← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Tina Garrison, Chief Operating Officer of SSM Health’s St. Louis and Southern Illinois Region
00:11:20
Loading summary
Transcript15 lines
- [00:02]
A
Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings healthcare leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues facing the industry. And every year, those conversations shift in profound and unexpected ways. This April, more than 3,500 healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's 16th annual meeting. 795 elite speakers will offer new lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what comes next. Join us April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit BeckersHospitalReview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right.
- [00:38]
B
This is Laura Deardle with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Tina Garrison, Chief Operating Officer at SSM Health St. Louis in Southern Illinois region. Tina, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:50]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [00:51]
B
Absolutely. Now, I'm excited for our conversation and just to learn a little bit more about some of the cool things you've been doing recently, as well as how you're thinking about the future. But before we dive in, can you tell me a little more about yourself?
- [01:03]
C
Absolutely. I have been fortunate to be with SSM Health for my whole career. I've been with SSM health for almost 25 years. I started in the quality department, so before I became an executive, my career was in quality improvement. So clinical quality improvement. I'm not a clinician by background, but I was supported by many folks around me to help me lead clinical quality initiatives without having that background. I've been vice president in some of our hospitals. I've been a hospital president in a couple of our locations. And about three years ago I became my present role, which is chief operating officer for the regions of St. Louis and Southern Illinois. As you may know, SSM Health is a Catholic, not for profit system. We serve Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. We're comprised of about 15,000 doctors and about 40,000 team members delivering exceptional care ranging from the most routine to quaternary care at our academic medical centers. Everything we do at SSM Health is guided by our mission, which is through our exceptional health care services, we reveal the healing presence of God. When you ask people who've been at SSM for any length of time what keeps you here? The most common and most popular answer is the mission. And so that's something that's really special to be a part of.
- [02:19]
B
That's amazing to hear and to have that, you know, such a strong, strong belief system and mission in place to serve the community and really help folks feel that healing power makes a big difference. Now when you think of the last Year or so. Could you tell me a little bit about an initiative that you led? What did you do and what were the results?
- [02:39]
C
Absolutely. We've been on a journey that we call Project Core. That stands for Clinical Optimization and Repositioning for Excellence. Essentially, we look at this as our path to strengthen our position as a leader in patient centric value based care that supports our academic and community based care models where we deliver high care quality at centers of excellence throughout our region. We've looked at many work streams, everything from workforce utilization, care delivery efficiency, staffing supply utilization, appointment scheduling. We really looked at everything from end to end of our care delivery system to identify the things that we believe we can make the most difference in. So the first year of that was in 2024, and we set out to achieve a goal of $100 million, which was really daunting. When we set the goal, we were able though to achieve $155 million. In the second year, we took a look at the chapters, as we call them, of our Project Core plan, and we updated those chapters to see where we could challenge ourselves more, where we could iterate a little bit differently and, and where we could deliver more value to our care system. And we achieved an additional $139 million through this initiative in 2025. So once again, in 2026, we have our third year ahead of us and we're continuing with Refresh Chapters. It's our ongoing commitment to be ever better every single day, with the focus always being on patients and ensuring we deliver the most exceptional care right place at the right time.
- [04:17]
B
Absolutely. That sounds incredible. And especially to look at how much you not only achieved your goal, but exceeded your goal in, you know, it's cool to have that opportunity then to look back and make adjustments and really go above and beyond what you thought was possible. And speaking of 2026, what are some of your big priorities as well as some of the headwinds that you're focused on?
- [04:38]
C
We have big priorities this year and big opportunities. We continue to look at how and where we deliver care to ensure we deliver the most optimal patient experience for those we serve. In health care, we often define patient experience within our quality realm. We want the best outcomes for patients and we know when they are happier. They perceive that as quality and we want to deliver that. It's our job that we're focused both on clinical quality as well as experience. Also we, through Project Core, as I mentioned, we set out to develop service lines, so we've been iterating and innovating within our service lines over the last couple of years that identifies where, where we should deliver each level of service within a particular service line or specialty. We've been able to improve outcomes, improve quality, improve satisfaction and improve access to care by using service lines and determining where we would invest most per service lines. We will continue to do that as we develop more centers of excellence. There's a lot of headwinds for the whole industry of healthcare and when we make decisions at SSM Health, we make sure we keep our focus for the patient and as I mentioned earlier, our mission. We are always guided by our mission. Those two things are the things that keep us grounded, to make sure we make the best decisions with the information we have for our organization. And as new headwinds come, and as new information comes, we must be nimble in healthcare. So we will make changes when we need to, but we will always lean into patient centered care, delivering the best value, grounded in our mission.
- [06:17]
B
I love that. I think it's so helpful to have that grounding and that mission in place so that no matter what happens, you're able to make adjustments with the patient and community in mind. And I think having that understanding of where you want to invest in the specialties and the service lines that are in a particular need is so helpful and critical. Now, what do you think is going to be the hardest thing you have to do in the coming year?
- [06:41]
C
One of the biggest challenges of this year will be navigating continued financial pressures and industry changes. These are high stakes issues, but they also present an opportunity for us to rethink how we operate, prioritize what matters most, and innovate in ways that strengthen our organization for the future. It's about turning challenges into catalysts for improvement, ensuring we deliver exceptional care while building a sustainable path forward. I mentioned our scope and breadth of SSM Health and we sure stand on the shoulders of giants. Our sisters who came over 150 years ago that started the health ministry that we lead today. And I know that they also faced many headwinds, financial and other stressors and they were able to pivot and and iterate and change into what the community needs to continue the Health ministry. And we will do the same. We are entrusted with that, so we will do the same. And to deliver exceptional care.
- [07:42]
B
Absolutely. Having that strong history and foundation into exceptional care delivery really makes a big difference, no matter what the financial as well as industry changes that are occurring now. Before we wrap up, I wanted to ask you about growth too. Where do you see some of the best opportunities for growth at SSM Health.
- [08:03]
C
One of the great things about healthcare is by and large we collaborate a lot more than we compete. And in St. Louis, we are really blessed to have really four strong health systems in one market. So we look for ways to partner with organizations to better serve our community where that makes sense. And so we have a couple of examples of that. We have some food distribution events where we're able to support those suffering from food insecurity and the social determinants of health. We partner with St Lucier Food bank and some other organizations to ensure that we can support patients. And we also are opening have opened a new laundry facility which is a joint venture of another system within St. Louis alongside SSM. And we're able to provide new jobs to perform laundry services where the facility is actually located in one of our most challenged zip codes while we work to better provide laundry and linen to our hospitals, which is really amazing to see because we know that laundry and linen are some of the most basic needs that we have to take care of patients to protect their infection status as well as their dignity and to provide proper care for gowns and scrubs and sheets and all of the things that are linen. And so it's really wonderful to be able to collaborate with a partner inside St. Louis and be able to provide that improvement. We also thinking about growth, we also have an affiliate strategy. We know that there are a lot of really exceptional organizations in rural markets across Missouri and Illinois. And rural healthcare is changing all the time. We're determining what services can be provided in critical access and other locations. And we have a strategy to make sure that we can support those rural locations to the best of our ability and provide that tertiary and quaternary care in our facilities when it's something that's beyond that hospital's capability. So we see that as a way to continue our mission and support the care of patients in their own community when it's possible, but also a growth strategy for us to ensure that we can take care of even more patients as they need that higher level care. And then lastly, I'll circle back around to our centers of excellence. As I mentioned, we've leaned into centers of excellence and really developed our service line strategy over the last couple of years. And we believe that is the path to ensuring we have the highest level of care while having a mechanism for growth. So that is another area that we will continue to focus and identify the right service lines to create more centers of excellence.
- [10:53]
B
Fantastic. It sounds like a lot happening there at FSM Health and, you know, really truly exciting things for your community and the patients that you serve. Tina, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been a very informative and interesting podcast, and I look forward to seeing you as well at our annual meeting in April. I know you'll be speaking on a panel and we'll dig deeper into a lot of the themes we talked about today. So looking forward to that and seeing you soon.
- [11:16]
C
Awesome. Can't wait.