April 24, 2024 • 25 mins
With more than 35 years of diverse healthcare experience, Todd LaPorte leads an integrated health system with six acute-care hospitals, numerous outpatient facilities, a research institute, and various community services impacting social determinants of health and military preparedness.
HonorHealth is Arizona’s seventh largest employer, with a presence throughout much of the growing Phoenix metropolitan area.
HonorHealth is Arizona’s seventh largest employer, with a presence throughout much of the growing Phoenix metropolitan area.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to our latest edition of CEOsYou Should Know. I'm your host,
Jody Yaylor, joined this time bythe CEO of Honor Health, one of
the largest employers and medical providers inthe state of Arizona. Todd Laport,
joins us here on CEO's You ShouldKnow Morning, Todd, How are you
great? Jody? Thank you forinviting me. My pleasure. So,
you know, I feel like alot of people will ask me, I
(00:22):
do sports radio. Hey, youmust love doing sports, but getting into
running a major medical system, howdid you end up there? Where did
your path begin? And how didit take you to where you are today?
Now, wait a minute, Ithought we were going to talk sports.
Still you want it, Let's doit. Let's do it. We
got we got some baseball prediction,some NBA playoffs, We could do it
(00:43):
all. Well, we're definitely rootingfor the Diamondbacks. Next question about that.
So I grew up in Tucson,Arizona. Oh okay, and so
I'm a u ofa Wildcat, butit admittedly got a graduate degree from ASU
about twenty years later. But whileI was in two son, I practiced
as a CPA with a very largesort of national CPA firm called ernstin Winnie
(01:07):
at the time now called ernstin Young. And what was great about that experience
is I just had this, youknow, array of clients across different industries.
So for the first four years ofthat career, I got to,
you know, see what different industrieswere like and meet people all across the
community. But then about four yearsin I started to concentrate on working with
(01:30):
healthcare clients. And again what wasreally cool about it with a national firm
is they had such a wide rangeof clients across what we call the continuum
of care. So I had hospitalclients, physician group clients. I was
able to take an HMO public Idid work for home health agency, a
(01:56):
continuing care retirement community. It wasreally fun and so the bottom line is
I got a really good advantage pointof seeing what the whole healthcare ecosystem look
like. So from that base ofunderstanding, I then charged into directly working
in the healthcare industry. Worked fora dental organization based in Tucson that did
work statewide and we operated dental centersand we operated a dental insurance product.
(02:22):
And then I just had this callingultimately to get back to the broader,
wider medical mission. And I justalways knew I wanted to be with an
organization where I felt like I wasat the hub the pulse of the organization.
And I joined what was Scott StillHealthcare at the time, and they
(02:42):
were locally governed and serving the localcommunity, and that was the right fit
for what I wanted to accomplish orwhat purpose I felt I had in my
life at that time. And Iknow you were CFO with the organization prior
to becoming CEO CFO of the yearat one point. I'm curious to somebody
who recognizes that numbers aren't necessarily mystrength unless I'm looking at the stats of
(03:07):
a sports team. Was a numbersbackground? Was there always something you gravitated
towards in school and just kind ofkept progressing on or did that come later
in life? You know, I'vealways been analytical, and it was sort
of natural for me to to,you know, get a degree, if
you will, in accounting and getinvolved in business. But it really,
(03:29):
and it's really what I even discoveredwhen I was with a national accounting firm
that that wasn't enough for me.It was how to connect with people.
I really was even tracking with thefirm I was with do more of a
consulting partner, right, someone whowould work with clients, be a business
advisor. But over time I cameto find that although I loved calling on
(03:52):
my financial acumen, I really enjoyedstrategy. I enjoyed, you know,
how, to a culture in anorganization. I enjoyed interacting with people,
which I know sounds completely counterintuitive tosomeone who's maybe analytically bent, right,
but my comfort zone was much moreuh the uh, it was much more
(04:15):
a different route than that. I'vegot a lot of follow up questions,
but just for the record, sincewe are both proud products of the University
of Arizona, I assume you hada wonderful time at the University of Arizona.
You know, no comment and thegood news is the technology at the
time didn't memorialize all of my collegeexperience speaking to YouTube or anything like that.
(04:39):
But I loved it at the oA. Yeah, it's it was,
it is and was a wonderful institution. Uh and uh, I loved
the charm of all the just ohgosh, it was the stumble in it
was uh oh, the hangouts weused to go to in Tucson. There's
a place called col and I justhave all these wonderful memories of Tucson and
(05:03):
then the U of A campus,And of course you can't really appreciate the
U of A unless you've spent timeon the mall right there in the center
of the university, where you knowthe pulse and the vibrancy of the organ
of the whole university is and youwere probably be able to experience also sort
of the genesis of the lout Olsenand Arizona basketball experience rising and culminating with
(05:26):
a national championship. So this isa true story. So a gentleman by
the name of Ben Lindsay, whohad taken Grand Canyon at that time to
its form of a division to anational championship, was hired by the U
of A. And that season,my senior year, they were three and
twenty three. Wow, I couldliterally walk into the place and sit behind
(05:47):
the players with a student ticket.Not true anymore, no, fortunately,
And then right after that Loudolsen justtransformed everything, et cetera. But I
will tell you maybe my fondest memoryat the u A was a buddy of
mine and I had heard of thisgroup that many people hadn't heard of called
the Police Oh wow, And theycame to the campus and played in what
(06:12):
is now Centennial Home and I'm notkidding what one fifteen hundred people. The
place was rocking. We were havinga great time. And maybe a month
later, when they had released theirZenyatim and Doda album, they were playing
to eighty thousand people at Wendley Stadiumin London, so we kind of them
at the right time. What anincredible experience and that's something you will remember
(06:33):
the rest of your life to thisday. That remains my favorite concert of
all time. Todd Laporte joining ushere on CEOs. You should know.
He's the CEO of Honor Health anda couple things stood out to me when
you were describing your background, andone of them is how you tend to
find most of your fulfillment or alot of your fulfillment in being around people,
(06:54):
leading people, helping create environments thatfoster success for people. Where we
talk about how that is, you'vebeen able to implement that and develop and
growte with Honor Health, what doyou think makes for a successful culture,
creation for successful people, Empowerment,how do you do that from your position
(07:14):
of leadership now, in the pastand hope to in the future. Well,
I think it starts with having justan inherent belief that everybody has a
gift, everybody brings something to thetable. And so for me, if
I look back on my journey,all of my joy has come from situations
where accomplishments came from a team.In fact, my kids all swam at
(07:36):
the Scotts Dell Aquatic Club and theyhave an acronym where together everyone achieves more
team and it's so it's so truein sports. I played tennis and basketball
when I was in high school,and I really loved the basketball experience so
much because of my teammates and theshared experiences. So I guess I would
(08:01):
just say it starts with appreciating everyone'scontribution, recognizing it takes a village and
a collection of subject matter experts,and then you know the joy of sort
of bringing them together and get them, getting them rallied around and aligned vision
and what they can accomplish together.And then when you see what your impact
can be when you do work together, it's it just it brings a lot
(08:24):
of joy to the people who arepart of it and it brings a lot
of joy to the people who arereceiving it. So in the healthcare world,
you know, there's obviously it's revolvesaround trying to help people and to
providing care that people need and extendinglife. There's also a part of the
healthcare system that some people find complicated, they find difficult to navigate, sometimes
(08:45):
just downright frustrating. How do you, with honor health try to bring that
human approach, finding the power inpeople and align it with a system that
oftentimes can leave people frustrating. Well, at our very core, right,
it's about caring for people, andcaring for them at a time in which
(09:09):
they're feeling of vulnerability and have alot of uncertainty. So there is a
real sense of satisfaction when you canput people at ease and truly be a
part of helping them heal, helpingthem get better. What we try to
(09:31):
emphasize more than anything is communicate withpeople. Pretend this is your mother,
right and how would you want herto be treated? And it's really about
good communication. And we even promotea philosophy of shared decision making. So
if you're communicating well with patients,and their families. They can make informed
(09:56):
decisions about how they want their oryou know, treatment treatment plan, if
you will, to play out.And everybody's different, right, and that's
what you learn. Everyone's coming atthings a little bit differently, how they
want to approach, you know,what can sometimes be options to addressing their
care. So at the end ofthe day, this is a people business.
(10:18):
It's about getting to know the peoplethat you're caregiving for and communicating well,
what do you feel like. HonorHealth does well and perhaps does better
than some others who may try ashard and good intentions they are, But
Honor Health does this to allow youto stand apart. So I think what
is differentiating about Honor Health is thatit is well. First of all,
(10:43):
a few just stats to roll outat you. We just recently in the
fall, did surveys as we doannually of our employees and our medical staff,
and we were top quartile when comparedto a national peer group in terms
of employee engagement and physician engagement.To me, that's what everything then cascades
(11:09):
off of our patient experience scores whencompared to a national peer group. Again
we're top quartile even edging towards topdecile. And so if you have happy
employees and a happy medical staff,you can have happy patients. And then
at the end of the day,in substance, Leapfrog is an employee watchdog
(11:31):
group and they rate hospitals in thehospital industry. And we have six hospitals
and in our spring report card wehad four a's and two b's. Now
that sounds nice. That sounds likea really good report card. That's a
three point seven GPA. I wouldhave gotten some ice cream for that if
I brought it home, absolutely,And that's off of a three point seven
(11:54):
GPA last semester. So we're ona nice role But when you look at
that in relative terms to where ourpeers are in the valley, we felt
really good about it. I cantell you that it was the highest rated
GPA of any multi hospital system inthe valley. And so I think we
(12:15):
are very differentiating than in you know, the satisfaction of our team, the
satisfaction of our patients, and thenmost importantly the quality of the outcomes,
and so those are differentiating factors andwhat we try to build off of.
I think the people that are magnetizedto the honor health effort, be it
(12:39):
staff or be a patients. Isthat somehow we don't come across as a
large company. You know, wedo have fifteen thousand employees. We are
the eighth largest employer in Arizona.But there's just something that feels familial.
It feels like you are kind ofat home when you're in our facilities and
(13:01):
the way people address you and treatyou. I'd like to say all the
time, We'll just say most ofthe time, that's what we strive for.
When I was doing research on Honorhealth before this conversation, one of
the things that struck me was inyour position as CEO and when you combine
the hospital systems that came together ultimatelyform on our health. There's over one
(13:26):
hundred years of experience in providing healthcareto people. Right, You're just the
tenth CEO in one hundred and fiftyyears or so of providing healthcare. Now,
my background was in sports. Iimmediately thought of the Pittsburgh Steelers,
who have had three head coaches infifty some odd years. Because it's owned
(13:48):
by a family, the Rooney family, there's stability, there's a culture,
and it affords that level of stabilitywhere success kind of breeds. And when
I thought about a healthcare system withthat kind of stability in leadership, I
would have if somebody would have askedme how many CEOs have there been in
the last fifty years in a healthcarecompany, I would have said, I
(14:09):
don't know, twenty fifteen. Sothe background of Honor Health when you talk
about how it doesn't feel like ahuge corporation despite its size and it's might
here in the state economically and beyond, how do you accomplish that. Yeah,
there's something to be said for continuity, and it's and admittedly the shelf
(14:30):
life of CEO healthcare CEOs is notvery long, but I think the value
of it, well, I willsay it is a It is representative of
the fact that we have governance thathas continuity itself. We have board members
who don't come and go, thatalso make commitments for long stretches of time.
(14:54):
It's not uncommon that we'll have communityleaders on our board who serve for,
you know, a decade, andso I think they value that continuity
and and and healthcare is an interestingindustry. It's it goes through cycles,
it's it'll feel like everything's it's itnever feels like it's always under control.
(15:18):
There's always it's very dynamic industry withlots of different regulation, emerging regulations,
and technologies. But it's it's stablein the sense that everyone is always going
to need healthcare, right, Butthere are times that hits down cycles.
Right. It could just be theeconomic environment has pressures and it's just very
(15:41):
hard to uh to operate the healthcaresystem where you ideally would want to.
So it really is viable when youhave seasoned leaders who sort of have seen
all of the seasons and and andcan work through what are sometimes these cycles
of crises. And I think thepandemic was a great example. I think
(16:02):
here's something none of us really sawcoming. It stuck around for two or
three years solidly, and I knowI was so grateful that I had a
senior leadership team that was not dauntedby it. They rolled up their sleeves
and just did what they had tobecause it wasn't their first rodeo and challenge
(16:23):
healthcare systems in a way that almostI would imagine nothing had before and hopefully
nothing does after. Because it wasabout finding people that could provide service meeting
the needs of the public that neededservice all of the time, where the
rules were changing on a near dailybasis for how, what and why right?
Well, and you know, Ithink about sort of lessons learned out
(16:45):
of that experience, and it wasa time where we were so thankful that
we were a kind of complete system. We had six hospitals, we were
able to float talent when we neededtwo, we were able to share experiences
going on as a system, andall of that elevated the level of service
(17:07):
and response that we delivered at eachof our sites. So we all benefited
by being part of something bigger onthat occasion. And of course, you
know, we had the scale,if you will, to have the resources
to do whatever it took to providethe best care during a very crisis situation.
Todd Laporte, the CEO of HonorHealth, joining us here on CEOs
(17:30):
You should know a couple more questions. Honor Health also does something that I
think deserves a lot of recognition forwhich is being philanthropically involved. And I
know that there's the topic of bluezones is something that is particularly important to
Honor Health. How do you definethat? How would you describe it?
(17:51):
And overall, philanthropically, what isyour mission with Honor Health to continue to
impact the community outside of just providingoutstanding service. So I've got two things
I will speak to with what you'veintroduced there. One is we actually receive
the goodwill of the community through philanthropy. We actually, through an Honor Health
Foundation, have raised in the neighborhoodof sixty million dollars from the community over
(18:18):
each of these last three years becausewe have a community that very much wants
us to be able to be innovativeand provide the most advanced care and they
want to know that the full communityhas access to good care. But then
in terms of how we then giveback, what's our philanthropy. So there's
(18:44):
a definition that gets used in onourn industry called community benefit and it will
evaluate things like, well, howmuch are we delivering in care that certain
government programs don't reimburse this cost back, be it medicare or access in our
state, What do we do toprovide different community outreaches and so forth.
(19:06):
And in our audited financial statements inthe footnotes, it will express that we
delivered five hundred and seventy million dollarswith a community benefit in twenty twenty three.
So that's the level of well threebillion top line entity. But we
in essence are delivering over a halfa billion dollars of community benefit by making
(19:26):
if you Will care accessible to peoplewho in essence aren't paying full freight for
costs. Well, then when youlook at the value of our tax exemption,
it's estimated to only be half ofthat, So you could argue that
the community is getting a two forone benefit for what it provides is to
(19:48):
operate as a tax exempt nonprofit organization. We're delivering that level of community benefit
back. Wow, And then youmentioned blue zones. What I would tell
Honor Health I should have said thisin terms of how are we differentiated.
We're an organization that's not just focusedon how do we provide for acute care
(20:11):
needs and chronic conditions when they presentthemselves to us. We're also about engaging
with the community in a way toinspire and promote well being so that strangely
enough, people are so healthy theydon't even have to come to our facility.
(20:32):
It does and people have always said, well, why would you promote
people being healthy and not going tohospitals or other you know, uh,
you know care settings, it's like, because that's our mission. Our mission
is to help people be healthy andhave a high level of well being,
and so it feels very natural.And the reality is there's a supply and
(20:55):
demand issue in healthcare that's still percolating, which is the need for healthcare keeps
growing as Americans, unfortunately are becomingmore acutely ill given levels of obesity and
other societal norms that are running counterto good health. So the demands rising
and the supply of healthcare workers isnot as strong as it needs to be
(21:18):
to keep up with that. Soif we don't get out ahead of this
and in essence try to manage demand, I'm not sure how we're going to
serve what the need is downstream.So it is altruistic that we want to,
of course help everybody be well,but it is somewhat defit a preemptive
(21:41):
measure on our part to make surethat demand is something we can handle.
And by the way, for ourlisteners, this is also born out of
some of your very personal experience,right, I mean, your personal experience
suffering a health set back helped createthis vision for what the company and others
should follow. So I realized theydidn't finish the thought that that philosophy I
(22:06):
just shared with you became combatible witha national movement called Blue Zones, and
blue Zones was all about was allabout how do we create a built in
environment in a community that makes iteasier for people to make healthy choices and
improve their well being. So nowI'll relate it back to what you brought
(22:26):
up in terms of my personal experience. Ten years ago, I had a
heart attack. I was fifty twoyears old, and strangely enough, my
reaction was and in fact almost immediatelywith my four daughters and wife in the
room, where I said, thisis going to be the best day of
my life. That evening, asI was reflecting on something that almost could
(22:48):
have taken my life and very nearlydid, it was like this light went
on, like I've got to makethis a really stand out moment an awakening,
and I shifted into how do Itake better care of myself? And
in that personal journey, I becameacquainted with Blue Zones and what it was
(23:11):
promoting, and that it was notjust oh, just eat right and exercise,
and it was much multi dimensional allthe things I could do to enhance
my well being and then professionally isbecoming more and more apparent. That's really
what the market wanted from on ourhealth and for us to do in a
(23:33):
more you know, community wide,on a more community wide basis. So
Blue Zones was a personal journey,but Blue Zones also been an organizational journey,
and we're excited because we're actually committingto a work site certification process that
the Blue Zones has organized where we'regoing to challenge whether or not we do
(23:56):
everything we can in our in ourown work setting to promote the health and
well being of our own employees.You love when companies, so to speak,
put their money where their mouth isinstead of it just being something on
a website or something they say ina meeting. To follow through and to
live that and to make sure it'ssort of codified into the culture of an
organization. That's the whole other level, right, So we hope we can
(24:19):
walk the talk and that it infectsthroughout and that's a tough way to use,
but we hope that it gets itcatches on with the entire community,
and we would love it if wecould say that Scottsdale, North Phoenix,
the General Valley is one of thehealthiest places in the country to live well.
(24:40):
Everybody benefits if that becomes true,and it all starts with leadership and
a mission and a vision and anexecution. I've really enjoyed the conversation about
on our Health, about your backstory. So fortunate not only for your family,
but for everybody that experiencing what couldhave been the worst moment of your
life is created an opportunity to hopefullyprevent that from countless of other peoples and
(25:03):
also get to experience their best momentsin life. And that's what healthcare is
all about, isn't it. Absolutely? Jody and I want to thank you
for bringing attention to some of thesesubjects the way you and your organization serves
the community yourself. So thank youvery much for creating a forum like this
our pleasure. It's Todd Laporte.He is the CEO of Honor Health.
This is CEOs you should know.Until next time, thanks for listening.
Welcome to our latest edition of CEOsYou Should Know. I'm your host,
Jody Yaylor, joined this time bythe CEO of Honor Health, one of
the largest employers and medical providers inthe state of Arizona. Todd Laport,
joins us here on CEO's You ShouldKnow Morning, Todd, How are you
great? Jody? Thank you forinviting me. My pleasure. So,
you know, I feel like alot of people will ask me, I
(00:22):
do sports radio. Hey, youmust love doing sports, but getting into
running a major medical system, howdid you end up there? Where did
your path begin? And how didit take you to where you are today?
Now, wait a minute, Ithought we were going to talk sports.
Still you want it, Let's doit. Let's do it. We
got we got some baseball prediction,some NBA playoffs, We could do it
(00:43):
all. Well, we're definitely rootingfor the Diamondbacks. Next question about that.
So I grew up in Tucson,Arizona. Oh okay, and so
I'm a u ofa Wildcat, butit admittedly got a graduate degree from ASU
about twenty years later. But whileI was in two son, I practiced
as a CPA with a very largesort of national CPA firm called ernstin Winnie
(01:07):
at the time now called ernstin Young. And what was great about that experience
is I just had this, youknow, array of clients across different industries.
So for the first four years ofthat career, I got to,
you know, see what different industrieswere like and meet people all across the
community. But then about four yearsin I started to concentrate on working with
(01:30):
healthcare clients. And again what wasreally cool about it with a national firm
is they had such a wide rangeof clients across what we call the continuum
of care. So I had hospitalclients, physician group clients. I was
able to take an HMO public Idid work for home health agency, a
(01:56):
continuing care retirement community. It wasreally fun and so the bottom line is
I got a really good advantage pointof seeing what the whole healthcare ecosystem look
like. So from that base ofunderstanding, I then charged into directly working
in the healthcare industry. Worked fora dental organization based in Tucson that did
work statewide and we operated dental centersand we operated a dental insurance product.
(02:22):
And then I just had this callingultimately to get back to the broader,
wider medical mission. And I justalways knew I wanted to be with an
organization where I felt like I wasat the hub the pulse of the organization.
And I joined what was Scott StillHealthcare at the time, and they
(02:42):
were locally governed and serving the localcommunity, and that was the right fit
for what I wanted to accomplish orwhat purpose I felt I had in my
life at that time. And Iknow you were CFO with the organization prior
to becoming CEO CFO of the yearat one point. I'm curious to somebody
who recognizes that numbers aren't necessarily mystrength unless I'm looking at the stats of
(03:07):
a sports team. Was a numbersbackground? Was there always something you gravitated
towards in school and just kind ofkept progressing on or did that come later
in life? You know, I'vealways been analytical, and it was sort
of natural for me to to,you know, get a degree, if
you will, in accounting and getinvolved in business. But it really,
(03:29):
and it's really what I even discoveredwhen I was with a national accounting firm
that that wasn't enough for me.It was how to connect with people.
I really was even tracking with thefirm I was with do more of a
consulting partner, right, someone whowould work with clients, be a business
advisor. But over time I cameto find that although I loved calling on
(03:52):
my financial acumen, I really enjoyedstrategy. I enjoyed, you know,
how, to a culture in anorganization. I enjoyed interacting with people,
which I know sounds completely counterintuitive tosomeone who's maybe analytically bent, right,
but my comfort zone was much moreuh the uh, it was much more
(04:15):
a different route than that. I'vegot a lot of follow up questions,
but just for the record, sincewe are both proud products of the University
of Arizona, I assume you hada wonderful time at the University of Arizona.
You know, no comment and thegood news is the technology at the
time didn't memorialize all of my collegeexperience speaking to YouTube or anything like that.
(04:39):
But I loved it at the oA. Yeah, it's it was,
it is and was a wonderful institution. Uh and uh, I loved
the charm of all the just ohgosh, it was the stumble in it
was uh oh, the hangouts weused to go to in Tucson. There's
a place called col and I justhave all these wonderful memories of Tucson and
(05:03):
then the U of A campus,And of course you can't really appreciate the
U of A unless you've spent timeon the mall right there in the center
of the university, where you knowthe pulse and the vibrancy of the organ
of the whole university is and youwere probably be able to experience also sort
of the genesis of the lout Olsenand Arizona basketball experience rising and culminating with
(05:26):
a national championship. So this isa true story. So a gentleman by
the name of Ben Lindsay, whohad taken Grand Canyon at that time to
its form of a division to anational championship, was hired by the U
of A. And that season,my senior year, they were three and
twenty three. Wow, I couldliterally walk into the place and sit behind
(05:47):
the players with a student ticket.Not true anymore, no, fortunately,
And then right after that Loudolsen justtransformed everything, et cetera. But I
will tell you maybe my fondest memoryat the u A was a buddy of
mine and I had heard of thisgroup that many people hadn't heard of called
the Police Oh wow, And theycame to the campus and played in what
(06:12):
is now Centennial Home and I'm notkidding what one fifteen hundred people. The
place was rocking. We were havinga great time. And maybe a month
later, when they had released theirZenyatim and Doda album, they were playing
to eighty thousand people at Wendley Stadiumin London, so we kind of them
at the right time. What anincredible experience and that's something you will remember
(06:33):
the rest of your life to thisday. That remains my favorite concert of
all time. Todd Laporte joining ushere on CEOs. You should know.
He's the CEO of Honor Health anda couple things stood out to me when
you were describing your background, andone of them is how you tend to
find most of your fulfillment or alot of your fulfillment in being around people,
(06:54):
leading people, helping create environments thatfoster success for people. Where we
talk about how that is, you'vebeen able to implement that and develop and
growte with Honor Health, what doyou think makes for a successful culture,
creation for successful people, Empowerment,how do you do that from your position
(07:14):
of leadership now, in the pastand hope to in the future. Well,
I think it starts with having justan inherent belief that everybody has a
gift, everybody brings something to thetable. And so for me, if
I look back on my journey,all of my joy has come from situations
where accomplishments came from a team.In fact, my kids all swam at
(07:36):
the Scotts Dell Aquatic Club and theyhave an acronym where together everyone achieves more
team and it's so it's so truein sports. I played tennis and basketball
when I was in high school,and I really loved the basketball experience so
much because of my teammates and theshared experiences. So I guess I would
(08:01):
just say it starts with appreciating everyone'scontribution, recognizing it takes a village and
a collection of subject matter experts,and then you know the joy of sort
of bringing them together and get them, getting them rallied around and aligned vision
and what they can accomplish together.And then when you see what your impact
can be when you do work together, it's it just it brings a lot
(08:24):
of joy to the people who arepart of it and it brings a lot
of joy to the people who arereceiving it. So in the healthcare world,
you know, there's obviously it's revolvesaround trying to help people and to
providing care that people need and extendinglife. There's also a part of the
healthcare system that some people find complicated, they find difficult to navigate, sometimes
(08:45):
just downright frustrating. How do you, with honor health try to bring that
human approach, finding the power inpeople and align it with a system that
oftentimes can leave people frustrating. Well, at our very core, right,
it's about caring for people, andcaring for them at a time in which
(09:09):
they're feeling of vulnerability and have alot of uncertainty. So there is a
real sense of satisfaction when you canput people at ease and truly be a
part of helping them heal, helpingthem get better. What we try to
(09:31):
emphasize more than anything is communicate withpeople. Pretend this is your mother,
right and how would you want herto be treated? And it's really about
good communication. And we even promotea philosophy of shared decision making. So
if you're communicating well with patients,and their families. They can make informed
(09:56):
decisions about how they want their oryou know, treatment treatment plan, if
you will, to play out.And everybody's different, right, and that's
what you learn. Everyone's coming atthings a little bit differently, how they
want to approach, you know,what can sometimes be options to addressing their
care. So at the end ofthe day, this is a people business.
(10:18):
It's about getting to know the peoplethat you're caregiving for and communicating well,
what do you feel like. HonorHealth does well and perhaps does better
than some others who may try ashard and good intentions they are, But
Honor Health does this to allow youto stand apart. So I think what
is differentiating about Honor Health is thatit is well. First of all,
(10:43):
a few just stats to roll outat you. We just recently in the
fall, did surveys as we doannually of our employees and our medical staff,
and we were top quartile when comparedto a national peer group in terms
of employee engagement and physician engagement.To me, that's what everything then cascades
(11:09):
off of our patient experience scores whencompared to a national peer group. Again
we're top quartile even edging towards topdecile. And so if you have happy
employees and a happy medical staff,you can have happy patients. And then
at the end of the day,in substance, Leapfrog is an employee watchdog
(11:31):
group and they rate hospitals in thehospital industry. And we have six hospitals
and in our spring report card wehad four a's and two b's. Now
that sounds nice. That sounds likea really good report card. That's a
three point seven GPA. I wouldhave gotten some ice cream for that if
I brought it home, absolutely,And that's off of a three point seven
(11:54):
GPA last semester. So we're ona nice role But when you look at
that in relative terms to where ourpeers are in the valley, we felt
really good about it. I cantell you that it was the highest rated
GPA of any multi hospital system inthe valley. And so I think we
(12:15):
are very differentiating than in you know, the satisfaction of our team, the
satisfaction of our patients, and thenmost importantly the quality of the outcomes,
and so those are differentiating factors andwhat we try to build off of.
I think the people that are magnetizedto the honor health effort, be it
(12:39):
staff or be a patients. Isthat somehow we don't come across as a
large company. You know, wedo have fifteen thousand employees. We are
the eighth largest employer in Arizona.But there's just something that feels familial.
It feels like you are kind ofat home when you're in our facilities and
(13:01):
the way people address you and treatyou. I'd like to say all the
time, We'll just say most ofthe time, that's what we strive for.
When I was doing research on Honorhealth before this conversation, one of
the things that struck me was inyour position as CEO and when you combine
the hospital systems that came together ultimatelyform on our health. There's over one
(13:26):
hundred years of experience in providing healthcareto people. Right, You're just the
tenth CEO in one hundred and fiftyyears or so of providing healthcare. Now,
my background was in sports. Iimmediately thought of the Pittsburgh Steelers,
who have had three head coaches infifty some odd years. Because it's owned
(13:48):
by a family, the Rooney family, there's stability, there's a culture,
and it affords that level of stabilitywhere success kind of breeds. And when
I thought about a healthcare system withthat kind of stability in leadership, I
would have if somebody would have askedme how many CEOs have there been in
the last fifty years in a healthcarecompany, I would have said, I
(14:09):
don't know, twenty fifteen. Sothe background of Honor Health when you talk
about how it doesn't feel like ahuge corporation despite its size and it's might
here in the state economically and beyond, how do you accomplish that. Yeah,
there's something to be said for continuity, and it's and admittedly the shelf
(14:30):
life of CEO healthcare CEOs is notvery long, but I think the value
of it, well, I willsay it is a It is representative of
the fact that we have governance thathas continuity itself. We have board members
who don't come and go, thatalso make commitments for long stretches of time.
(14:54):
It's not uncommon that we'll have communityleaders on our board who serve for,
you know, a decade, andso I think they value that continuity
and and and healthcare is an interestingindustry. It's it goes through cycles,
it's it'll feel like everything's it's itnever feels like it's always under control.
(15:18):
There's always it's very dynamic industry withlots of different regulation, emerging regulations,
and technologies. But it's it's stablein the sense that everyone is always going
to need healthcare, right, Butthere are times that hits down cycles.
Right. It could just be theeconomic environment has pressures and it's just very
(15:41):
hard to uh to operate the healthcaresystem where you ideally would want to.
So it really is viable when youhave seasoned leaders who sort of have seen
all of the seasons and and andcan work through what are sometimes these cycles
of crises. And I think thepandemic was a great example. I think
(16:02):
here's something none of us really sawcoming. It stuck around for two or
three years solidly, and I knowI was so grateful that I had a
senior leadership team that was not dauntedby it. They rolled up their sleeves
and just did what they had tobecause it wasn't their first rodeo and challenge
(16:23):
healthcare systems in a way that almostI would imagine nothing had before and hopefully
nothing does after. Because it wasabout finding people that could provide service meeting
the needs of the public that neededservice all of the time, where the
rules were changing on a near dailybasis for how, what and why right?
Well, and you know, Ithink about sort of lessons learned out
(16:45):
of that experience, and it wasa time where we were so thankful that
we were a kind of complete system. We had six hospitals, we were
able to float talent when we neededtwo, we were able to share experiences
going on as a system, andall of that elevated the level of service
(17:07):
and response that we delivered at eachof our sites. So we all benefited
by being part of something bigger onthat occasion. And of course, you
know, we had the scale,if you will, to have the resources
to do whatever it took to providethe best care during a very crisis situation.
Todd Laporte, the CEO of HonorHealth, joining us here on CEOs
(17:30):
You should know a couple more questions. Honor Health also does something that I
think deserves a lot of recognition forwhich is being philanthropically involved. And I
know that there's the topic of bluezones is something that is particularly important to
Honor Health. How do you definethat? How would you describe it?
(17:51):
And overall, philanthropically, what isyour mission with Honor Health to continue to
impact the community outside of just providingoutstanding service. So I've got two things
I will speak to with what you'veintroduced there. One is we actually receive
the goodwill of the community through philanthropy. We actually, through an Honor Health
Foundation, have raised in the neighborhoodof sixty million dollars from the community over
(18:18):
each of these last three years becausewe have a community that very much wants
us to be able to be innovativeand provide the most advanced care and they
want to know that the full communityhas access to good care. But then
in terms of how we then giveback, what's our philanthropy. So there's
(18:44):
a definition that gets used in onourn industry called community benefit and it will
evaluate things like, well, howmuch are we delivering in care that certain
government programs don't reimburse this cost back, be it medicare or access in our
state, What do we do toprovide different community outreaches and so forth.
(19:06):
And in our audited financial statements inthe footnotes, it will express that we
delivered five hundred and seventy million dollarswith a community benefit in twenty twenty three.
So that's the level of well threebillion top line entity. But we
in essence are delivering over a halfa billion dollars of community benefit by making
(19:26):
if you Will care accessible to peoplewho in essence aren't paying full freight for
costs. Well, then when youlook at the value of our tax exemption,
it's estimated to only be half ofthat, So you could argue that
the community is getting a two forone benefit for what it provides is to
(19:48):
operate as a tax exempt nonprofit organization. We're delivering that level of community benefit
back. Wow, And then youmentioned blue zones. What I would tell
Honor Health I should have said thisin terms of how are we differentiated.
We're an organization that's not just focusedon how do we provide for acute care
(20:11):
needs and chronic conditions when they presentthemselves to us. We're also about engaging
with the community in a way toinspire and promote well being so that strangely
enough, people are so healthy theydon't even have to come to our facility.
(20:32):
It does and people have always said, well, why would you promote
people being healthy and not going tohospitals or other you know, uh,
you know care settings, it's like, because that's our mission. Our mission
is to help people be healthy andhave a high level of well being,
and so it feels very natural.And the reality is there's a supply and
(20:55):
demand issue in healthcare that's still percolating, which is the need for healthcare keeps
growing as Americans, unfortunately are becomingmore acutely ill given levels of obesity and
other societal norms that are running counterto good health. So the demands rising
and the supply of healthcare workers isnot as strong as it needs to be
(21:18):
to keep up with that. Soif we don't get out ahead of this
and in essence try to manage demand, I'm not sure how we're going to
serve what the need is downstream.So it is altruistic that we want to,
of course help everybody be well,but it is somewhat defit a preemptive
(21:41):
measure on our part to make surethat demand is something we can handle.
And by the way, for ourlisteners, this is also born out of
some of your very personal experience,right, I mean, your personal experience
suffering a health set back helped createthis vision for what the company and others
should follow. So I realized theydidn't finish the thought that that philosophy I
(22:06):
just shared with you became combatible witha national movement called Blue Zones, and
blue Zones was all about was allabout how do we create a built in
environment in a community that makes iteasier for people to make healthy choices and
improve their well being. So nowI'll relate it back to what you brought
(22:26):
up in terms of my personal experience. Ten years ago, I had a
heart attack. I was fifty twoyears old, and strangely enough, my
reaction was and in fact almost immediatelywith my four daughters and wife in the
room, where I said, thisis going to be the best day of
my life. That evening, asI was reflecting on something that almost could
(22:48):
have taken my life and very nearlydid, it was like this light went
on, like I've got to makethis a really stand out moment an awakening,
and I shifted into how do Itake better care of myself? And
in that personal journey, I becameacquainted with Blue Zones and what it was
(23:11):
promoting, and that it was notjust oh, just eat right and exercise,
and it was much multi dimensional allthe things I could do to enhance
my well being and then professionally isbecoming more and more apparent. That's really
what the market wanted from on ourhealth and for us to do in a
(23:33):
more you know, community wide,on a more community wide basis. So
Blue Zones was a personal journey,but Blue Zones also been an organizational journey,
and we're excited because we're actually committingto a work site certification process that
the Blue Zones has organized where we'regoing to challenge whether or not we do
(23:56):
everything we can in our in ourown work setting to promote the health and
well being of our own employees.You love when companies, so to speak,
put their money where their mouth isinstead of it just being something on
a website or something they say ina meeting. To follow through and to
live that and to make sure it'ssort of codified into the culture of an
organization. That's the whole other level, right, So we hope we can
(24:19):
walk the talk and that it infectsthroughout and that's a tough way to use,
but we hope that it gets itcatches on with the entire community,
and we would love it if wecould say that Scottsdale, North Phoenix,
the General Valley is one of thehealthiest places in the country to live well.
(24:40):
Everybody benefits if that becomes true,and it all starts with leadership and
a mission and a vision and anexecution. I've really enjoyed the conversation about
on our Health, about your backstory. So fortunate not only for your family,
but for everybody that experiencing what couldhave been the worst moment of your
life is created an opportunity to hopefullyprevent that from countless of other peoples and
(25:03):
also get to experience their best momentsin life. And that's what healthcare is
all about, isn't it. Absolutely? Jody and I want to thank you
for bringing attention to some of thesesubjects the way you and your organization serves
the community yourself. So thank youvery much for creating a forum like this
our pleasure. It's Todd Laporte.He is the CEO of Honor Health.
This is CEOs you should know.Until next time, thanks for listening.
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