Tod Wiesman, AVP of Performance, Learning and Education at UMass Memorial Health Care

Summary

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast: In-Depth Conversation with Todd Wiesman of UMass Memorial Health Care

Release Date: June 20, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of the Becker’s Healthcare Podcast, host Laura Dardo sits down with Todd Wiesman, the Assistant Vice President of Performance, Learning, and Education at UMass Memorial Health Care. With an impressive tenure of nearly 18 years at UMass Memorial, Todd shares his unique perspectives on navigating the complex landscape of healthcare human resources amidst evolving challenges and opportunities.

Background and Role at UMass Memorial

Todd Wiesman begins by providing an overview of his journey and the scope of UMass Memorial Health Care. Joining the organization in 2007 without prior experience in healthcare or human resources, Todd brings a fresh operational and consulting perspective to his role.

“I bring an operations point of view as well as I worked in consulting. So it’s kind of what are the frameworks we need to use to think about the programs that we create.”
— Todd Wiesman [00:31]

UMass Memorial is a large healthcare system based in Worcester, Massachusetts, encompassing an academic medical center, community hospitals, and a community-based behavioral health program, supporting a workforce of 20,000 employees.

Current Trends in Healthcare HR

When discussing current trends, Todd identifies three significant areas that are shaping the future of healthcare human resources:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Workforce

   AI is transforming the healthcare workspace by influencing workload prioritization and reducing administrative burdens, which is crucial in addressing healthcare burnout.

   “AI is built into all big systems at this point... it’s built into things like epic, your health record, it’s built into your ERP, something like Workday.”
   — Todd Wiesman [01:55]

   Todd emphasizes the importance of joint learning between the workforce and management to harness AI effectively while addressing concerns about data privacy, liability, and job security.

2. Balancing Financial Recovery, Organizational Growth, and Integration

   Healthcare organizations are simultaneously managing financial recovery, expanding their workforce to support this recovery, and integrating consolidated systems and policies.

   “We are trying to cut costs. At the same time, we’re trying to invest in people and grow.”
   — Todd Wiesman [04:00]

   This multifaceted approach requires HR to navigate potential conflicts and ensure that growth initiatives support financial stability.

3. Innovative Care Delivery Models: Hospital at Home and Patient Monitoring

   UMass Memorial’s Hospital at Home program serves approximately 3,400 patients, providing hospital-level care in their homes. Additionally, around 1,000 patients are monitored at home for chronic conditions, aiding in early detection of deteriorations and reducing readmissions.

   “It really helps us in terms of our hospitals... allows us to take more transfers from other hospitals as well.”
   — Todd Wiesman [05:00]

   These models not only enhance patient care but also optimize hospital resources and capacity.

Workforce Transformation for New Care Models

Transitioning to models like Hospital at Home requires reconfiguring the workforce to meet new demands. Todd highlights the need for employees who thrive in home settings, possessing unique competencies and the ability to adapt to less controlled environments.

“How do we get people with the right competencies, the right aptitudes and the right attitudes to do that work?”
— Todd Wiesman [07:37]

This involves meticulous recruitment and training to ensure that staff are equipped to handle the nuances of home-based care.

Current Focus and Future Initiatives

Looking ahead, Todd is particularly excited about:

1. Skills-Based Hiring

   Addressing persistent healthcare workforce shortages by expanding the talent pool beyond traditional qualifications.

2. Improving Caregiver Retention

   Enhancing employee well-being and respect to mitigate the high turnover rates exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. Data-Driven Decision Making

   Leveraging data to inform HR strategies, including developing benchmarks and dashboards for organizational insights.

“HR departments must continue to provide more and more data to the business to make decisions.”
— Todd Wiesman [09:49]

These initiatives are pivotal in building a resilient and adaptable workforce capable of meeting future challenges.

Proud Achievements: Scientific Approach to Attrition

One standout project Todd is proud of involves adopting a scientific methodology to understand and reduce employee attrition. By analyzing specific timeframes and implementing targeted communications, UMass Memorial aims to improve retention rates.

“We need to do more experimenting. We need to probably be more scientific than we often are in HR in terms of going out and having a hypothesis.”
— Todd Wiesman [11:50]

This data-centric approach allows the organization to proactively engage with employees at critical junctures, offering support and opportunities that enhance job satisfaction and loyalty.

Advice for Evolving Healthcare Leaders

In closing, Todd offers insightful advice for current and aspiring leaders in healthcare:

1. Adapt Leadership Styles

   Leaders must evolve their styles to fit the modern healthcare environment, balancing financial stability, growth, and integration.

2. Cultivate Agility and Culture

   Developing an agile management approach and fostering a strong, positive culture are essential for navigating complex challenges.

3. Leverage Data and Technology

   Efficient use of data and technology is crucial for effective staff management and organizational success.

“They are going to have to balance those things. So really learning how to be agile as a manager, I think, is going to become increasingly important.”
— Todd Wiesman [12:33]

By focusing on these areas, leaders can ensure their organizations remain dynamic and supportive environments for both staff and patients.

Conclusion

Todd Wiesman’s insights provide a comprehensive look into the evolving role of human resources in healthcare, especially within a large and diversified system like UMass Memorial. His strategic focus on AI integration, workforce development, innovative care models, and data-driven HR practices underscores the critical steps necessary for building a sustainable and effective healthcare workforce. Leaders in the field can draw valuable lessons from Todd’s experiences and approaches as they navigate their own organizational challenges and opportunities.

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode featuring Todd Wiesman. For a deeper understanding and additional details, listening to the full podcast episode is recommended.

Transcript

[Laura Dardo]

This is Laura Dardo with the Beckers Healthcare podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Todd Wiesman, who's the Chief Human resources officer at UMass Memorial Healthcare. Todd, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

[Todd Wiesman]

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[Laura Dardo]

Now, I'm really looking forward to our discussion and learning some of the cool things that you're doing at UMass Memorial. I know it's such an important time in healthcare right now and certainly a lot of excitement about the future as well. But before we get into that broader discussion, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself, your background as well as UMass Memorial?

[Todd Wiesman]

Sure, sure. So I joined UMass Memorial Health in 2007, so I'm coming up on my 18th anniversary here. Interestingly, when I was hired, I did not have any experience in health care, nor had I ever been in human resources before. So I think what's unique about that is the kind of perspective that I bring. Where I worked previously, I was in operations, so I bring an operations point of view as well as I worked in consulting. So it's kind of what are the frameworks we need to use to think about the programs that we create? UMass Memorial Health is a large healthcare system that is in Worcester, Massachusetts and the surrounding communities. We have 20,000 employees and it's made up of a variety of elements. An academic medical center, community hospitals, a behavioral health program that's community based. So when you put all that together, that's what makes up UMass Memorial Health.

[Laura Dardo]

That's amazing to hear and you know, really such a sprawling organization, but definitely exciting times to be able to continue to grow that and serve the community in a. In a better way. Now, from your perspective, what are some of the trends you're watching currently? What's top of mind for you as a chro. Sure.

[Todd Wiesman]

There are really three things that are significant trends. The first one would be AI. When I think about AI, I'm using the framework of how the workforce looks at it. The workforce is asking a variety of questions about AI at the moment. They are interested in the amount of data that is generated from AI. They're wondering about any additional liability when they use AI. And of course they're interested is there any potential job loss? The reality with AI as it is now practiced. Right. Is that we're really using it for two purposes within healthcare at the moment. One is really around how do you prioritize work? AI is very helpful. And. And then I think the other way is to Reduce administrative work. And given the burnout in healthcare, I think these uses of IT are incredibly important. So AI is getting built into all big systems at this point, right? It's built into things like epic, your health record, it's built into your erp, something like workday. So it is really all around us at this point. So what we think the challenge is moving forward and the opportunity is to have joint learning with the workforce and management about AI. So that's one thing that we are working on that I think is a really important trend that we have. I think the second thing is there's so much going on right now in health care. We really have three forces that we are trying to simultaneously manage. The first is financial recovery. Like many organizations, certainly many of us in the Northeast are dealing with this. And the challenge for HR there, right, is kind of requisition control, staffing levels. What do our benefits need to look like? So while we're doing financial recovery, we also have organizational growth. In part, that organizational growth is to help us with financial recovery, right? So that's about how do we fill hard to fill positions, how do we further our workforce development to fill those positions? And then finally, the third thing that we're really managing is integration, right? There continues to be consolidation within healthcare, but with that integration comes a lot of work in particular around how do you create standard systems, how do you create standard policies, how do you create standard procedures? So when we are managing these three things, sometimes there can feel like there are conflicts between them. We're trying to cut costs. At the same time, we're trying to invest in people and grow. We're trying to stabilize the workforce given integration. So I think HR is in this really interesting place right now where we have to manage so many more things than we used to years ago, and we have to do it simultaneously. The last thing I would say in terms of what we're managing is new ways of delivering care. So we have a hospital at home program here that at this point has had about 3,400 patients in it. We have about 15 patients a day that are in hospital at home. So we're providing hospital level care for people with specific clinical conditions in their home. The reality is it really helps us in terms of our hospitals, right, that we can get people out of the ED quicker than we ever could before. And it is opening up more rooms for patients who really need it and allows us to take more transfers from other hospitals as well. Then the final thing in terms of those new care models would be Folks who are getting monitored at home.

[C]

Home.

[Todd Wiesman]

So we have about 1,000 patients at home who are monitored there for things like diabetes, blood pressure, heart issues, emphysema. And that allows us then to find out if a patient is in some sort of decline. We know about that earlier. Which helps reduce readmissions.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

And really helps us keep people within the community and within their homes. So. So all of those things are really managed and HR is having a significant role in all those areas.

[Laura Dardo]

That's a huge diversity of things that you're touching on. And really having accountabilities for in HR and how it impacts what you do on a daily basis and how you're serving the broader workforce is just fascinating and really cool to think. This has come up in a couple of my conversations and so I wanna ask you about it if you're okay with that. But the transition, more hospital at home and doing more outside of the hospital walls, how do you reconfigure that from the workforce perspective? What are some of the concerns or challenges that you have to navigate through when you know you're used to a traditional workforce that all is typically in a clinic or in the hospital now are doing some different things.

[Todd Wiesman]

So it's, I think, a very important part of that process of interviewing people.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

Who want to be part of hospital at home. You're literally going into people's homes, right. Versus coming to the hospital delivering care. And it requires in some ways a different set of competencies. Right. When you're in someone's home, you begin to see things that we would never know about that individual.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

So maybe you're seeing that they don't have any food in their refrigerator. So there are a set of employees who really embrace that.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

And find that work really exciting. We are trying to get the right employees in the right jobs at the right time. So I think that's the role HR is playing around some of these new ways of delivering care.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

It's how do we get people with the right competencies, the right aptitudes and the right attitudes to do that work?

[Laura Dardo]

I think that's really helpful. Thank you for digging a little bit deeper there. Now, what are you most focused on and excited about right now?

[Todd Wiesman]

What am I most excited about right now? That's a really good question. Well, as I think about what our kind of long term strategies are, right. There's much that's happening in the moment, but we have some longer term strategies. One of those is around adopting skills based hiring. We know that we're Going to continue to have shortages within health care for years to come. We are not going to get out of the shortages, at least on the east coast that we have. So we have to find additional ways to increase the pool of people that we have. So we are looking at things like skills based hiring. As part of that, we also have to find additional ways to improve caregiver retention. We know how many people left health care during COVID So we have to continue to find ways for employees to feel respected for us to continue to focus on their well being. So those are real issues that are going to be with us for years and years to come. The other thing I would say is data driven decision making.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

HR departments must continue to provide more and more data to the business to make decisions. And I think a lot of HR departments like ours are trying to do more around that.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

So kind of what sort of benchmarks are we telling the organization that we have? What sort of dashboards do we have available? So those are some of the things that I'm feeling excited about moving forward in terms of work that we're investing more in than we did in the past.

[Laura Dardo]

That's amazing to hear, you know, and really seems like a really fun challenge to tackle and be able to work on. Thinking through how you're looking at hiring and bringing on the right talent and people to manage and grow in the future. I wanted to ask as well, you know, thinking back to the last six to 18 months or so, could you tell us about a project or initiative that you're really proud of or something that's gone really well?

[Todd Wiesman]

Sure. An initiative that I am really proud of. So one of the things that we did is to try to take a more scientific approach to looking at attrition.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

And that were there specific communications we could have with individuals that helped around attrition. So as we began to understand attrition better, right. At different time frames. So if somebody typically leaves at, let's say, three years, what are the sorts of things that we need to do at three years to communicate with that caregiver so that they really understand, right. What this organization is offering them, what they can take advantage of? So we did a bit of a pilot around those things and are looking at the results from that. So did it really then impact our attrition levels? So I think it's initiatives like that that are going to be incredibly important moving forward.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

We need to do more experimenting. We need to probably be more scientific than we often are in HR in terms of going out and having a hypothesis. Is that hypothesis turning out to be true or untrue? That, I think, is much of the work of human resources moving forward.

[Laura Dardo]

Got it. That makes a lot of sense. And it's just really fascinating to have that type of data and information so you can think about how you can pivot it and make a difference for folks as they're coming up on some of those timeframes where typically somebody would look elsewhere. It's really fascinating. Now, before we wrap up, I wanted to ask, what advice would you give to evolving leaders in healthcare today?

[Todd Wiesman]

I think evolving leaders need to think about the leadership style that they want to have in this environment in which we. We work now.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

This is not the same health care environment that I joined 18 years ago. So how is it that leaders are going to be able to balance priorities?

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

It's going to be absolutely crucial, given what I talked about before. In terms of financial recovery, growth and integration. Managers are going to have to balance those things. So really learning how to be agile as a manager, I think, is going to become increasingly important, I think, as well as how do you continue to focus on your people and your culture? And those are things that people often think about in large terms.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

But those are things that you either build your culture every day.

[C]

Right.

[Todd Wiesman]

Or you're not focusing on your culture every day. What can you do to build that culture? And then finally, I would say that I think evolving leaders need to think a whole lot about how are they using data and how are they using technology most effectively to manage their staff.

[Laura Dardo]

Those are all very important questions and aspects to dig into on the financial side, on technology, like thinking about culture and driving the organization forward. So no easy tasks today, but all crucial, as you said, in order to really build up your career and put yourself in the best position to elevate within any kind of hospital health system, it seems. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been such a fun conversation. I've learned a lot and it's been great to hear your perspective, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.

[Todd Wiesman]

Great. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.