← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Wright Lassiter III on Leadership, Purpose, and Building a Healthier Future
00:38:45
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- [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
Welcome to this episode of Leadership Unscripted at Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Chris Sosa, your host, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Wright Laster, the third. He, of course, is CEO of Common Spirit Health. Wright thank you for joining us today.
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A
Chris, it's great to be with you.
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B
Thank you so much, Wright. So this is a podcast about your journey as a health care leader, how you apply your philosophies to life, your responsibilities, and really everything in between. So are you ready to get started with us?
- [01:04]
A
I am ready to go.
- [01:06]
B
Perfect. Before I do that, I do want to give you a chance to give our audience an overview of Common Spirit Health.
- [01:12]
A
I'd love to talk about our organization, Chris. So Common Spirit Health was created in 2019. We are the largest Catholic health care system in the United States. We were formed by the alignment of Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives back in February of 2019. Today we're about a 40 billion dollar organization. Obviously, as a Catholic healthcare ministry, we are not for profit. We operate across 24 states in the United States. We own and operate about 160 hospitals and we operate another nearly 2,500 other clinical assets from home health agencies to senior living centers to physician offices, ambulatory surgery centers, the like. What we say at Common Spirit is that our job is to try to create health across the communities we serve. Our mission is to bring the healing presence of God known through the care that we provide in the communities that we serve. And I've been with the organization now just about three and a half years. Joined in the latter part of 2022 and excited to continue to lead this robust healthcare ministry across the country to do good on behalf of US Citizens and Americans.
- [02:39]
B
Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there. But yeah, it's fantastic. And you mentioned robust ministry of healthcare that you have going on. Clearly Common Spirit touches a huge part of this country and the healthcare space. So it's just wonderful that we're able to have you on and Just give us an idea of where you're coming from. As I said, it's about your philosophy and, you know, how you apply to life and everything in between. So first question I have for you, right, is simply, what is something you learned outside of healthcare that you have applied to your career?
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A
Christian, I would just say that I think that as leaders, we all bring a plethora of life experiences to, to our jobs, to work, to our leadership. For me, I'd mentioned maybe a couple of things. So I was an athlete for a long time. I played basketball in college. Played basketball, but after college. And so I think participating robustly in a team sport. I think one of the things that I bring to my approach to leadership is the notion that it takes a team and that everyone on team has. Has a role, that teams function best when everyone's accountable for the role that they play, that flexibility matters, performance matters, communication matters, accountability matters. And also that roles aren't always static, that there are times when you play different roles. So when I was in college, I was. I started out as a, as what would be considered a four, kind of a power forward. And then I moved to, to being a SW player. You know, I was a captain of the team the last couple of years, so I had to exert leadership. There are times when I needed to be the leading scorer. There are times when I need to be more of a defender. There are times when I need to be more vocal. And I think I bring those kinds of things to, to. To my life as a leader that, you know, I don't get overly wrapped up in the fact that I'm the CEO of the company. I mean, that's interesting and that's nice. And yes, the, the company requires. Relies on me for certain things. But what's really most important as the leader is that I support everybody else and that my principal function is to try to get the best out of everyone so that we can be the best organization we can be. And so how do I create that kind of environment? So I would talk about that as one thing that I bring from outside of healthcare. And I think the other thing I got challenged by a friend and colleague probably in the midpoint of my career around how do you drive organizations to do better, to do more? And it sort of started with me being introduced to the Toyota production system, and we were having a debate about quality and was quality good enough across healthcare and how could you make quality better? And at the time, and this is now, this is more than 20 years ago, I had not heard much about the Toyota production system, Lean Six Sigma. I didn't really know how that was being applied in other industries. And that sort of provocation really helped me I think in a couple of ways. Obviously all of the tactics and strategies and the nuts and bolts of lean thinking and that was very useful and production systems was very useful. But more importantly, sort of the notion of waste and how to really think about how do you remove waste to make things better. And then also a focus on the employee, on the people doing the work and that leaders responsibilities are to remove all the barriers so the folks who are doing the work have the best ability to get that done. And then maybe lastly, sort of the mantra that I've been employing ever since I got exposed to that was the sort of notion of aspiring higher. And a lot of folks who work with me know that I, that I, that I tell them that I see my job as one thing and one thing only and that's to remove the gap between today and what's possible. And that I ask all my leaders to embrace the same single, single responsibility, single accountability, sort of single goal that if, you know, if you imagine that if every leader in your organization every day woke up and said my job is to reduce the gap between today and whatever is possible for the thing that I do, how amazing our organizations would be, how much we would continue to strive to be the best, how folks who are running parts of the organization that are really, really high performing their job is to maintain that if they are at the ceiling, if you can't get any better, which is not fathomable in most cases you can't get any better, but let's presume you're at the 99th percentile. Okay, you can't get any better. Okay, well then how do you maintain that? And that's in some cases that's a very hard task for someone who's running the thing that is at the first percentile, you don't need to get to the 99th percentile, but, but how do you get to the second percentile? And then once you get there, how do you get the next step after that and just keep propelling yourself. And so those are some of the things that I would say that I've learned from outside of healthcare, that I've brought into healthcare.
- [08:09]
B
I love how diverse that answer is because you can, at first blush you might say, okay, I went to the Toyota production plant and you've seen how they get from A to B to C. You might be able to apply some of that to healthcare. But the last thing you said about aspiring hiring, saying, okay, let's not only figure out the nuts and bolts of this or whatever analogy you want to use, but how do we say, okay, now that we're here, where do we go to the next thing? I think a lot of leaders like yourself in healthcare especially, that's the philosophy that's been applied and applied very well. Is all right, yes, the buck stops with me in a manner of speaking, but I also have to do right by everyone else because that's how we're all getting better, not just me doing better. Does that make sense?
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A
Absolutely, Absolutely.
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B
All right, second question I have for you then. So as CEO, and this applies to not only CEOs, but it might be a little bit different in your day to day than some others. So how do you keep yourself healthy, whether it's emotionally, physically, mentally, because you're in the top spot. So you got to make sure that you're running a pee condition and so you can help everyone else run a peak condition.
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A
Well, you know, I would start with this. I'm a big believer that you have to listen to your body and some of us do that better than others and some of us frankly get better at that over time. So I would say that in, in earlier periods of my life, I didn't listen to my body that well, I, I was sort of a, I was, I was pretty hard charging. And my view was I work late, I get up early. And so I kind of, I'm the classic kind of burning the candle at both ends for, you know, for a long time. But I, but I also was really focused on what was important. And so for me, I tell people that for me, my priorities are, you know, in this order. Faith, family, work. Faith, family, work. And I've had that mantra from the beginning of my career, even when maybe I wasn't listening to my body as much. But I always say that, you know, you listen to your body first and determine what it is that you need. So for me, I have to exercise and when I don't exercise, I don't get to peak performance. And so I work pretty hard on trying to be up and at them early enough so that I can get to the gym and get in a workout and I try to remove excuses and obstacles and the like from my life as much as I possibly can. So like I have a gym and their homes and, and so I, like this morning, it was, it was okay, peloton days. Let me get on the bike and let's get, let's get a ride in. I didn't have a lot of time because I was leaving early, get to the office. So. All right, let's. And I had late, some late meetings, late dinner meeting last night. So. All right, well, let's get home, spend a little time with the wife, get to bed at a reasonable time. As my wife would always say, not early enough for me, but at a reasonable time, get a decent amount of sleep, check my OURA ring in the morning and see what my readiness and sleep scores were. So I sort of know how I'm starting the day and then get a little exercise in. So I try to do that. I love to eat and cook and so I try to work really hard on eating the right things because I, I like, I like, I like French food, which isn't always the healthiest for you and I like, like food in general. And so for me, if I can continue to, to burn enough calories to earn all the good stuff that I like, then I do that. I also, I think about as I go through the course of a year, how do I make sure I spend time outside of work and reflecting on things that give you joy and give you a little satisfaction and give you a little respite from your day to day. And so my wife and I, we travel a fair amount and oftentimes we're traveling around two things. We're traveling around jazz music. So we try to find a, you know, a jazz festival in a place that we like. And we do a lot of traveling around wine and we enjoy wine and we drink wine, collect wine and the like. And so, so those are things that we try to do. Try to make sure of enough family time. And I'll tell the team, I tell our team all the time, guys, listen to yourself. When you feel like you're, when you feel like your needle on your gas tank is getting low, make sure you take the time to do what it takes to get your needle back to high because we need us all at a high level. And so I try to role model that for the team so that people don't feel like you got to work. I tell the team regularly when our daughter was young and still at home that I would never miss one of her events if it was a sporting event or some other kind of school based event. If it meant I had to leave the office at 3 o' clock and come back at 7 or 8 because I needed to get some stuff done, I do that. But so I always tell our teams, be present in the way that you need present in your family, whatever that means to you. And I don't define that, but that's how you, how you need to define it. So those are things that I try to do to keep myself in a good, both mental and physical state for the demands of a job like mine.
- [13:40]
B
Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing all that. Right. I do have several follow up questions. What I thought there was always this one though, so you mentioned that used to be hard charging. And I'm not going to suggest that there was a switch that was flipped. But what kind of helped you evolve from someone who had this attitude where you had to work day, night, all the time to someone who's found this, for lack of a better term, this work life balance that you have going?
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A
Yeah, you know, honestly I don't, I'm not sure it wasn't, it certainly wasn't like an event, like I didn't, you know, you know, knock on wood and thank you. Like I haven't had like a major health event that created it or you know, a family, you know, crisis or anything of that nature. You know, honestly, I think it's a little bit of, just as you become wiser as you get older, talking with people who are sitting in your same seat, you know, I probably spent a little, I spent, I spent a lot more time now than maybe I did earlier in my life as a CEO, just chatting with other CEOs and just, and I think that we all talk to ourselves, talk to each other a lot about balance is critically important. Like I always knew balance was important and I would always do some things. But I think on the personal side around sleep, for instance, it probably really began when I started wearing wearables that began giving me advice. I'm very much a data person. I have a undergraduate degree in chemistry and so I love data. And so when I began to get data from, you know, I think first generation Fitbits, you know, to now the Oura ring, but you know, various, various wearables that gave you data that would tell you. And you know, I was sort of, I always felt like, oh, I can get by on four hours of sleep and I wake up and no big deal. Now as you get older, then that start to weigh on you a little bit and you start saying I feel more tired. Like I'm feeling tired a lot. Like I wonder why I'm feeling tired a lot. And wife would say, well, it's probably because you're only getting four hours of sleep a night or five hours of sleep a night. Like you need more than that. And so I started reading too about, you know, what it takes to be healthy. And, and so I think it's just a bit of just self discovery. Like nothing. There was no, there was no event that sort of created the switch. But you get feedback from family and you have, and you become wiser and you realize that, okay, I can't do at age X what I could do at age Y. And so how do you begin to evolve as you become wiser and have more trips around the sun?
- [16:21]
B
Yeah, certainly I can relate in terms of a couple things. One, just having other people to lean on, no matter what level of leadership you're at, when you can say, you know what, hey, there's other people going through this too. How can we all make ourselves better? That's always a help. You mentioned the wearables. I would never be one personally to say, okay, I need to hit this goal and that goal, that goal all the time, those numbers, that data is not necessarily rule how I do things, but it certainly is very helpful in crystallizing. Okay. As you said, if I were getting tired all the time, it's like, well, huh. It helps to make that, connect those dots. When you say, okay, I'm not sleeping enough. Well, here's the proof. Right. Sometimes you just need that proof right in front of you to say, all right, here's how and why I need to change. So yeah, I would imagine all that's very helpful in being a CEO of common. Well, right. So next question I have for you. So I imagine when, when you're taking care of yourself better than you have been by, by your admission, and that just comes with the experience of age, which is wonderful. So if you do have tough days, are there people or just some sort of method that you turn to, to move forward?
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A
So, Chris, I really appreciate that question for a couple of reasons because I oftentimes would say that, you know, when you're sharing, you know, sharing challenges is probably more helpful for learning than sharing like all the successes, right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
But here's what I would tell you. I work really hard, Chris, to not have really tough days. And you might say, well, that is, that doesn't seem realistic. Like, you run a big complicated company in a, in a industry that has lots of challeng challenges. Your organization chooses to serve in communities and markets that are hard. Like, how could you not have tough days? You have bad, bad news happens. And you're absolutely correct. I think tough days is a lot about perspective and a lot about how you see the world. I work really hard to not allow myself to have wild swings of highs and lows that would maybe create a tough day when you're in the really low period. For a couple reasons. Number one, I'm a big believer that you face a challenge. The worst thing to do is spend a lot of time stewing over it because it doesn't make it better. Or if you're facing some things that are unknown, the worst thing to do is to start imagining all the horrible things. Because when you do that, reality is never as bad as you, as you conjure in your mind. And the human mind is very good at, at creating very dark stories for the unknown. And then you, when you actually walk down the alley, you find out, oh, it's not quite as scary as it is. But if you have days where you do have frustration, I sort of practice a little bit of, I practice deep breathing to manage myself. If something's really frustrating and I feel like I need, I need counsel or advice, you know, it sort of depends on what the issue is, say. My wife, who is a retired clinical psychologist, serves as a great source of, of comfort and clarity. And so oftentimes I will, I will, I will seek her out for, for some counsel. And given that she's very far removed from my world, you know, she oftentimes has as clarifying comments for me. If it's something that's really a really complex business issue that I, you know, I have a, I have a small cadre of, of CEOs that I can call upon to say, hey, you got a minute? I want to talk to you about, about something. When my father was alive, I used my father in that, in that way a lot. I tell people my father was probably my, my, my best mentor throughout my career. He wasn't in healthcare, but he was a really wise, wise man. And so I used to really enjoy when, when he was still on the earth, to call him up and say, hey, man, it's you. It's not necessarily around tough days per se, but he loved to debrief on, hey, so what stuff's going on in your world these days? What, what's, what's, what's worrying you? Like, what are you having challenges with? And what, let's talk about some of those challenges. He was a, he was an education, an educator. He was a higher education administrator, college president, college chancellor, but he also taught a lot on leadership. And so we'd love to chat a bit about that. And so those are things that, that I. That I do on days when they're a little vexing, but I really work hard to not have very many of those days at all.
- [21:06]
B
Well, I think that speaks to the power of preparation, does it not? I mean, as you said, you can't control everything, but there's quite a bit that you can. And so when you get to those times when it's like, all right, you could have a wild swing, it might not be as severe as it might otherwise be because you've said, okay, here's what I've done to make sure that this is probably not going to happen. So I love that for sure. And certainly, you know, having that support system is always very helpful for. For any level of leader. I don't imagine that we can just have our audience call up your wife and say, hey, I need some advice. I'm sure there are a lot of people like her who can provide that counsel in one way, shape or form. Right. You've talked about self discovery on this podcast, and that no doubt is an important part of any leader's evolution. So in that spirit, I would simply like to ask you, what is something you've learned about yourself from working in healthcare?
- [22:04]
A
So, Chris, you know, I have talked a bit about self discovery, and I think that what I've learned about myself, I probably start with perseverance. You know, I think that healthcare oftentimes demands that you stick to things that the first time you try, you might not be successful. That, you know, if you're trying to convince a policymaker about something that's important for health care, that sometimes the first time doesn't get it done. If you're trying to make a proposal to create a new service, you know, sometimes people don't agree the first time. If you're working on improving quality and safety, you know, it's not linear. It's sometimes like a step, stepwise improvement. And so, you know, I think that I've certainly learned that I have more perseverance than maybe ever I thought about when I was younger, when I. Before I had a career in a profession, that perseverance is something that's really critical to me. You know, I'd also say that I've benefited really greatly from parents who instilled a lot of values in me. And I think that I would say that courage is something that I've learned about myself that frankly, was likely instilled in my upbringing. But it comes out at times when you think about holding your ground, making the right decision. You know, Martin Luther King made the comment many decades ago that it's always the right time to do the right thing. And I grew up in the south, and I grew up back at the time with parents who were sort of part of some of that effort around civil rights for our country. And I think this notion of doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, and that sometimes it takes courage to stand up for what's right. I can think about some key times in my career when, when I've had to display courage to maybe agree from my organization to take a stand on something that some might have considered hard to do. And so sort of the courage to do things the right way. I think there may be a couple things. Persistence and courage are a couple things that I think I've learned from my time in healthcare.
- [24:40]
B
It's a fantastic and certainly a very valuable lesson. Right. And I'm glad you put it in that context because it does lead me to my last question. Doing the right thing all the time is never easy. Right. And it comes with risk. So you express some of that in the answer you just gave, which is terrific. So if you could, if you, if there are any details you want to share along those lines, or very simply, is there a risk or two that you have taken that you, that that has paid off, that you love to illuminate at this time?
- [25:16]
A
You know, that's a question that frankly, you probably don't think about in the moment, but as you reflect and think retrospectively, some things come to light. I can think of a number of things, Chris, and maybe I'll just maybe highlight one or two for the listeners of your podcast. So I would reflect things like, like this. Maybe the first risk that I would, that I would talk about is the risk that I took to actually go into healthcare. So when, when I was early in my 20s, I, I stepped away from medical school. I took what I thought would be maybe a one or two year sabbatical from that and I did research and my intention was to go back and pursue a career in medicine. But in some conversations with folks, I got encouraged to seek out some advice from others before I made the decision. And one of the persons that I went to seek out invited me to his office as a CEO of a health system on a Saturday morning at 7:30am and he invited me for a 30 minute meeting that lasted three hours. And 10 days later I was in the office of his chief operating officer at their request because they wanted to offer me an opportunity to come work at that organization. And it was doing something that I knew nothing about. It was. This was back in December of 1989, and it was installing a computer system, electronic health record, the clinical information system. It was installing Cerner in a small hospital system because they wanted to go paperless and they wanted to get rid of paper in the lab, and they wanted to get rid of film and radiology, and they wanted to get rid of paper and pharmacy, and they wanted to hire me. I knew nothing about any of this stuff. To be part of the team to help them create this, quote, unquote, first step toward a paperless hospital system in those clinical areas. And I made the decision that I was not going to go back and pursue a career in medicine, but I was going to take this on and then ultimately take on a career in healthcare administration. So that's probably one of the first risks related to healthcare that I. That I took. And it sort of. It paid off well in terms of this was exactly where I needed to be, where the man upstairs had as a place for me. And so I'm thankful that I listened and I made that pivot. So that's one example. Maybe another example I would give is that I had the opportunity to have the organization that I lead serve as lead plaintiffs in big lawsuits trying to help the healthcare industry at Alameda. When I was the CEO at Alameda Health System, I was asked if our system would be part of a. Be a lead plaintiff on a lawsuit around changes in the Medicaid rules that would have impacted pretty negatively a number of hospitals and health systems across the country. And we felt that it was important not just to us. And so I said to our board, I think we should be one of the lead plaintiffs in this, which has the risk of drawing the ire of really important lawmakers, regulators. But I really think it's important not just for us, but for the industry at large. And so we made that decision. We won the. We won the. We won the lawsuit. And, you know, many, not just Alameda Health System, but other organizations benefited from that. I had the opportunity a number of years later to be put in the same position when I was leading Henry Ford around 340B and how that some of the rules and regulations that were changing there. And again, asked by American Hospital association if we would be one of a couple plaintiffs to really make the case for why this was important. And again, that was a time where I felt it was important not just for my organization. Henry 4 was a very big recipient of 340B drug discounts, but also that was important for our industry. You know, kind of a similar story. It was a risk. There were many organizations asked that said, yeah, no, we don't want to be in that spotlight. We thought it was important enough, I thought it was important enough to be in that spotlight and again, took that risk. And so those are two kind of, kind of bigger examples. And I think, I think many of my colleagues who might listen to this podcast can think about all kinds of risks that we take, whether it's risks with partnerships, you know, risk to try something new in the organization, to try a new. Try lean thinking in your organization, or to try a partner with an entity to consider a merger or an acquisition that might be risky and troubling, but to have good outcome. And so I think I'm thankful that I've taken some risks that have paid off. And I think it goes back to what I said previously about this notion of feeling like it's always the right time to do the right thing and to be a courageous leader and that I think that so many of my colleagues across the healthcare field are courageous leaders and we, we want to do the right thing at the right time. And so I've had the good benefit of maybe being in the right spot to do some of those things on a few occasions.
- [30:59]
B
Right. You've inspired a couple of follow up questions. First being that conversation that went from 30 minutes to three hours. Could you give us an idea of what transpired? That certainly your colleagues saw something in you that maybe you didn't see yourself. That said, you know what, Wright's the right person to lead this endeavor that we have, even though it's not something he's ever done. So was there a transformation there or how did that go?
- [31:27]
A
You know, honestly, I, I think that it was the first example that was displayed to me around sponsorship, mentorship and, and sort of projecting future, future forward qualities that might not be evident today. Chris, just to be very honest with you, I didn't know that transformation was happening. I was a 24, 25 year old sitting in the office of a much older gentleman, a powerful CEO of, to my mind, a big company who was talking to me a lot about things, some of which I didn't fully understand. He was talking to me about how Medicare came about and, and how health systems do what they do and, and the struggles between doctors and, and administrators and all these things. And a lot of what he was saying to me, I was sitting there as someone who was really uninitiated in his world, saying, this guy is Spending a lot of time pouring a lot of words into me. And I'm. And there were times during a conversation where I was really confused as to, I am not sure what's happening right here. Like, I've been here for an hour. And he told me 30 minutes about advice. We spent the first 30 minutes around advice, and then he started saying, so do you understand health care? Do you know what, you know, all the things are going on? And he just started giving me lessons about things. And you know what? I think what I take away from that is it's the responsibility of senior leaders to have their eyes open to leaders who are still blossoming and still blooming. And that one of the reasons that I think I'm very committed to trying to make a path for the generations to come behind me is because that was the example that was being unfolded in front of my eyes that Saturday morning and in 1989 in Dallas, Texas. And I. I didn't know it was happening. Honestly, I was. There was not something that I said. This. This wasn't an interview. I. I didn't go there with a resume. This was supposed to be 30 minutes of a kid talking to an older gentleman who was running a big healthcare system about should he. Should I or should I not return to doing something that I thought was the thing I wanted to do, which was to become a doctor. And interestingly enough, that gentleman had had the same thought about, I think I want to be a physician. But his parents didn't have the wherewithal to send him to medical school, so he decided to go do something else. And I think maybe he saw a little bit of me in him and said, you know what? I took a path that was different. So let me offer this path to this young man. Honestly, that's what I think. Like, he never, ever told me that some point afterwards when I went to work there, you know, a month or so, 45 days later, he never said, and I stayed there for two and a half years, left to go to graduate school to get my healthcare degree, return there again at his offering. But he never, ever said to me, here's what happened during that call. That. That sort of convinced me. He never really gave me that sense. You know, he did say to me when I was leaving to go to grad school that, you know, when you come back and you're going to come back to us, you'll be ready to take on a lot more. And I can see that in you. But he never. I never knew why. I never knew the why. I'm fortunate and I'm, I'm sort of blessed to have had that opportunity. And I certainly try to give opportunities like that to others, but I don't know what that transformation was in that meeting, to be very honest with you.
- [35:22]
B
Well, fortunately, I think we can agree that path has led you all the way to here, to CEO of Common Spirit. So where I want to wrap up is this. So given all your experience now, why do you think that Common Spirit is in a good place to take on the challenges that lie ahead for healthcare?
- [35:43]
A
Well, so I appreciate that, that question. So I'd say a few things. First and foremost, it sort of starts with. It doesn't start with me. It starts with 160,000 people who wake up every morning with a Common Spirit badge who are committed to our mission and our vision and our commitment to supporting vulnerable populations across the country and trying to transform from within and from without to be better. So I think it starts there. Secondly, I would say that Common Spirit's in the position it's in because it has a firm commitment to doing better, has a firm commitment to serve, and that we exist for that one purpose, and it's to serve the communities who put their faith and trust in us. And then I would go beyond that and say that when commissary was formed six years ago, it was formed because it, because the thinking was that a large scale organization like Common Spirit could do things for healthcare writ large, for the field of healthcare that maybe smaller organizations could not do. And so, and I think that we are positioning this organization to do just that. We are really working hard to use the size and scale of a large entity to create efficiencies and effectiveness that will be transformative for our healthcare system at large. And then I would say lastly, we have the blessing of the assemblage of a host of leaders across the organization, from our national leaders to our regional and market leaders and our facility leaders who care greatly about not just the mission of the organization, but, but, but serving and trying to empower the communities that we have the privilege of serving to be better and to be better stewards of their health and to be healthier because we are in partnership with them. And so for those reasons, I, I think that that Common Spirit's in a great place to use our innovation mindset, to use our perseverance and stick to itness, to use our reliance on Catholic social teachings to rely on helping the humanity we touch be the best version of themselves. And so I'm privileged to be the leader of the organization and so thankful that I have the colleagues that I have to work with to get done what we're trying to get done.
- [38:21]
B
Right. Thank you so much for going on this exceptional journey with us into your life and your insights into healthcare and really just life in general. It's been a great ride, I'm sure, and our audience is going to love it. So all the best to you and Common Spirit, and here's hoping our paths cross again soon.
- [38:38]
A
Thanks so much, Chris. Appreciate it. Thank you.