← 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. Looking forward to hosting you in Chicago.
- [00:33]
B
This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast and we are recording live at the 13th annual CEO and CFO Roundtable. I'm currently joined by Shirin Hassan, who is the Research manager at Endeavor Health. Sharin, thanks for being here. I'm going to have you start off by introducing yourself and telling us a little bit more about your background.
- [00:51]
C
Hello. Thank you Grace, and thank you for having me. My name is Shirin Hassan and I spoke at Beckers about one and a half years ago also, and so it's wonderful to be back. A lot has happened since then, both in my professional development and personal ventures and I'm excited to share those. So I as you mentioned, I'm a research manager at Endeavor Health and I'm also graduating from my MBA school at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. And in my school I focused on healthcare, finance and entrepreneurship and that have helped me understand the complexities of the healthcare system at a much deeper level. And at Endeavor Health I work professionally and I joined the hospital about four and a half years back in clinical trials management, which was a fascinating job involving interaction with different healthcare sectors like pharmaceuticals, physicians, patients, pharmacy, and I covered all areas like clinical, operational and finance. And although I worked in the hospital side, but I understood the complexities that pharmaceuticals face in clinical trials. Like clinical trials are costly and risky because they can fail and not be approved by the fda. But at the same time, clinical trials are very important for patients because there are rare disease patients for whom there are not many options in the drug development. So for patients it's very important. And my current role at Endeavor Health, which is a large health system in Illinois with nine hospitals and about 300 immediate care centers. I work as a research manager in radiology and I work on NIH grants. Like I review budgets, track balances, and help investigators navigate the administrative and financial side of research. It's operational and detailed, but it's also deeply strategic.
- [03:04]
B
Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here and let's start our conversation talking about growth strategy. I'd love to know what your growth strategy is over the next year or two.
- [03:12]
C
Yeah, that's a fascinating question. And, and so my growth strategy at the health system depends on the growth strategy of the organization. What makes it exciting is the scale of growth we are seeing. Under our vp Justin Brigg and research leadership, we now have about more than 500 active clinical trials, nearly 300 principal investigators, and millions of dollars in NIH and industry funding supporting our research. And thousands of patients are enrolled in clinical trials across oncology, cardiology, neurology and more. And moreover, research is very integrated and collaborative across multiple offices like sponsored programs, clinical research and research integrity. It's a big collaborative ecosystem and depends on administrative precision, people, relationships and innovation in both research and clinical operations. However, beyond my immediate role, I also stay involved with broader system discussions. As I mentioned, ours is a nine hospital system. It's large, diverse and full of opportunities. One thing I really value is that we have a culture where ideas are welcomed from any level. And I've always felt encouraged to share input on system challenges, from improving operational workflows to exploring innovative partnerships or new care delivery models that enhance both quality and efficiency. For example, one internal issue that I have been passionate about is how frontline teams manage their workload. In many hospitals, staff spend enormous time on inherited administrative or procedural tasks that don't actually impact patient outcomes or financial performance. So I developed a simple framework that I call the Task Evaluation and Impact System. And before taking any recurring task, teams should pause and evaluate what is the measurable outcome of this task? Does it affect quality financials or operations? Or is it high impact or low impact? And once categorized, teams can then focus on the most high value work and defer or redesign the low impact tasks. Automation and AI are other ways to reduce workload, but they are costly and take time to implement. And so sometimes by thoughtfully revising our workflows, we can substantially change our performance.
- [06:00]
B
And tell us about the most exciting and impactful initiative or project you're currently working on.
- [06:07]
C
That's an interesting question. And I can talk about one of my personal ventures that's separate from my hospital job and it's still in the exploration phase. And I call it Water Access Initiative, which is an initiative that connects water stressed countries in the globe with water technology companies in the US to help these countries facilitate trade, collaboration, connectivity and come up with new funding models that can help these countries sustain their water supply infrastructure without depending on foreign aid. It's an interesting idea because water access is impacted at two levels. First, there is broken infrastructure and there is no water supply. And second, the problem is water contamination. So these are could be in countries like Philippines or developing countries like Bangladesh, India or Pakistan, etc. Although this is a non healthcare venture, but it impacts people's health because both water scarcity and water contamination have health consequences. For example, water inadequacy can cause health problems like dehydration and nutrition deficiency and they can also affect maternal and child health. For example, pregnant women often have to walk long distances to fetch water, which increases the risk of preterm labor, musculoskeletal injuries and exhaustion. Water scarcity also causes compromised healthcare delivery because healthcare facilities are not able to sterilize instruments and cannot maintain sanitation that can spread hospital acquired infections. So this is an important area of work and also aligns with the WASH initiative which stands for Water Sanitation and Hygiene. And it's a public health platform, public health framework used by organizations like WHO and UNICEF to assess health outcomes. I'm very excited about this venture and I'll keep you updated with the progress.
- [08:31]
B
And then what is the most important thing that you think healthcare executives should do now to make sure their organizations are successful in the future?
- [08:39]
C
That's an interesting question. I think they should remain updated with the innovations and all the innovations in technology, administration, automation, because it's happening at a very fast pace and we don't want to remain, although we work in healthcare, which is a, which is not a very technology driven sector, but we need to remain updated and keep on adapting. So our pace matches with the pace of technology growth.
- [09:11]
B
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining me today on the Beckers Healthcare Podcast and taking the time to share these insights again. We are recording live at the 13th annual CEO and CFO Roundtable.
- [09:22]
C
Thank you so much. Grace.