← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Robert W. Brenner, M.D. - President & CEO at Valley Health System
00:17:40
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- [00:02]
A
At Kindred hospitals, we treat the most medically complex patients. With a multidisciplinary team of experienced acute care physicians, nurses, therapists and support staff, we never lose sight of the fact that our patients are people, someone's mother, father, spouse or friend. With our specialized acute care, we empower patients to take the next step in their recovery journeys so they can return to the lives they love. To learn more About Care, visit KindredHospitals.com.
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B
This is Laura Dardo with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Robert Brenner, President and CEO of Valley Health System. Dr. Brenner, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:39]
C
Thank you, Laura. Really excited to spend some time with you and answer the questions that you have for me.
- [00:45]
B
Oh, absolutely. And you know, I'm excited to dig in with you as well. I think you've got some really neat things going on there at Valley Health System, and certainly I'll be excited to share your perspective with our broader audience. But before we do, could you please introduce yourself and just tell us us a little bit about the health system?
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C
So I've been in this role for a little over one year and it's been very exciting. I've been with the organization for 10 years. I think that what is different maybe about in terms of me being the CEO is that one, I'm a physician and that's not the norm, not the usual. And also I do have a varied background. I was the CMO of a large medical group. I worked on the executive team of a smaller hospital. Hospital. I was involved in graduate medical education. So I'm really happy that I have this opportunity and I can bring some of those experiences to bear as the CEO and the leader of this organization. And I'm very proud to be part of Valley because it is a great organization.
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B
Absolutely. That's amazing to hear. And you know what a great background bringing into the CEO role. I think it's so critical to have that clinical connection connection as well as just the other experiences that you've had and being able to bring that now to a leadership role at such unique time. Now, I'm curious, could you tell us a little bit about the biggest winner success story from your first year at Valley Health?
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C
So the biggest thing that, that we're proud of and the most obvious is that we moved from Ridgewood Campus, which was formed in 1951, and we were kind of landlocked there with a school and a neighborhood, and we needed to expand so we actually made plans about five or six years ago to move to a Paramus location. And last year was the big move. And that was quite an experience. I think it's a once in a lifetime experience for people in health care and that this really required the entire organization. I think it was a great example of teamwork in moving our patients physically from one location to another without a hitch and doing it in eight hours. And we are a 370 bed hospital in Paramus. We pared down our census to below 200. But it was one of the most exciting days in many of our careers. The people that work at Valley, we had volunteers working, we had all the shifts in staff on board. We had 80ambulances running back and forth. It was a major operation and some really cool experiences and cool stories that that occurred during that day.
- [03:41]
B
That's fantastic to hear and what a huge undertaking. I know it takes a lot to even just construct a facility, but then moving patients and moving the entire operation into a new space is incredible. I think when you look at that experience and how everyone came together in order to complete that, what does that say about your culture and what you do there at Valley Health System that you were able to be so successful with such a big project?
- [04:09]
C
Yeah. So I think one of the things that many of us are most proud of is the culture that we have. It has been cultivated for a long time to make our culture a very warm culture and empathetic culture and to hear all of the stories about how we care for patients from simple, from the people that are direct, directly involved in patient care to the people that are even working in facilities and helping patients throughout the organization. Our culture is a very positive culture. It's been great in attracting the workforce. It's great for our community and our patients. And I think that, yes, it was a test of our culture to see that we could work as, as a team and work together and pull together to that big happen. But I have to say that even though that was a massive event, so much else happened during that year of 2024. We expanded our network geographically and we added over 100 clinicians. We developed a whole brand new strategy, strategic platform for the, for the health system. We started graduate medical education. We never had residents at Valley and working with Mount Sinai closely. We started internal medicine in OB GYN and got approved for surgery. And we're continuing to do things in that regard. On top of it, we also had a whole bunch of new programs started. We started an LVAD program, a weight management program, an LGBTQ practice. And so the organization really stretched during 2024. It was a challenging but very rewarding year.
- [06:08]
B
Absolutely. Well, that's amazing. And, you know, so much to be proud of in 2024. In looking to where you're at today, what are the top two to three issues that you're focused on right now? How are you thinking about things as 2025 marches on?
- [06:23]
C
So, you know, not so unexpectedly, but our move actually put us in a great location, and we only moved 2 and A, but it made a big difference in terms of the populations that we're serving. And so our zip codes have expanded, we've expanded into lower New York in terms of a draw for patients. So our volume has gone up to a great extent. So capacity is something that we think of every day. We think about how we could be more efficient in the throughput for patients and being safe with our patients at a higher volume. Our volumes have gone up in the emergency room by 10%. They've gone up by 10%. In terms of our admissions, we've done 58,000 admissions this past year, and it's climbing. We're going to break our record in births. We were 3,900 last year. We're going to be well over 4,000 this year. So our capacity and the demand is something that we're working on in a lot of different ways in terms of working through length of stay projects, working through the efficiencies that occur in the organization from the emergency room all the way to discharge. So that capacity is top of mind. The other thing that's top of mind and is part of our strategy is access. And every health system is having challenges with access. People are demanding more outpatient visits. People are coming into the hospital at higher rates. And so we have multiple projects to deal with, enhancing our access, whether it be changing clinician schedules, working through our access and navigation center. We're piloting now an automated attendant to help when we have surges, and we're hiring more in key areas to meet the needs of the community. And we are working with partnerships, particularly with Mount Sinai, to bring clinicians to the valleys, to Valley's area, to ensure that we are able to provide the various subspecialty services as well. So I think capacity and access have been top of mind, obviously, like every other health system workforce, and making sure that we have the right people in the right place with the right training. So those are probably the top three would be workforce, our capacity and our access, among obviously many, many other things.
- [08:59]
B
That'S great to hear. And I think that is very on par with what we're hearing from so many organizations across the country and thinking about that capacity. It's amazing to hear that you've been able to boost patient volume with the move and some of the other things that you're doing, which is a huge, huge win, and then trying to figure out how you can just continue to bring those specialty and subspecialty services into the organization. I'm curious, when you think about all of those things, where's the biggest opportunities for growth in the next few years? What do you really see as being the spaces where you can expand thoughtfully?
- [09:33]
C
Yeah. So there's some general principles about growth in terms of which service lines are growing. So one, we have an aging population, and we know that 11,000 more people are going on to 11,000 more people are going on to Medicare every day. And we know that there's, you know, so it's an aging population. People are getting sicker. And the other thing is that we could do more about the things that we have that patients have in terms of treatments and different modalities that we could use. So the service lines that are growing to a greater extent are cardiac and in oncology. And so we are putting resources towards those service lines. And for instance, in cardiac, we have expanded the breadth of what we are doing. We started an LVAD program. We're doing a whole bunch of different types of valve replacement and procedures in structural, heart and in electrophysiology. So that has expanded. The one thing that's expanded that is not necessarily consistent with every area in this country is that we are seeing a higher number of births coming to Valley. And that's more of a shift in our market share because our new hospital is attracting greater numbers of people, women that want to deliver at Valley, it's been a key service of ours. And then the other thing that I think we have to continue to grow is in primary care, because that is the gateway to access into the health system. So those are the opportunities. But particularly in cardiac and oncology are areas that we're working through.
- [11:27]
B
Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. And it's certainly given, as you mentioned, the patient population and demographic shifts, I think having those services is certainly critical. And, you know, when you look at cardiology and oncology in particular, how do you see, you know, being able to make the differences? And as you mentioned before, bringing some of those specialists? And I know it's no easy task. And so is there anything you can share with us about your strategy there.
- [11:53]
C
So we've been able to attract and recruit some of the top specialists in those areas. And with them they bring many of the new technologies and the new devices and new procedures that we could do. For instance, I turned around one day in a meeting and I was told that one of our structural heart physicians actually did a valve in valve replacement for the tricuspid valve, which is a very rare occurrence. And, and it's new to Valley. And I was like, I turned around and I, I was astounded. And the patient did ex. Extremely well. I turn around and the next thing is we're, we have a, a LVAD program in place and we, we recruited a cardiac surgeon who was the second busiest in the country in, in doing LVADs. And so here we have a program that has developed very, very quickly in electrophysiology. For instance, we had a physician who had done some research in the area of pulsed ablation for atrial fibrillation, which lowers the risks and lowers the energy level that is given to the patient and also cuts down the time of the procedure. And that was done. And we were the third in the country and the first in the state to have done that. So I think it's a lot about the clinic bringing on board that bring with them some of the training and expertise in these unique areas. And we are doing research at the organization which, which helps us as well.
- [13:35]
B
That's amazing to hear. Thank you for digging a little bit deeper. Now, before we wrap up, I wanted to know your perspective on leading through transformation in the future. What do you think it will take in order to lead a thriving organization over the next five years or so.
- [13:51]
C
So, yeah, there are a lot of challenges out there, whether it's our payer system or some of the challenges that are presenting themselves with the new big, beautiful bill. And there's, you know, there's just a lot of challenges. The way we're approaching it is one, we have to increase our efficiencies, and we're doing that through a big impetus around process improvement. So actually, every manager and above in this organization has to have a project, whether small or large, that relates to how do we improve the processes that we're. We're dealing with. And it could be as simple as increasing the efficiencies of transport or, you know, just simple things. So we are very focused on process improvement and the efficiencies. And I think that's important from an economic standpoint as well as, you know, patient service and patient care. So that's one focus. The other is focusing with and strengthening our relationships with other organizations. We are a standalone health system. We are as a single hospital, either the third or fourth busiest hospital in the state. But we still feel that to give the most comprehensive care to our community that we serve, we need partnerships. And so we are working very closely with Mount Sinai right now, very optimistic about. We have a great foundation. They've helped us with graduate medical education. They've helped us in oncology and pediatric subspecialties, and we're working together with them. I look forward to our future programs that we develop. There's one basic principle that I would go to, and I'm a fan of Jim Collins and I think, I don't know if you know about the 20 mile march, and he told a story about, I guess, going to the Arctic Circle or the Antarctic. I'm not sure which one it was. But in any case, there were two different groups that tried to race towards there. And then there was one group that when a storm came by, they stopped and they hunkered down and then they started again and stopped and started again. But there was. The other group that made it first was actually one that no matter what they did 20 miles a day, every single day, no matter what. So I'd say how that applies to our health system is that we should be continuing forward, no matter what, doing what we have to do, very focused on our goals and our objectives and the strategy that we have and proceed forward no matter what those challenges are, as we are faced with them. We have to deal with the challenges, but at the same time, we have to be focused and continue along that 20 mile march. So that's, that's my message to our staff. And hopefully those listening to this podcast can take that message with them as well. I love that.
- [17:11]
B
Thank you so much for sharing, Dr. Brennan. That's such a great analogy and way to think about things, especially in healthcare today. I appreciate your time being here with us and we'll look forward to seeing you at our CEO CFO Roundtable. I know you'll be a speaker there for one of our panels and certainly will be happy to, to continue the conversation and see where we're at at that point. So thank you so much, Dr. Brenner. I appreciate it.
- [17:35]
C
Thank you, Laura. It's been a pleasure. 11,000.