← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:02]
A
This is where healthcare leadership comes together. Becker's 16th annual meeting brings more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives and nearly 800 speakers to Chicago, April 13th through the 16th. This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former President George W. Bush. For the agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalreview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you in Chicago.
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B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Healthcare Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by somebody who's an example to me, who's an inspiring surgeon, a leading hip replacement surgeon in the country, certainly the best regarded in our area. We're talking to Dr. Ravi Bashyal. Dr. Bashyal's the leader of the hip sort of program, hip replacement, at the Endeavor Orthopedic and Spine Institute in Skokie, Illinois. They've built a hospital around orthopedics. Just done a tremendous job at that institute. Ravi, Dr. Bashel, can you take a moment and introduce yourself then? I'd love to touch on today. What are you most focused on? What are you most excited about this year? You've got tremendous positivity, which I love, but take a moment and introduce yourself to the audience.
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C
Thanks, Scott. It's great to be with you as always. And what's really energizing me right now is seeing how we're able to combine advanced surgical care with a system level focus on access and recovery. And the results for our patients have been really exciting. By way of introduction, I'm Ravi Bachel. I'm an orthopedic surgeon focused on minimally invasive hip and knee replacement. And I work with the orthopedic team here at Endeavor Health. And my work kind of sits at the intersection of high quality surgical care innovation and improving access for patients across our community, especially as Endeavor continues to grow and really working through a way to innovate and standardize care across the system, but remain close enough to a community to stay very patient centered. So that's sort of the background of who I am and what we're working on. Thank you.
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B
The orthopedic hospital that Endeavor built, that you helped lead with some other great leaders, has become the busiest orthopedic place for surgery in the state of Illinois. Just over really a short five to ten years. It feels like. Talk a little bit about that evolution and how that happened, that it became about the busiest place for hips, knees and orthopedics in the state. Talk about that a little bit.
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C
Thanks, Scott. Yeah, I'm certainly very excited about the growth that we've seen at our orthopedic hospital and the work that remains to be done in terms of, I think how we got there, I think it's really about putting the patient at the center. What really excites me the most is seeing how operational excellence and human centered care don't compete. They actually reinforce each other. And I think that's been a core culture for us as we've worked through this journey in our hospital. And I really kind of love the story of where we started, where we are now, and frankly where we're going. We've been really focused on improving the patient journey from education before surgery to smoother pathways after surgery, understanding how technology and best in class care, both from a surgical standpoint, technology standpoint, implant standpoint, all come together. And for me, this culture is the multiplier and the technology and the techniques that we use just amplifies it.
- [03:33]
B
Fantastic. You mentioned a little bit about trying to system wide way of care for orthopedics, almost like the hospital for special surgery. Talk about that thought process of taking what's going great. I think 7,000 plus procedures a year being done now at the orthopedic hospital. Talk about how you make that system wide across a larger system. Yes, focusing orthopedics and spine, particularly the higher acuity cases where you're at. But how do you turn that into a system of care so ultimately play at the same level as the hospital for special surgery and places like that?
- [04:12]
C
Yeah, I mean, this is a question of scale. And so what we really try to focus on when we, when we started here was, as I said, putting that patient journey at the center, making sure that we had the best team members, the best, you know, the best surgeons, the best anesthesiologists, the best nurses, the best therapists, the best administrators. So we kind of started with this mindset of having a small core group that provided great quality with the patient at the center. Okay. That's really where we started. And then as that began to earn trust within the community and the system, as patients began to really put their faith into what we were doing, the idea became, the thought became, how do we now amplify and grow this? And really in orthopedics is a lot like aviation, where pathways, protocols and standardization can go a long way. The potential risk is if you forget that the patient is at the middle of that. And so what we really have focused on is understanding the, that health systems are moving towards standardizing pathways not to reduce individuality, but to reduce unnecessary variation. And it does not have to be impersonal. Scale does not have to be impersonal, because when we support our patients and our teams, best outcomes come from this sort of culture as much as surgical technique, as much as the data driven science that we use. It's all of these things coming together. And what we found is it really has some exponential growth when you put all those things kind of into the pot. And as you said, we have the busiest single hospital in the state of Illinois for orthopedic procedures. We do more total joint replacements, hip and knee replacements out of that single center than any other hospital in the state. And we're really proud of that because we're not just pumping out a lot of total joints. We're providing high quality care that our patients are really appreciating. Our outpatient joint program is an example of that. There's just a lot of. A lot of amplification that's happened when you start with this core culture and put this patient journey at the center.
- [06:13]
B
Thank you. And talk about your own specialty. I know you've become this incredible sort of beacon of hip replacement in our area. I mean, I mean, I'm a little bit. I think my mother won't be upset with me, but you've done my mother's hip. You recently did one of my closest friendship replacement. Any advice with Bill? Trying to build a great career where they're sort of become special at what they do. And I know you're a humble person, but any thoughts and how do people sort of focus to become really great at what they do? Not just one of many, but really well, really good at what they do.
- [06:51]
C
Well, I really appreciate those kind words, Scott. And it was an honor and a privilege to take care of your mom and your friends and other acquaintances in the Chicagoland area and even from outside of there, it's been a great honor to be able to do that. How you build towards that, I think has a couple of key tenants. One is to sort of remember why you're doing this job. You're here to take care of patients and to get them, in my case, with what I do, back on their feet. And I think it's very important early in your career to sort of maintain the humility of what you're doing. It's a great honor and privilege to be given the opportunity to operate on a patient. It's a very sort of sacred bond between surgeon and patient. When you take that knife to somebody's skin you're involved with them in a very different way than almost any other relationship that you would have, professional or social. And I think maintaining that humility of that bond and really understanding what that means is the core. It's not about you as the surgeon or the great techniques that you're using, or the implants that you're using. It's about that patient. And I think you have to lean into that. And then I had the good fortune of being part of a system where I can focus on just two operations. You know, I joke around my partners. If I'm. If I want to sound, you know, simple, I say I do two operations, hip replacement and knee replacement. If I want to sound more complicated, I say I do four. Right hip, left hip, right knee, left knee. And so a little bit of humor around that. But really being in a system that allows me to subspecialize and focus in what I want to do gives me the repetitions to become, you know, hopefully much better at doing that procedure. The more you can focus in on one or two things, the better you will become at doing those things.
- [08:36]
B
No, I think that's great. And how did you get focus towards really where you focus on doing the things that you do? You've also got a great holistic approach to medicine. While you specialize in those couple procedures, how did that evolve to where you really started to specialize just in doing that?
- [08:55]
C
Yeah, you know, I, I think it's a, it's a great question. I think that surgical skill, technical skill on its own is not enough. You can do a perfect operation on somebody, but if you don't understand where they're coming from, what it is that they're looking for, their challenges, their fears, their concerns, their outcome won't be as good. And you've done that patient a disservice. And so it's no longer the metric of, hey, the X ray looks perfect. You know, I don't really care about the rest of the. You got to understand that patient's story and their journey. And so it's sort of a self fulfilling self, you know, growing philosophy in that if you want happy patients, which all of us want, if you want to continue to be busy, which comes from happy patients, the best way to do that is to do a good operation. But to take care of the patient all around, it's also the right thing to do. It's also what makes you feel good as a person when you're able to connect with that individual. And, you know, so somebody comes to you and Say, hey, I can't play golf, I can't do stuff with my grandkids, I can't play this. I, I take care of a lot of people that are younger, in their 40s and their 30s. They can't do the things that they want to do and, and being able to be a good person to them and understand their struggle. Combine that with surgical skill, ability, technology, whatever that might be, then you get a really good outcome. You can't just do the operation in a vacuum. And I've been a big advocate of that. We need to understand where our parent patients are coming from and what their own concerns are, aside from their arthritic hip or knee. It's more than that. They're not just an X ray, they're a person with, you know, that, that lives their daily life with that arthritic hip or knee.
- [10:27]
B
Well, but I think that's one of the beauties of how you practice. You're technically fantastic at what you do, but you have this uncommon understanding of the patient, of people, which is, I think, that powerful combination for a doctor, for a specialist, that ability to be great at what you do, but really understand that you're doing it for a patient, with a patient, for their, their holistic care. I think it's, it's, it's. Not everybody does it that well and understands their mission that clearly. And I think that mission clarity is probably a lot of part, a lot of what makes you great at what you do.
- [11:02]
C
I really appreciate that. And, and I will just throw in, you know, one, one little tidbit on that. I think, you know, as you know, we do some work overseas with our charity organization, Operation Walk Chicago. And, and I think that having a chance every year to go do that resets that compass, that, that, that humility compass or that sort of understanding what people are going through compass. And that's really been something unique that, that I've been able to be a part of for the past 15 years that I think leans into that story that you're talking about. I think when we're here and we're talking about innovation and scale and all the things that I love doing on the administrative side. You know, you have to have a reminder of why you're doing this on a day to day basis and you can certainly do that without having to travel overseas. But for me, you know, the, the annual trip that I make to Nepal to participate with Operation Walk really helps to reset that, that guidance for me on an annual basis.
- [11:59]
B
That's amazing. Literally amazing. Dr. Bashal, I want to thank you again for joining us on the Becker Healthcare podcast. We love watching your crew. We love watching watching what you do. And obviously we're up here in the Endeavor Health area, so we're huge fans of Endeavor and the other area health systems. Thank you so much for taking the time with us today. Just fantastic.
- [12:18]
C
Thanks, Scott. I always appreciate the time. I I think what excites me the most about where healthcare is going is that we're really learning how to combine innovation with humanity. We've been talking about that, and frankly, at Endeavor, we're seeing that when you align great teams, thoughtful technology, and a real focus on patient experience, you can really safely move care forward at scale. And it's been a great journey, and we're continuing to grow and learn.