. It's an absolute these days. Change is inevitable for us and the level that we are seeing in healthcare is probably unprecedented to what we've had in the past. I think for me as a leader, it comes down to really kind of a Few key priorities, I think continuously building trust and relationships, not only within my team, but with my colleagues across the organization and then with our clients. And, you know, when doing that, taking a step back to try to think about the wifa. Right. What's in it for those people that are going to be affected by the uncertainty or the change? Those are. Those are huge. What I have learned through some good and probably bad experience as well, is really being intentional about my transparency in the communication. So doing that frequently, I think people tend to create their own story if we aren't providing that for them. And so it's really important, especially given the levels that we are seeing right now, to really talk through those things and be open and honest about what we know and what we're doing. And I think probably last but not least is really just, you know, being a leader that leads with compassion and provides support.
- [03:30]
A
Yeah, I love where you're going with this, Tammy. And so much of what you're saying really rings true with what we just heard. Becker's just had our CEO CFO roundtable a few weeks back, and I think this idea of transparency and communication and leading with compassion and empathy for those were themes that I heard across, I think every panel discussion that I listened in on, regardless of the topic. So it really seems like these skills are becoming more and more valuable in the leadership space. And it sounds like that resonates with you as well.
- [04:00]
B
For sure. I think the other piece where we're pretty fortunate is when we look at what is happening in the industry, the fact that Coral Health has so many SaaS platforms, we do have the ability to be a little more nimble so that we can respond more quickly to what's evolving in the landscape. And then I think that helps our. Our hospitals kind of adapt using our clinically informed technology. It keeps us in a more proactive mode if we can be to try to help the hospitals keep their heads above water.
- [04:30]
A
Yeah, and I appreciate where you're going here with this idea of adaptability, because it just seems like the pace at which everything is changing for leaders to lean into an instinct to stay comfortable or stay where they're at. I'm sure that that comes with some pretty negative repercussions. So what do you see as the biggest risk of kind of standing still in healthcare today? And how do you help teams or even your clients at KoroHealth create urgency around transformation before they get to a crisis stage?
- [05:02]
B
Erika, that is a great question. I mean, I think, as we all know, AI is the Latest trend. Right. And organizations are trying to determine what they should and shouldn't do. I recently heard a panelist ask, at what point does not using AI become irresponsible for us as leaders and organizations? And that is something that really resonates with me because I think the biggest risk of standing still is that organizations will not only fall behind, but they start to face these mounting financial pressures, which lead then to a potential risk when it comes to patient care. I think trying to, from our team's perspective, be really proactive, which we talked about a minute ago, and then partnering with clients to think about how do we modernize their operation and strengthen their business. It takes a special person to do that. Right. So some of those conversations can be difficult because we have to help think about a broader picture or a new way of doing things. But I think it helps us keep them focused on fundamental elements about, you know, how do we go about this before we just get slammed by the tide of financial stress. So, you know, in our, you know, in the realm that I have at Coral Health, the business realm, you know, we see things like chargemaster services, many people might see that as mundane, but that's really a foundational element to make sure that we have correct coding enabled and billing, and then also coupling that with a strong documentation and coding integrity program really supports clinician engagement. Education.
- [06:36]
Maintains the right revenue that the facility should expect for the care that they're delivering. So I feel like if we don't help clients think out of the box and think different than they have in the past, they get behind the curve, which is much harder to come from.
- [06:57]
A
Absolutely. Especially the pace with the pace at which happening. And you touched on AI in your response just a few moments ago that it's hard to have a conversation where mentioning that nowadays.
- [07:12]
But it's important because it really is. I think that's the topic that is at the heart of transformation right now for a lot of healthcare organizations. So definitely, you know, despite that, it feels like many organizations are still piloting AI. They're still in the early stages of figuring it out. You know, a lot of organizations are also building governance committees, kind of it's like building the bike as you go. That's the sense and the feeling I get alongside, of course, excitement and some wins. But I think it's probably still challenging for many organizations to make it truly operational. So from your standpoint, what do you think separates hype from meaningful innovation? And how do you think AI can actually improve outcomes instead of just adding complexity?
- [07:56]
B
Yeah, sure. I think with any new technology we know there's both positive and negative impacts. AI is no exception to that. I think the challenge is how do we distinguish the noise from what truly can deliver that impact. To me, success starts with clear goals and expectations for what the AI can achieve. And you hit on this element, you know, you have to couple that with a strong governance framework that not only protects data, but also monitors the performance and really validates those results. I think that's where sometimes some of these projects fall down. You know, at Quora, we really view AI as augmented intelligence. So our tools are designed to support and enhance clinical judgment, not replace it. And I think smart AI AI has to operate under the principle that human oversight is essential in order to drive meaningful outcomes. You know, that's. If you look at some of the technology we have in our Pulse and Revision platforms, it is clinically led and that is something that is important to us when we think about how we develop. It's clinically led, yes, it's powered by AI, but we reinforce the continuous human review to ensure that we have that integrity. We produce quality and we produce accuracy. So I think for us that is something that our guiding principles, when we look at the market and what's happening.
- [09:15]
A
Yeah, and you're hitting on something that I think is so important here and that's the, the concept of trust amid transformation. You know, whether we're talking about building trust and AI tools between clinicians, finance leaders, it. You know, there's a lot of departments across the healthcare organizations that have to be fully bought in and, and feel comfortable with the tools that they're using. So can you just say a little bit more about what you've seen as most effective to bridge those, those trust gaps so that everyone's aligned around a shared goal?
- [09:45]
B
Gosh, there are so many studies out there that show probably 80 to 95% of transformation projects fail to deliver really meaningful results or impact because we have a lack of alignment. And you know, I think some of the things that we see being successful is when one, we clearly define what the business goals are and we have the right executive ownership of the project because if we don't have that, it creates kind of a disconnect between what are a lot of times technical priorities and the business needs. So from our perspective, our approach is kind of multi pronged on how we look to try to solve that. We look at engagement really at every level. So yes, we work with the C suite. Like almost every company out there, it's important to have their Buy in. But we also involve clinicians and those frontline teams who deliver care and user tools every single day. You know, I always, one of the mantras I've kind of had in the past is if I don't help you improve your process, you're just going to be frustrated, frustrated at my technology six months down the road. So part of my job is to hear from those people that have to touch that in every, in their everyday work. I think the second piece that is key to our approach is really, again, that intentional human centered design. So taking the insights from the 300 plus clinicians that we have in our business into our technology development process, and I think that helps us one, it just buys us goodwill. Right. Ensures that we have the trust factor from the clinicians. And we are working to align across that I would call clinical and financial continuum to really enforce our commitment to meaningful engagement.
- [11:26]
A
Yeah. And that approach is so aligned, Tammy, with what we're hearing from hospital and health system executives. We know that they're engaging frontline teams more than ever in technology initiatives. So to know that that's also happening from the vendor or the partner perspective. So. So as you look ahead, and I know looking five years out in this age of AI feels like a really long time, so we can even reduce that down to just a few years from now. But as you look ahead to the next few years, especially with AI automation workforce challenges continuing to evolve, what qualities do you think will define the most effective leaders?
- [12:05]
B
Yeah, you know, that's again, that's really a good thought and something that I think you hear a little bit of buzz about in some of the conferences and forums in the. I think some of these traits that I'm going to talk to you about are probably commonplace today, but they become even more important as we look at the evolving landscape. So I think first and foremost, they have to be strong collaborators. So we need leaders that can work across the entire patient care continuum in order to deliver more holistic outcomes. They have to be able to sit down and have that conversation with a CFO as well as somebody that can sit side by side with a nurse or a physician in the ED and talk about what's working and what's not and what keeps them up at night. I think that's going to be really, really key. I think, secondly, I really look at it as someone who's a continuous learner. So as we've talked about the landscapes evolving very, very rapidly. So we need leaders who are curious, eager to learn, committed to understand how the New regs or technologies can drive success for their teams and their organizations. And I think the third piece I you kind of comes with that continuous learning mentality is they have to be change agents, not just for the sake of change, but we need them to embrace change but also challenge us both personally and then professionally in our organizations to become the best version of ourselves and really elevate what we can deliver. I think I'm probably biased, right? When I see, I look across KORO and I look to see kind of how we're reflecting that in our leadership models. And I feel like we're trying to really kind of live that mantra right, combine our clinical expertise, use our technology.
- [13:52]
Drive for measurable results that can sustain the transformation. And I think one of our tag phrases is really smarter people, smarter tech, smarter outcomes. And it's going to take leaders that can get us to those things to really help us stabilize for the future.
- [14:11]
A
Such great insights, Tammy. And just to recap that for our listeners, so it sounds like these three top traits will be strong collaboration, continuous learning, and having that mentality of being a continuous learner and also being an agent for change. Such important qualities that you're highlighting here and to close us out, Tammy, I thought it would be great if you could share with our listeners just one piece of leadership advice that you've carried with you throughout your career.
- [14:39]
B
Yes. You know, this is one of the favorite things I love hearing from other leaders, so thank you for that question. For me, I feel like the advice was simple, but it's pretty powerful. It came from one of the first CIOs that I had worked with at an academic institution. He was incredibly intelligent, a great mentor. But I noticed his team often drew kind of comments around the quote, unquote, opportunities for improvement when it came from other leaders across the organization. Right. And I think that's sometimes natural. When you lead an IT organization, we can always fix our problems with more technology. And one day I asked him, I said, you know, why do you sometimes stay silent during these debates? And he shared advice that he had received early in his career that has stuck with me. He said, always listen more than you speak. Strive to keep an open mind and be inclusive, because that's how you build trust and collaboration. So I know it may sound a little silly, but I actually have that written on a card that sits on my monitor. And I think for me it serves as a reminder both in some tough times and in the really good ones on what I need to do to strive to be a continuously better leader. So it's been some fantastic advice through.
- [15:51]
A
The years.
- [15:53]
That'S so helpful to hear. And I'm sure our listeners appreciate that as well, Tammy. And hopefully this mentor, this former leader of yours, hopefully they know what an impact it made on you.
- [16:03]
B
Oh, I hope so, too. He was fantastic.
- [16:06]
A
Well, it's been such a great experience talking to you, Tammy, getting to know you and really your ethos around leadership. I think it's such an important time for this conversation, not just as we're heading into a new year, but also with all of the change that's happening. I think a lot of listeners out there are looking for conversations like this where we go back to the basics and talk about what's needed as the foundation for some of this change that's ahead. So thank you again for making the time for Beckers today.
- [16:34]
B
Thank you, Erica, again, for having me. And I really appreciate Becker's tackling those topics.
- [16:38]
A
Absolutely. And of course, we'd also like to thank our podcast sponsor today, Coro Health listeners. Be sure to tune into more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page@beckershospitalreview.com.