Leading Through Financial Headwinds and Workforce Challenges in Healthcare with Mark Behl - Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Summary4 min read

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast: "Leading Through Financial Headwinds and Workforce Challenges in Healthcare with Mark Behl"

Date: May 6, 2026
Guest: Mark Behl, President and CEO, North Bay Health
Host: Ella Jeffries

Episode Overview

In this episode recorded live from the Becker’s 2026 Annual Meeting, Mark Behl, President and CEO of North Bay Health, shares candid insights on steering a healthcare system through ongoing financial and workforce pressures. The conversation spotlights Behl’s real-world strategies for maintaining growth, prioritizing workforce stability, and innovating workforce models to ensure resilience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to North Bay Health & Current Priorities

[00:42] Mark Behl introduces North Bay Health as a system serving Northern California’s suburban, rural, and agricultural communities, covering Napa, Solano, and Yolo counties.
- Primary Focus: Continuing to grow amid challenges, addressing financial headwinds, workforce stability, and improving access to care.

"A lot of my focus really has been this year around continuing to find ways to grow despite all the challenges that we're facing. A lot of financial headwinds, definitely focusing on workforce stability, also focusing on access into care..."
— Mark Behl [00:42]

2. Leadership Decisions & Aligning Teams

[01:41] The toughest recent leadership decision involved investing in growth and technology despite limited resources. Behl focused on finding solutions with short-term ROI to fund longer-term growth.
- Transparency: Open, honest communication with teams about challenges is essential.
- Aligning around priorities: Encourages unity and shared understanding during tough trade-offs.

"I think we've had to go back and really challenge our teams to really find solutions that can also help us grow, while at the same time having a short term ROI..."
— Mark Behl [01:41]

3. Evolving Approach to Decision-Making & Organizational Readiness

[02:37] Involving the workforce directly in identifying challenges and solutions is now central to Behl’s approach.
- Clinician Engagement: Empower those who do the work to drive improvements.
- Leadership Humility: Acknowledges that effective solutions often come from frontline perspectives.

"The people that should improve the work are the people that actually do the work... If you give them the data and you help them understand the challenges that we're facing, they'll figure things out..."
— Mark Behl [02:37]

4. Critical Leadership Habits Amid Uncertainty

[03:50] Focus and measured progress are essential. Behl stresses the importance of metrics, dashboards, and an intentional meeting cadence to regularly check if strategies are working.
- Energy from Progress: Demonstrating incremental wins helps maintain morale and momentum across teams.

"Just having something that we can point to to say, hey, we're making progress. And when you start to put really points on the board, so to speak, I think everybody gets energized around that..."
— Mark Behl [03:50]

5. Rethinking the Workforce Model

[04:52] Behl acknowledges significant shortages in physicians, nurses, and clinicians.
- International & Contingent Talent: Advocates for proactive strategies—building international pipelines and collaborating with other systems to help address long-term workforce shortages.
- Beyond Filling Gaps: Emphasizes resilience and planning over reactive, short-term fixes.

"We do not have enough supply of those resources. So we're going to have to find ways to really tap into... international workforces that we can really start to build a pipeline, not just like you said, filling gaps. I think we have to be a little bit more thoughtful and proactive..."
— Mark Behl [04:52]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On empowering clinicians:

"The people that should improve the work are the people that actually do the work." — Mark Behl [02:37]
On team alignment during challenges:

"It's important that we are very honest with our teams about the challenges that we face and the importance of getting things right." — Mark Behl [01:41]
On building resilient workforce models:

"...finding ways to work with those other countries and those other systems to help develop future pipelines." — Mark Behl [04:52]

Key Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------|------------| | North Bay Health overview & focus | 00:42 | | Growth & investment under financial strain | 01:41 | | Evolving leadership approach | 02:37 | | Critical leadership habits | 03:50 | | Rethinking workforce models | 04:52 |

Summary

Mark Behl’s conversation offers actionable leadership lessons for healthcare organizations weathering ongoing change and resource constraints. Central themes include authentic team engagement, metric-driven management, and innovative strategies to address workforce shortages—underscoring the need for both immediate and long-term solutions to ensure organizational resilience.

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Transcript13 lines

[00:00]
A
At Insight Global Health, we are dedicated to helping you and improving healthcare for everyone. That means building stronger teams and delivering sustainable solutions that truly make a difference. We offer a full spectrum of talent and technical services and deliver cross industry expertise to bring you innovative best practices to solve the problems that we face in healthcare. We're not just promising you results, we are delivering them. Visit us@insightglobal.com this is Ella Jeffries reporting
[00:28]
B
live from the Beckers 2026 annual meeting. I'm here today with Mark Bell, President and CEO of North Bay Health. Mark, to start, can you please briefly introduce yourself, your role and the scope of your organization and what's currently commanding most of your attention as a leader?
[00:43]
C
Sure. Thanks. Ella. Yeah, My name is, as you said, Mark Bale. I'm the President and CEO for North Bay Health and we're a system located in Northern California that services really the area between San Francisco and Sacramento, a lot of suburban areas, rural areas, agricultural areas. We cover Napa, we cover Solano county, we cover Yolo County. So a lot of my focus really has been this year around continuing to find ways to grow despite all the challenges that we're facing. A lot of financial headwinds, definitely focusing on workforce stability, also focusing on access into care, because those are all key drivers of our success going forward.
[01:27]
B
Definitely. Thank you so much for sharing those. And in a year marked by very rapid change, what recent decision or pivot required the most leadership conviction from you? Particularly, particularly when it came to aligning people, resources or capabilities?
[01:41]
C
Yeah, I think the challenge that we all have been facing around HR1 and the financial headwinds in front of us is how do you continue to invest in growth, how do you continue to invest in technology when you have limited resources? So I think we've had to go back and really challenge our teams to really find solutions that can also help us grow, while at the same time having a short term ROI so that we can ensure that we do have enough resources to be able to continue to grow. So I think aligning the workforce around that has been obviously challenging, but I think that it's important that we are very honest with our teams about those challenges that we face and the importance of getting things right.
[02:29]
B
Definitely. And how did that moment challenge your assumptions and what did it change about how you approach decision making, talent or organizational readiness today?
[02:38]
C
Yeah, I think that when you engage the teams in those types of conversations, I think they start to identify their top priorities. And oftentimes we're offering solutions or we're starting to you know, have strategic initiatives that may not be solving some of the problems that they need to solve as well. So growth is. Is great. But if we are putting even more of a burden on our workforce to be able to meet those challenges of growth, then we need to offer solutions that can help reduce some of the burden. And I think that's something that I've really had to take a step back and realize that, you know, the people that should improve the work are the people that actually do the work. And so it's important to take the time to engage them. They're, you know, all of our clinicians are really smart people. If you give them the data and you help them understand the challenges that we're facing, they'll figure things out, much like we would. They come to come to us with solutions that maybe we weren't thinking about because they have a different perspective.
[03:39]
B
Definitely. Those are great points that you raised. Thank you. And as uncertainty has become the norm now, what leadership habit or mindset has been most critical in keeping your organization and your people moving forward?
[03:50]
C
Well, I think it's focus. Definitely having the right metrics so we understand are the strategies that we have and the problems we're solving for, are they actually getting better? And so really developing those. The right dashboards and the right, you know, sort of meeting cadence to. To look at those metrics and to have dialogue around are we making progress and the things that we said we needed to make progress on. So I think in this time when it's really, really challenging for our. Our frontline teams and for our C suites to try to work through all the challenges, just having something that we can point to to say, hey, we're making progress. And when you start to put really points on the board, so to speak, I think everybody gets energized around that because they're seeing progress.
[04:38]
B
Definitely. Thank you for sharing. Now, as labor markets remain tight and care demands continue to grow, how are you rethinking traditional workforce models, including greater use of international or contingent talent to build resilience rather than maybe just fill gaps?
[04:53]
C
Yeah, I think that we have well documented there are significant shortages for the physicians as well as nursing, as well as other clinicians, and we do not have enough supply of those resources. So we're going to have to find ways to really tap into, I think, some other labor forces, and that includes international workforces that we can really start to build a pipeline, not just like you said, filling gaps. I think we have to be a little bit more thoughtful and proactive. About how we can really take care of the long term, again, supply issues that we have in our country by finding ways to work with those other countries and those other systems to help develop future pipelines.
[05:40]
B
Well, thank you so much for sharing these insights today, Mark, and for sitting down with us and enjoy the rest of your conference.
[05:45]
C
All right. Thank you. I appreciate it.