Pete November, Chief Executive Officer of Ochsner Health

This episode recorded live at the Becker's Hospital Review 15th Annual Meeting features Pete November, Chief Executive Officer of Ochsner Health. He shares insights on elevating the role of nurses, tackling workforce development, and transforming care through innovation, education, and a deeply human-centered leadership approach.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast, and we are recording live at the
fifteenth annual meeting. I'm excited to be joined
by Pete November, who is the CEO at
Ochsner Health. So thanks so much for joining
me today. Would love to have you start
off by introducing yourself and telling us a
little bit more about your background in health

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care and your organization.
Well, great. Thank you for having me today.
So I'm the as you said, I'm the
CEO of Asher Health, and I've, been in
that role about two and a half years.
I've been in the organization for about thirteen
and had a number of different roles.
Prior to being the CEO, I was the
CFO and chief administrative officer and also oversaw
our innovation.
Prior to that, I was, a partner in

(01:04):
a law firm in Atlanta, working in the
health care space.
And, prior to that, I actually worked in
in public accounting. And so I have have
a little bit of a different route to
be in the the CEO of a health
care organization, but really proud to be in
this role, and, I'm just,
really excited about our organization,
at OSHA. OSHA is,
a health system that is in Louisiana, Mississippi,

(01:26):
Alabama.
We've actually got some locations in Florida, and
are opening up some locations up in South
Carolina as well.
We've got about 10,000,000,000 in revenue and 46
hospitals and three or four three to 400
different outpatient locations and 42,000 employees.
And we were founded
the name Osher was founded came from doctor

(01:47):
Alton Osher who,
founded our organization,
in the early forties with, four other physicians,
and they started it as a multi specialty
group and then, got into the hospital space.
And, ultimately, that's why we have our clinics
and hospitals,
a very physician led organization and have a
fantastic,
group practice of really aligned,

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amazing physicians.
Wonderful. Well, thanks for taking this time to
be here. And let's start our conversation within
the past twelve months or so. What's an
initiative you've taken on that you're particularly proud
of, and how has this impacted your organization?
Yeah. I think one of the things that
we've done in the last twelve months that,
has really been special is

(02:28):
emphasizing
the importance of the nursing role in an
organization.
You know, we've obviously always
known that our nurses are so important, and
and certainly, we've, talked all the time about
how important our physicians are. But in the
last twelve months or so, we've really, focused
on the importance of the nursing role and
their ability to make, important changes in the

(02:48):
organization.
And, you know, one of the things I
saw last year was we wanted to make
some improvements in some in different quality areas.
And
because we'd empowered and and and focus so
much on nursing, we went to them and
said, hey. We need your help. And they
just created incredible results from a quality perspective
in a really short amount of time, which
is challenging to do in an organization of

(03:09):
our size. And and it was just because
we created the right,
the the right
environment, culture,
and emphasis
on the nursing
role
and just gave them the autonomy to go
do what they needed to do.
And on the flip side of that, I'd
love to know what you see as the
most significant challenge facing the health care industry
currently, and how are you working to address

(03:30):
this?
I I I think there's a number of
challenges. I think one is the need to
transform care.
If you look at the
the macroenvironment
of health care, certainly reimbursement challenges, with the
aging population and Medicare.
You've got workforce challenges,
in terms of just, the number of people
available to be in the the health care

(03:51):
workforce. We're really blessed right now to have
the lowest turnover we've ever had and,
are doing great from that. But but, you
know, certainly, workforce is a challenge.
So because of those things, you've gotta transform
the way you provide care. You've gotta use
technology and innovation and think about doing things
differently
so that you can provide the access that
people need. You can provide the quality people

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need, and you can also deal with the
cost pressures.
And let's touch on leadership. I'd love to
know what the biggest leadership lesson is that
you've learned either are currently learning, have recently
learned, that you'd like to share with the
audience.
Yeah. I go I always go back to
my first, first boss was a guy named
John Lowe. And John was a Harvard Law
School graduate,

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really accomplished guy, really driven, goal oriented, detail
oriented,
smart, creative,
but also one of the kindest,
most empathetic, understanding people I've ever met, very
family oriented.
And what John taught me is you can
be driven and goal oriented and results oriented,
keep people accountable, but but you can also

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be a great human being who cares about
the people that you work that work for
you or you work with and understand that
yeah. They understand that you look at them
as a whole person and care about them,
not just as a as a person that
works with you, but but as a person
that also has a family and has career
aspirations. And to me, I think the the
the the the great part of leadership is
combining both of those things. And if you

(05:14):
can combine both of those aspects, the the
drive plus the caring and the empathy and
the the understanding
of others, I really think you can make
special things happen.
And I'd love to touch on workforce as
we round our conversation out. So this remains
a a top priority
for health care organizations,
and I love to know what your hope

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is or what you envision for the health
care workforce in the next five to ten
years. And then what are you doing to
prep for this?
Sure. I think for the health care workforce,
one, you know, always, I wanna make sure
that everybody that that works for us,
first and foremost, is achieving what they wanna
achieve in their career from an aspirational perspective
and creating an environment where they can do

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that. And I think particularly in today's world
when, you know, as I said, you've got
to innovate and you've got to change, we
provide care. You've got to create an environment
and you gotta educate and train people, in
a way that allows them to effectuate change
and to do things differently and feel comfortable
doing that. And so I think for us,
you know, it's multifaceted. One is just workforce
development. We've got a number of different programs

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that we partnered with with external universities,
to to train the next generation of workforce,
both to increase the volume of the workforce,
but also change the way they're educated so
that they're prepared for the way that health
care needs to be,
changed in the future.
Lot of emphasis on on development of people
internally,
both from a leadership perspective and a skills

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perspective. And then we've got some special programs,
you know, where we're taking people who might
be a medical assistant,
training them to be an LPN, training them
to be an RN, and, hopefully, in some
cases, go on to be physicians. And
I'm really, really trying to take everybody in
the organization and develop them into achieving what
they wanna achieve. So it's a combination of
of all of those things, but I do

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think it starts with creating the right environment
where they can
feel empowered to to make change and also
feel that they're in an organization that cares
deeply about their development.
Wonderful. Well, Pete, thanks so much for taking
the time to join me today on the
Becker's healthcare podcast. Again, we are recording live
at the fifteenth annual meeting. Thank you for
having me.