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July 22, 2025 16 mins

Anna Roth, President and Chief Executive Officer at Tahoe Forest Hospital District, joins the podcast to discuss her transition into a new leadership role and how she’s navigating the evolving healthcare landscape under a new presidential administration. She shares her thoughts on the rise of technology, the initiatives she's focused on, and the industry trends she’s keeping a close eye on to drive innovation and patient-centered care.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Scott Becker with the Beckers HealthCare
podcast.
Thrilled today to be joined by the CEO
and president of the Tahoe Forest Health System.
We're joined today by a brilliant leader, Anna
Roth.
Anna took over the role as president and
CEO not that long ago. She's had a
fantastic
career.

(00:20):
She probably knows our close colleague Carmela Coyle,
and we'll talk to her more about that
as well.
Anna, could you take a moment and tell
us a little bit about yourself and about
Tahoe Forest Health System?
Yeah. And thank you so much for having
me join you all today.
And, certainly, I'm I'm delighted to be here

(00:41):
in my new role. In fact, I am
spending my one hundredth day. This is my
one hundredth day in my new role as
president and CEO of Tahoe Forest
Health System.
And just a little bit about our system,
we are a, we serve a community across
six rural
counties in California and Nevada
covering about 3,500

(01:03):
square miles.
We have two critical access hospitals,
three urgent care clinics,
the Gene Upshaw Memorial Tahoe Forest Cancer Center,
as well as several other programs, including our
world class orthopedics program.
So I'm really proud to be here to
join the team in service to both our

(01:24):
permanent residents who live here and the many,
many visitors who come to visit the North
Lake Tahoe area year round.
Well well, fantastic. In in a great, great
system. Now I'm gonna ask you a question,
and and this may be challenging, and I'm
gonna ask you a serious question. The first
question is,
Gene Upshaw is famous to my generation

(01:44):
if you're an LA Raiders fan or a
sports fan.
And, also, I think he led the players
union, and then they fell for years, a
brilliant, brilliant leader in person.
Is he
was his connection to the Tahoe Forest Health
System or any sense of the history in
that? And that's probably an unfair question for
somebody who's only been there for a hundred
days.

(02:05):
Well, I I wanna say a couple of
things. There's lots of people who have lots
of connections with our system because we
we are located in a world class destination.
So,
and I will say without sort of you
know, you can read more about, actually,
Gene Apsha's
connection with our cancer center. His foundation has

(02:27):
certainly,
been a major was a major supporter as
well as the NFL Foundation.
But I I do wanna make one correction.
I come from the East Bay California Bay
Area, and for me, it will always be
the Oakland Raiders.
We
we could not agree with you more. And
then I'll ask you another question.
Are you or are you not an Al

(02:48):
Davis fan? Because that's really the heart of
Raider Nation and how you feel because they're
not Las Vegas Raiders, aren't they? But but
are you or not an Al Davis fan?
Because he was sort of the the heart
and soul of the Raiders, but also kept
on trying to move the Raiders away.
Any thoughts there about Al Davis?
I will refrain from answering that question.

(03:09):
But I will just say that I am
I will always see the Raiders as an
Oakland team as I will always see the
A's at baseball as an Oakland team, and
I'll leave it at that.
We could not agree more about the Oakland
Raiders, the, the black and silver,
and the and the Oakland A's, even back
in the Charlie Finley days. Such great fun.

(03:30):
Fantastic.
Vida Blue, Reggie Jackson back in the day.
Amazing.
Let me ask you a different question. So
you're through a hundred days.
There's been so much written in business, and
there's a famous book on the first ninety
days. And everybody takes those first hundred days
in in a different way.
The traditional manner has been

(03:50):
sort of think, figure it out, get to
know what's going on, all those kinds of
things. Then there's a president Trump manner where
you start off on day one like a
bull in the China shop. Where do you
come out on how you spend the first
one hundred days as a leader? And it's
not a negative politically or positive one way
or the other about president Trump. It's just
that
never seen anybody take it like that. But

(04:12):
what is your perspective on how you get
acclimated those first one hundred days and how
you start to do work?
Yeah. It's a great question. And I, you
know, for me and I I would just
say it depends on, you know, where you're
going and and how you're laying. For me,
this has been a big change. So I
come from I'm coming here from via the
San Francisco Bay Area running a very large

(04:35):
comprehensive integrated health system,
and they're now moving up to the mountains.
And I will just say, like many people
in the Bay Area, I've,
you know, I've always owned a Jeep but
never actually needed a Jeep. So part of
my first hundred days, because I arrived in
the middle of a snowstorm,
was literally learning how to actually do, you

(04:55):
know, your daily work in the in the
middle of a snowstorm. But I would say
that I,
I've said my first hundred days,
you know, I I would say more the
the former example you gave where I have
been doing a lot of listening, a lot
of learning,
you know, navigating
kind of, not only this mountain system, but

(05:16):
the mountain roads.
Literally,
you know, I've never actually worked in a
place where you had to figure out how
to get, you know, both patients and staff
through,
mountain passes in the middle of snowstorm. So
it's been a lot of fun learning. This
is a very,
resilient
community, a a very resilient system.

(05:37):
Lots of I mean, a lot of people
said you know, have said to me, like,
well, you come from a big system.
This must be, you know, this
must likely be, you know, maybe easier for
you or something. You know, it's still a
complicated
hospital system. You know, it it health care,
hospital care, outpatient care, it's complicated.

(05:57):
And so I think, you know, it is
a full journey not to really start to
understand your landscape,
and take the time to really understand
what the problems are, what the challenges are,
what the trends are,
in your region. Because some of them are
industry wide, but some of them are very
local. So I've been spending my first hundred
days
really getting to know people,

(06:18):
getting to know what they're facing on a
daily basis, and really understanding this community, which
is very different,
from the community I came from. And it's
been a really wonderful,
journey to take. So
No. I I love that perspective, and I
love the phrase. I've never heard it before.
I've always had a Jeep but never needed

(06:38):
a Jeep. That might be my favorite comment
of all day. I've never heard it before,
and I love that.
So so so so take a moment. Tell
us about some of the trends that you're
watching in health care now.
What are some of the two or three
biggest things that you're watching currently?
Yeah. I mean, I'll give you sort of
I have three areas I put my trends
into. You know, first is serve these industry

(07:00):
wide trends, and I think, you know, we
we just have to acknowledge it.
You know, emerging tech, the rise of tech,
AI
is a really big deal. I mean, I
was recently actually at Becker's, and
everybody was every single talk I went to
was about AI.
And I think, you know, we certainly are,

(07:22):
you know, in the midst of transitions and
implementation
and a variety of different,
across the board, not only in the care
sites, but even in the back office sort
of work. I think this brings a lot
of opportunity, but very much like,
the EHR
when we were all implementing
EHRs, you know, this will this requires a

(07:43):
lot of change management. So, you know, really,
technology projects are really people projects.
And,
we want to ensure that
the technology that we're incorporating, that we're implementing
is actually
advancing care, not complicating care. So I think,
again,
you know, you really can't,

(08:05):
go anywhere now and not sort of be
hearing about, you know, digital agents and ambient,
you know, AI. And and so we're we're
in the on that journey like everyone else.
The second area where I'm sort of you
know, where we're,
a trend I'm kind of watching and that's
very that's a little bit more local is
here in the community.

(08:25):
And and this is really about
the transition of Tahoe Forest itself
and and the transition of this region. And
I would just say that what one of
the things and I'm not sure if this
data point is actually correct, but in anecdotal
thing that I heard and it does resonate
is that this is one of the number
one or in the top Zoom town in

(08:46):
America during the pandemic. And I think what,
and and I think that that sort of,
stabilized a little bit and leveled back out,
and many people have gone back to work.
But but
it did
forever sort of change the demographics here in
this region. This is a we're a mountain
town,
but, you know, fairly local I mean, fairly

(09:07):
accessible to the Bay Area. So I think
a lot of Bay Area people
moved here during the pandemic
and shifted the demographics a little bit.
But,
you know, that said, we are we are
always a this is a normal sort of
phenomena in this in this region. We this
the town of Truckee itself, and that's where
I'm located, although we, as I told you,

(09:28):
serve a much broader region, but let's just
use that an example
as an example. There's about 17,000
permanent residents here, but on any
kind of given
weekend,
we can go up to
40,000.
And then in the major holidays, like, what
we're we're looking at coming up in, you
know, next week with fourth of July or

(09:49):
two weeks from now, we will exceed a
100,000.
And so this is the and we are
the only system in this region, and so
we have
to, you know, ebb and flow all the
time,
which is, I think, common in in in
these destination mountain towns.
But I think that, you know, there's just
been a lot of shifting in the demographics

(10:10):
and lots of people lots of changes in
the last few years. And and, again, I
think that was really
spurred,
accelerated by the pandemic, but it really even
though it's stabilized, it I think we've kind
of emerged from that slightly different town than
we were before.
Then the final thing I'll just say is
that this system itself,

(10:30):
you know, we started as a hospital district.
You know, we consist of two critical access
hospitals,
very focused, and we still if you talk
to people, they really self identify as a
hospital district. But, actually, we're we're becoming quite
a comprehensive health system. So we have been
in in the midst of this major transition.

(10:51):
And at, you know, this point now, like,
87%
of all of our care is outpatient.
And an example of, you know, the kind
of growth that we're seeing
is, you know, in 02/2017,
they're our system was doing about 70,000
outpatient visits. And And in 2024, we did
a 193,000.

(11:12):
And this year, we will exceed 200,000. I
mean, so just massive
growth,
and sort of massive changes in identity.
So those are those are all kind of
happening in the midst of all this other
industry stuff, and I'm consciously avoiding kind of
what's going on in DC, but there's a
lot of trends there too.

(11:33):
But those are just kind of three examples
of how I'm kind of looking at kind
of the how do you navigate this industry
kind of trends, what's going on here kind
of at the community level, and then inside
the system itself. Just a lot of change.
No. A 100%. And talk, Anna, a little
bit about
what you're most focused on and excited about
today. And then also tell me, do you

(11:54):
still cheer for the Raiders now that they're
in Las Vegas, not in LA, not in
Oakland?
How how do you look at that? To
first, what are you most focused on and
excited about? And do you still cheer for
the Raiders? Do you still consider yourself part
of Raider Nation?
Alright. Well, I will you know, what I'm
really focused on
here is is what we're really thinking about

(12:17):
and, again, I think we are focused on
we're all in the midst of growth. There's
so much change. What we really wanna make
sure we're doing is that we are
growing and changing
in ways that bring us closer and deeper
into the community.
And so what I mean by that is,
like, what is the single aim of this

(12:38):
of this system? Like, what are we all
aiming for? And I think I was just
talking to somebody this morning. One of the
things that, you know, we now can't unknow
as health system leaders is, you know, all
of us when when and I'm using the
pandemic one last time here as an example.
When we all were faced with having to
kind of get, you know, an unprecedented

(12:59):
amount of things done
aiming towards a single aim, which was really,
you know, save lives and stop the spread,
we were able to kind of get out
of our own way and and,
you know, in a thousand different ways, head
to the in the same direction.
Very much
similar here now is, like, what is our

(13:20):
single aim? What is that true north,
that we will take all the different,
portfolios within our strategy?
How will we aim those in a way
that sort of is the single overarching
aim, and, really, what will that how will
we articulate that, how will we all,
have a shared vision towards that. And it

(13:41):
and so we have some work to do
around making sure that that single aim, that
true north that we're aiming for resonates
from sort of the the
those regions, those communities on the lake and,
you know, at lake level,
as well as, you know, the regions far
north that are, you know, very different. You
know, how what is that single sort of

(14:03):
aim? So we'll be working on that,
and that's one thing we're gonna be focusing
on. The other thing is
really,
trying to
think about how, as a leadership system,
we can
move again and you know, it's a it's
a lot about moving closer to the work,
and making sure that work is aligned with

(14:25):
our community. And so really working on,
very practical things, like how do we get
out of the conference room and closer to
the front line so we can really understand
what it is that our leaders and our
workers are facing every day,
and how can we remove barriers so that
they can create,
this extraordinary experience. I mean, I'm very proud,

(14:48):
that our system is is really one of
the highest,
you know, top performers in patient experience, but
we know we can do even better.
And so what, as a leadership team, can
we do to really
continue to ensure that our providers are able
to
exceed people's expectations
and really spend the time that they they

(15:09):
want to and they and they're trying to
with their patients and the people in need.
And I you know? So I think
the that's what I'm really focused on is
figuring out how we can get the system
to work
for
the people we serve and the people who
are serving them.
Yeah. Anna, just fantastic.

(15:30):
Raider Nation all the way. Sorry.
I forgot. God bless the Raiders in in
our shell and the entire franchise. God bless
Kenny Stabler, Lyle Zato, the whole team. God
bless.
And Fred Polentikov, so many greats from Raider
Nation.
Anna, I wanna thank you for joining us
today on in the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I

(15:50):
can't wait to continue to watch your leadership.
I've heard just fantastic, fantastic things about you
as a leader and can't wait to watch
what continues to happen at Tahoe Forest. Thank
you for joining us today.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
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