Timothy L. Switaj, Vice President, Chief Population Health Officer and Associate Chief Medical Officer at WellSpan Health

Summary

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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Episode Date: January 20, 2026
Guest: Dr. Timothy L. Switaj, Vice President, Chief Population Health Officer, and Associate Chief Medical Officer at WellSpan Health
Host: Paige Twenter

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Episode Overview

This episode explores WellSpan Health's strategic approach to population health, systems integration, data transparency, and the importance of holistic wellness and prevention. Dr. Timothy Switaj offers insights on leading system-wide initiatives, overcoming collaboration challenges, and aligning population health with clinical service lines. He also discusses demographic challenges, innovation in value-based care, and the necessity for a renewed focus on prevention across U.S. healthcare.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to WellSpan Health and Dr. Switaj’s Role

• Background: Dr. Switaj, a family medicine physician and retired Army medical leader, joined WellSpan Health 2.5 years ago.
• Organization Overview: WellSpan Health serves central Pennsylvania, encompassing nine hospitals (with three more opening by April 2026), over 3,000 physicians, and covers 12 counties with a strong emphasis on community impact and health improvement.
  • "Our system includes an integrated care network of over 3,000 physicians and advanced practice providers... with a strong focus on community impact and health improvement." (Tim Switaj, 00:54)

2. Major 2025 Initiative: Comprehensive Population Health Strategy

• Strategic Development: Led a collaborative, organization-wide effort to define and operationalize a comprehensive population health strategy that extends beyond value-based care and total cost of care metrics.
• Integration Across Service Lines:
  • Initiated multi-disciplinary projects:
    • Sleep health with the Medicine Service Line
    • Dementia care with Neurosciences
    • Weight management with the Surgical Service Line
  • "We've been very successful with that. We now have multiple collaborative projects between population health and clinical service lines." (Tim Switaj, 03:46)
• Data Transparency:
  • Brought population health data into primary care practices, engaging with teams at the physician level to identify at-risk patients and improve care.
  • Impact demonstrated by improved outcomes and cost reductions:
    • "We've actually... identified several very impactable patients that even potentially little tweaks to their care plan... have led to improvements in outcomes, utilization and cost reduction." (Tim Switaj, 04:42)
• Recognition: WellSpan earned an ACO Excellence Award and was cited for generating significant Medicare savings.

3. Innovation Showcase: Heart Failure Triaging Protocol ([07:00])

• Publication: WellSpan’s team published in NEJM Catalyst about a heart failure triage protocol designed to prevent avoidable hospitalizations and reduce costs by guiding nurses to divert mild/moderate cases from the ER when safe.
  • "We developed a tool that our triage nurses use now to avoid unnecessary ER utilization... And that has been cited with this article. It was also a CMS webinar on that process this past year." (Tim Switaj, 05:34)

4. Key Collaboration Skills ([06:00 - 08:00])

• Transparency and Communication: Effective collaboration relies on openness and explaining the purpose behind initiatives to frontline teams.
  • "I think frankly, it's as simple as being present and being transparent and some change management principles, like really helping people understand the why of the work that we're doing." (Tim Switaj, 06:29)
• Actionable Data:
  • Data alone is insufficient; it's about translating it into “so what” and concrete plans for care improvement.
    • "It's great to throw data at somebody... But we got to give them the so what." (Tim Switaj, 07:10)

5. Top Priorities and Headwinds for 2026 ([08:15])

• Demographic Shifts:
  • Significant increase (13%) in Medicare-eligible population in the next five years.
  • Projected growth in uninsured population—driven by shifts from Medicaid and commercial coverage.
  • "Our counties are going to see about a 13%... age into Medicare... We are projecting... a shift... to more of an uninsured population..." (Tim Switaj, 08:34)
• Engagement with At-Risk Populations:
  • Need for deliberate strategies to keep the uninsured and aging populations healthy and out of acute care settings.
• Internal Communication:
  • Continuing to broaden understanding of population health across the workforce and with external stakeholders.

6. What U.S. Healthcare Needs: Wellness, Prevention, and Holistic Health ([11:00])

• Chronic Disease Challenge:
  • Patients are younger and sicker, contributing to hospital crowding and care complexity.
• Prevention and Genomics:
  • Opportunities in using genomics to identify risks and implementing proactive preventive measures.
  • "We have tools now where we can identify, through things like genomics, we can identify risk. And then there are strategies... to mitigate that risk." (Tim Switaj, 11:12)
• Mindset Shift Needed:
  • A cultural move toward prioritizing wellness and holistic care over late-stage intervention.
    • "A little bit of a mindset shift towards wellness and prevention care, I think, is something that would go a long way for us to really improve the health of the population." (Tim Switaj, 11:52)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the breadth of population health:
  • "Population health is frequently thought of as in the value based care perspective or the total cost of care perspective. But it is so much more than that." (Tim Switaj, 02:38)
• On collaboration:
  • "Really helping people understand the why of the work that we're doing." (Tim Switaj, 06:29)
• On the importance of actionable insight:
  • "It's great to throw data at somebody. We've got plenty of data, physicians love data. But we got to give them the so what..." (Tim Switaj, 07:10)
• On shifting toward wellness:
  • "A mindset shift towards wellness and prevention care, I think, is something that would go a long way for us to really improve the health of the population..." (Tim Switaj, 11:52)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:54 — Dr. Switaj introduces himself and outlines WellSpan’s structure.
• 02:28–06:00 — Major 2025 population health initiatives, service line integrations, and data transparency.
• 05:34 — Overview of published heart failure triage protocol and results.
• 06:29–08:00 — Discussion on essential skills for collaboration and translating data into action.
• 08:25–10:47 — Priorities and challenges for 2026, demographic trends, and integration goals.
• 11:02–12:12 — Thoughts on prevention, wellness, genomics, and the chronic disease epidemic.

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Summary

Dr. Timothy Switaj shared WellSpan Health’s journey toward embedding population health practices across clinical service lines, using transparent and actionable data to empower clinical teams, and creating innovative protocols like their heart failure triage program. He underlined the importance of genuine communication and a clear “why” behind population health efforts. Looking ahead, he identified demographic transitions and the necessity for highly engaged, preventive, and holistic approaches as both challenges and opportunities, urging healthcare leaders to lean into prevention and wellness for more sustainable population health improvements.

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Transcript

[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. Hi, everyone.

[B]

This is Paige Twenter with Beckers. I am so excited to be joined by Dr. Timothy Swetage, Chief Population Health Officer, Vice president and Associate Chief Medical Officer of Primary Care Service Line at WellSpan Health. Dr. Swetage, can you briefly introduce yourself and tell us a bit about WellSpan?

[A]

Absolutely. So it's a pleasure to be here with you today. Thank you for the invitation. As mentioned, my name is Tim Switez. I'm a family medicine physician. I currently serve as the Vice president, Chief Population Health Officer and associate Chief Medical Officer of Primary Care at Wellspan Health. I've been with Wellspan now about 2 1/2 years. Prior to that, I spent 25 years on active duty in the United States army, where my last positions in the army were serving as the market Chief Medical Officer for our San Antonio market and also leading primary care transformation. Value based care for the military health system. Wellspan Health is a comprehensive health system serving central Pennsylvania. We have nine hospitals and about 24,000 individuals working within the system. Our system includes an integrated care network of over 3,000 physicians and advanced practice providers and reaches a span of 12 counties, kind of circled around the Harrisburg area with a strong focus on community impact and health improvement.

[B]

You said WellSpan's nine hospitals, and then there's two more in development, right?

[A]

Three. Correct. Three more. Three hospitals opening in the February to April period of 2026.

[B]

Okay. Okay, great. Coming up then.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. My first question for you, and then, you know, we can talk about whatever you'd like, but starting off with, can you kind of share your most important initiative that you led in 2025?

[A]

Absolutely. So, you know, my DYAD partner and I came into our roles just over a year ago leading population health at Wellspan. And so this past year has been a lot of foundational strategic work to prepare our team and the system for, you know, our future vision of population health. And where we wanted to go. That started with a big project. We pulled in stakeholders from across the organization to actually develop a comprehensive population health strategy. So population health is frequently Thought of as in the value based care perspective or the total cost of care perspective. But it is so much more than that. And we wanted to make sure that we had a system strategy around not just value based care, but the entirety of population health. Once we had that established, that then allowed us to work to integrate population health across our clinical service lines. We have done very deliberate work to pull in our service line colleagues across all specialties and get them to be thinking about population health criteria, population health concepts as they consider their own work. We've been very successful with that. We now have multiple collaborative projects between population health and clinical service lines. For example, project we're building around sleep health with our medicine service line project around dementia care with our Neurosciences service line, weight management with our surgical service line and a number of others that are great collaborations and partnerships between us and our clinical and operations colleagues. One thing we're very proud of that we've done this past year is really increase our transparency with our data. We have outstanding data capabilities and we started with primary care and we've actually started to take population health data into our primary care practices and discuss it and look at it and analyze it with our primary care teams at the individual physician or PCP level. And we've actually through this have identified several very impactable patients that even potentially little tweaks to their care plan or their care management have led to improvements in outcomes, utilization and cost reduction. And so we are working to scale that work. Currently, as always, you know, we continue to lead in value based care. We were recognized by the national association of ACOs this past fall with an ACO excellence award. We're very proud of continuing to deliver on high quality care, provide exceptional experiences and truly bending the cost curve, yielding significant savings for the federal government over the past few years. Then, one specific achievement I wanted to highlight. About a month and a half ago, our team published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst entitled An Optimized Heart Failure Triaging Protocol to Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations and Total Cost of Care. This stems from an annual goal we have around cost of care reduction. One of the big pillars of that is avoiding unnecessary ER utilization. And so we developed a tool that our triage nurses use now to avoid unnecessary ER utilization for mild and moderate heart failure exacerbations. And that has been cited with this article. It was also a CMS webinar on that process this past year as well.

[B]

Well, congrats first of all on accomplishing so much from the integration with the clinical lines. The data, transparency, getting that into the primary care teams and then the article, what do you feel like was most important, like skill or technique you had to use when you're collaborating with the clinical lines or population health was collaborating with the primary care teams with that data.

[A]

I think frankly, it's as simple as being present and being transparent and some change management principles, like really helping people understand the why of the work that we're doing. As I mentioned, when people see POP health coming, not infrequently, especially our frontline clinical staff, they think we're there to tell them to do less or do more, reduce costs. But it's not just that. I mean, it's about clinical outcomes, it's about healthier patients, both medically and frankly, financially in our current state. And not only that, but there is work that we do in population health that also leads to revenue generation as well. So it's not just cost cutting. And so really explaining the why of that and getting people to understand why we're in their practice, why we're sharing the data with them and then helping them to translate the data into actionable opportunities. So it's great to throw data at somebody. We've got plenty of data, physicians love data. But we got to give them the. So what if we're giving them the data and we're putting this in front of them and saying your patients are using the ER X times more than your colleagues. Well, then it's on us to then help them understand what is driving that, what potentially is impactable in that and then help them develop an action plan to make that change.

[B]

Yeah, I think the why and so what sounds simple, but it's a skill you have to. Or a muscle you have to work out every day. Right. Of.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Communication for this upcoming year 2026. What do you see as the biggest priorities or headwinds that you're focused on?

[A]

Yeah, so there's a number of them. Obviously, obviously we want to continue to succeed in value based care. So we're always looking at where can we reduce cost, where can we reduce utilization, where can we drive outcomes in a manner that is also personalized to our patients? But from a more global perspective, you know, there's a shift in our demographics coming. Our counties are going to see about a 13% of a population age into Medicare age over the next five years. So, you know that that forces a little bit of a different consideration of that population and how we meet their care needs. But also, you know, we are projecting at this point a shift of our Medicaid population and even some of our commercially insured population to more of an uninsured population. And so this is a population that we need to dedicate more time and more thought and deliberate planning around. How are we going to engage with them? How are we going to focus on wellness and prevention to try to keep them healthy and keep them out of the ER or hospital setting that's just not conducive to their overall health? I still think also we have more work to do on broadening the understanding of population health across our enterprise. And I think that's not just, not unique to just us. There's still more work to do with getting our message out, sharing that message both to internal and external stakeholders, because I do really believe we have a lot of great things going on. And it's a value not just to our team, but it's a value to our community, to our legislature, to organizations such as Beckers and others to spread that message. And then I think there's opportunities to continue our integration across the system. So I mentioned service lines. There's always more we can do there. One of our areas of opportunity, I believe, is doing more, becoming more integrated with our hospitals. So looking at our acute care facilities, our other hospital entities, and seeing where can we integrate population health with those organizations and help them achieve the goals that we all have?

[B]

Thank you, Tim. We have time for one more question, so I'm just going to keep it broad. What have we not talked about yet that you'd really love to share with other population health leaders like yourself, or more general healthcare executives?

[A]

I think one of the things that we need to do better, I think as a US Healthcare system, is on the side of prevention and wellness and what I would consider holistic health. You know, we have a chronic disease epidemic. It's well documented. We have sicker patients younger, and at least I know that locally, in this part of Pennsylvania, you know, that's been a contributor to our hospital crowding, just more complex medically sick patients. But we have tools now where we can identify, through things like genomics, we can identify risk. And then there are strategies we can put in place to mitigate that risk or lower the risk. There are other things we can do with simple preventative measures, such as cancer screenings and others that we do well, but there's always room to do better. And so I think a little bit of a mindset shift towards wellness and prevention care, I think, is something that would go a long way for us to really improve the health of the population in many ways.

[B]

Thank you so much, Dr. Swaytage, for joining us today.

[A]

Thank you. Appreciate it.