July 13, 2023 • 18 mins
Aimee Brewer is the president and chief executive officer of Sturdy Health, an integrated, independent non-profit health system.
Sturdy Health is comprised of Sturdy Memorial Hospital, a 142-bed acute care hospital, along with 26 primary and specialty care medical offices and an Urgent Care Center dedicated to providing a broad range of healthcare services to the residents of communities in Southeastern Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island. Since joining Sturdy Health in late 2021, Aimee has emerged as an extraordinary advocate for patients, caregivers, and communities. Aimee’s innovative mindset, supportive leadership, and advancement of collaborative community based care are already proving to be of tremendous benefit within the region.
Prior to joining Sturdy, Aimee served as president of NorthBay Health, an integrated care delivery system in Northern California, and HCA, one of the nation’s largest providers of healthcare in 21 states and the United Kingdom. She has served on multiple boards and is currently serves on the MHA Board of Trustees.
Sturdy Health is comprised of Sturdy Memorial Hospital, a 142-bed acute care hospital, along with 26 primary and specialty care medical offices and an Urgent Care Center dedicated to providing a broad range of healthcare services to the residents of communities in Southeastern Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island. Since joining Sturdy Health in late 2021, Aimee has emerged as an extraordinary advocate for patients, caregivers, and communities. Aimee’s innovative mindset, supportive leadership, and advancement of collaborative community based care are already proving to be of tremendous benefit within the region.
Prior to joining Sturdy, Aimee served as president of NorthBay Health, an integrated care delivery system in Northern California, and HCA, one of the nation’s largest providers of healthcare in 21 states and the United Kingdom. She has served on multiple boards and is currently serves on the MHA Board of Trustees.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I'm Bill George. We're talking withAmy Brewer, President and CEO of Sturdy
Health. Hi. Amy, Hi, how are you. I'm good Amy.
Congratulations on celebrating the one tenth anniversaryof caring for the people of southeastern
Massachusetts in Rhode Island. First ofall, thank you, thank you very
much. I think most folks insouthern New England are familiar with Sturdy Memorial
(00:20):
Hospital in Addleborough, but I knowthat Sturdy is a lot more than that,
So tell us about the mission ofSturdy Health. Let me just first
of all, say what Sturdy Healthis, because some people are familiar with
the Sturdy Memorial Hospital. But weactually underwent a name evolution earlier this year,
and we really it's one hundred andtenth anniversary, and we thought that
(00:42):
what we'd realized is there was alot of sort of actually misconceptions in our
area that people didn't realize the depthand breadth of all of our services throughout
the community. And we have overtwenty six locations and primary care and specialty
that we can get into later.But we realize there there's a lot of
people that didn't realize we had allof that because of our name and so
(01:03):
we went through this process to evolveour name to Sturdy Health, from Sturdy
Memorial Hospital to Sturdy Health, whichis really reflective of who we are and
where we want to go. Italso reflects our focus on health. We're
obviously here when people are sick andinjured in our urgent cares, in our
emergency departments, or when you're deliveringa baby, or when you need surgery,
but we're also here to keep youhealthy. So we're excited to talk
(01:26):
about the name change and talk aboutwhere we're headed. Yeah, well,
let's talk about that. So whenit comes to Sturdy Health, you mentioned
it's a lot more than just SturdyMemorial Hospital in Adelborough, So tell us
about some of the other areas whereSturdy Health has expanded. Yeah. One
of the things that people are sometimessurprised to hear is three hundred and eleven
(01:49):
thousand patient visits occur outside of ourhospital walls each year. So three hundred
thousand patient visits are occurring in ourprimary care and specialty care clinics across the
region. And so we have pediatrics, we have family practice, we have
internal medicine, and we have awhole host of specialty practices cardiology, vascular,
(02:10):
gastrointrology, general surgery with a dedicatedbreast surgeon. We have a wonderful
oncology practice, really proud of ourorthopedics and sports medicine. We have a
phenomenal hand surgeon, and we dojoint replacements all the way through pain management
and prietry, rheumatology, pulmonology,we do spine surgery. Now we do
(02:31):
vascular surgery. And I don't wantto forget our really comprehensive women's health program,
which is through all stages and agesof a woman's life, from obviously
delivering babies in your the ob gynface, but also euro gynecology and minimally
invasive surgery. So it's really evolvedover the years again to this twenty six
(02:52):
location multi specialty practice. Wow.Tell us about what's unique about Sturdy Health.
You know, one of the thingsI've been at Sturdy for about just
over a year and a half,and what I find to be so special
about Sturdy is our true connection toour community. You know, the organization
began one hundred and ten years agowith a gift from the Sturdy and the
(03:14):
Windsor family because they really wanted tosee healthcare close to home and in the
community. And I think that oneof the things that is so unique and
special is that we still one hundredand ten years later, are an independent
health system, local leadership, localroutes, local decision making, and really
laser focused on providing comprehensive care toour community. I think the other thing
(03:38):
that is really unique about Sturdy isour medical staff and the physicians we have
here because of where we're located.We have physicians who practice medicine here who
are trained at all of the topinstitutions in the country, right you know,
trained at Brown, trained at Toughs, trained at Harvard, trained at
Dartmouth, Sloan Cattering, I mean, many of these incredible institutions, and
they all know they choose to practicemedicine and it's Sturdy because they can really
(04:00):
have a close connection with their patients. And I think that is something that
differentiates us. You know, youhave the sort of highest highest quality of
care, but in a location whereit's right here in your community. We
don't have to deal with traffic,you don't have to pay forty dollars from
parking, and you really get toknow your physician and your care team now
(04:20):
since the pandemic, which has hadan impact on every business in the world,
especially healthcare. What are some ofthe ways that you are approached to
medicine and I guess the business modelof sturdy has changed in the post pandemic
age. Sure, yeah, Imean the pandemic certainly. I mean,
(04:42):
we could spend a whole podcast onthe pandemic or a pandemic recovery, right,
I mean, I think there's noindustry was impacted more than healthcare and
impacted, you know, both froma from a workforce and our staff,
but also just from the sort ofmoral injury that that you know, the
continued loss and suffering that you knowso many in our communities experienced. And
(05:04):
certainly you know there was the healthcarehero and my gosh, where they ever
coming in day after day, youknow, dealing with so many uncertainties,
And to think how far we've comeis a health system in a country over
the last three years is pretty amazing. Where we're at now. You know,
through the pandemic, a lot ofthings changed in terms of healthcare and
(05:24):
our model. Right number one,we saw a tremendous, tremendous increase in
behavioral health and the deterioration of ourmental health, and that that is true
in our adolescence and our children,that is true with adults, that is
true with our elderly population. Weare just seeing a huge, huge increase
in people needing mental health support andour community needing mental health support. And
(05:47):
we could talk about that after theother thing that we saw. You know,
we'd been dabbling in telehealth and virtualvisits, and the pandemic really escalated
that to a place that we're ableto provide a lot out of our care
virtually overnight, virtually, and whenyou're kind of forced into that and when
people were asking you to stay hometo not you know, spread disease,
(06:08):
we were able to really use thevirtual visits and a lot of our specialties
that we didn't think we would inthe past. So that's certainly been a
way that the pandemic has changed theway we deliver healthcare. I think also
a huge focus on infectious disease nowin hospitals and in healthcare. You we've
always performed, we've always had infectiousdisease teams and always really focused on it,
(06:30):
but I think that's something when wethink about how we're building out new
buildings. Typically you would have youknow, one or two isolation rooms,
and now you're building out to haveyou know, many, many more.
I think the other piece is justthe financial impact of it all. You
know, we had pretty significant workforceshortages like everybody else did. We saw
(06:51):
our supply inflation come up, goup about twenty percent. You know,
we've just seen these incredible impact toour finance health and that's something that we're
also laser focused on recovering over thenext several months and years. I want
to follow up with on mental health. You had talked about that. That
(07:12):
is something that has become a hugeissue for Americans post pandemic. The pandemic
but not only caused some new healthchallenges, but also caused challenges for folks
to get the help that they needed. So, how has the pro the
approach to mental health changed in thepast couple of years and what kind of
(07:34):
challenges have you faced in that realm? Yeah, I think let me start
with challenges. You know, Ithink the challenges that we can all agree
upon is that there's a lack ofmental health providers and support, and I
think the rate at which people areneeding and seeking care. What we see
(07:56):
as sturdy a lot is that whenyou get to the crisis level, so
in our emergency departments, when youare now potentially at risk of harming yourself
or others, or substance abuse ora variety of mental health issues that have
now reached a crisis perspective where you'renot sort of safe at home or you
need a higher level of care.And what we've found is that there has
(08:18):
been such a shortage of inpatient psychiatricbeds that we've had patients in our emergency
rooms for hours, for days,for weeks, and even for months.
And I'll tell you one of themost heartbreaking things for me as a CEO
but also as a mother is tosee some of the children and adolescents who
have been I'll use the word stuckin our emergency department for literally over a
(08:43):
month waiting for the appropriate level ofcare. And I'll tell you, while
we have an exceptional emergency department,that is not a therapeutic environment for a
twelve year old who needs an impatientpsychiatric help, right And so's it's something
that we're all deeply passionate about andworking on to continue to expand the access
to the inpatient services that are neededacross Rhode Island, across Massachusetts. And
(09:07):
like the rest of healthcare, it'snot necessarily a bed issue as a staffing
issue, so there are physical spaceavailable, but we need to keep enhancing
that workforce to keep improving. Theother thing that we're really focused on is,
like, so I just mentioned that'sall the crisis level, we all
need to work so that we candecrease the number of people who get to
the point where they need inpatient psychiatriccare. And that is a lot of
(09:31):
work that we're doing with different communitypartners in our own health system to really
strengthen the outpatient, to summarize,like to simplify it, like the therapy,
to ensure that there is therapy availableat no cost or low cost,
because it's very hard often to finda therapist who accepts your insurance if you
have insurance, or there's long waittimes. And so again, working working
(09:56):
with the YMCA, working with theschool systems, working with different agents,
needs to say what sort of differentgroup sessions can we set up, what
sort of different we're working with theYMC. I'll give you one example,
to open a team center so there'sa safe place for teams to go after
school on the weekends. And notonly does it provide the sort of social
support, but it also provides somelearning and some therapeutic support as well when
(10:18):
needed. Now, when it comesto an organization as big as Sturdy,
or the size of Sturdy, Ishould say it isn't just a health system,
it's also an economic engine for southernNew England. So tell us about
how you see Sturdy's role in thelocal economy. Yeah, I mean that's
a great question, Thanks for asking. You know, Sturdy is the largest
(10:39):
employer. We employ over twenty onehundred employees of physicians, clinicians and team
members. We invest two hundred andten million dollars a year in salary and
benefits. So I mean, sothat in and of itself, I think
is an economic that kind of definesI think an economic engine for our region.
To give you a mention of thesize I already mentioned, three hundred
(11:00):
and eleven thousand patients or visits occuroutside, but forty eight thousand patient visits
in our emergency department. You know, we do over seventy three hundred people
are admitted each year. I alwayslike the stats as well, Like we
run over seven hundred thousand laboratory tests, so it kind of gives you a
different feel of the volume of workthat is occurring here each day and year.
(11:24):
Hiring in twenty twenty three is achallenge for every industry. Tell us
about what kind of positions you're lookingto fill in twenty twenty three. I
know that they are probably plentiful,and what would you tell prospective employees are
the most rewarding parts about working atDirty Health. We are certainly hiring and
we have a lot of focus onrecruiting and retaining clinical roles. So if
(11:46):
you are a nurse listening to this, we would love to talk with you.
We have many different nursing opportunities inour emergency departments, in our operating
rooms as well as our medical surgicalunits. We also are recruiting for different
radiology positions and you can go onour website sturdyhealth dot org to see them
off. I can put in alittle plug, but you know, I
(12:07):
think one of the things for Sturdyis that it really is a wonderful community
to be part of. We aresort of this perfect size where you know,
I mentioned there's about twenty one hundredemployees and people know each other,
and people work really well together.You know, we had a employee survey
last year, and of course there'salways opportunities to improve, but I was
so proud that ninety three percent ofour workforce said that they enjoy working with
(12:31):
our coworkers. And that is likean off the charts number and something we're
really proud of. Like, Ithink there really is a wonderful team that
works here. The other thing thatwe've been working on, and I talk
about new higher orientation and I talkabout with people are as I'm rounding and
meeting with people, is that weare laser focused on continuous improvement. We
(12:52):
are a great organization. I standby that all day, all night,
but we can always improve, rightand so, and part of that is
not only involved our employees, butlike it's beyond involving memords. It's beyond
listening to their voice. It's reallyvaluing their perspective. Our employees are the
ones that are here twenty four toseven, three hundred and sixty five days
(13:13):
of the year, and so wereally look to our employees to say,
how can we make this better.We're constantly focused on patient safety and employee
safety, and so what are thethings, what are the best practices that
you can share with us? Andso I think that involvement really makes employees
feel like they have a they're really, you know, a part of the
organization. Amy Sturdy is smack dabbetween two medical hubs, one which is
(13:39):
world class in Boston, just fortyminutes away and just twenty minutes away from
Providence. So when you are betweenthose two worlds, being involved in the
community becomes so much more important becauseyour connection to the important to the community
is really what makes you different.So tell us about some of the community
and filling throp big issues that you'reinvolved in. Sure, and you can
(14:03):
cut me off if I'm going ontoo long, But first of all,
I just want to say that youjust mentioned it really well that we're sort
of right between two wonderful cities thathave top rated healthcare in the world.
And don't get me wrong, wehave patients that go to Boston and Providence
all day and there are multiple differentsubspecialties that we don't do here. We
(14:24):
don't do transplants, we don't doburns, we don't do cardiac surgery,
and we have phenomenal partners who dothat. But what I will tell you
is that the vast majority of healthcarecan be done local, and we're very
proud to do that. And weknow, I mean, I have to
go to Boston later tonight for anevent, and that's fun, but it's
a hassle. It is a pain. There's continuous traffic and parking, and
(14:48):
so our goal is to keep providingall that care local. But to answer
the second part of your question,our connection to the community is really I
think one of the things that differentiatesus. And first of all, you
know, I think about Sturdy asa philanthropic engine as well. You know,
we have twelve million dollars a yearin charity care are on compensated care
that we give back to our community. And then we also really partner with
(15:11):
a wide variety. You know,we are in out of Borough and north,
out of our own Mansfield we areand I don't want to leave out
any towns Norton. You know,we are so fortunate to have some wonderful
nonprofit organizations. We have phenomenal thrivingYMCA's Habitat for Humanities. We partner with
Empty Bowls on food and security,the Agency on Aging, and we partner
(15:33):
with several different local high schools withtheir sports medicine teams, and we also
host like an annual event just forthe health of it putting all these organizations
together. And so we have acommunity Health Needs Assessment that really says when
we look at our region, ourcounty, where the top healthcare needs and
some of that is housing, infood and security, some of it is
(15:54):
obesity, mental health. Then wego and tackle each of those issues and
partner with these different organizations to meetdifferent parts of the community and improve the
health and well being. That isa lot of community involvement. Obviously,
that is something that's at the coreof what you do at Sturdy. It
really is, it really is.Yeah, I mean again, you know,
(16:15):
I think we talked about our missionat the beginning, but our vision,
which is slightly different, is reallyto be a trusted partner to our
patients, our communities and each other, enabling an inspiring hope and enabling better
health and quality of life. AndI think that really brings true to what
I just mentioned with you, likewe really live by we are here for
our patients, we are here foreach other as colleagues and our community,
(16:37):
and we exist to improve the healthand quality of life, and so it's
something that all of us are quitepassionate about and spend a lot of time
and energy thinking about how we cankeep making progress every day and where does
that vision take sturdy health in thefuture. What are some of the things
that you're looking to accomplish well.Last year we did a strategic plan,
(16:57):
and really a lot of that strategicplan was to stay Look, we have
all of the challenges from the pandemicand even just from healthcare evolving that we're
really escalated during the pandemic, andyou know we're going to end up stronger
together from this if we're gonna staylaser focused on our future. And so
a lot of what you'll see iscontinued growth. We're in an area where
(17:19):
several health systems have closed, eitherpermanently in Pawtucket or temporarily in Norwood closure,
Brockton's closed, we saw the abruptclosure of Compass Medical a few weeks
ago, and then just the community'sgrowing. So we're growing alongside them.
And one of the things you'll see, which you're really excited about this fall
is the groundbreaking of a new sixtyfive thousand square foot medical office building on
(17:44):
the Sturdy Hospital campus, which willhave our brand new cancer center, cardiovascular
center, and so many more thingswe're moving into that. We're also working
on expanding our emergency department and addinga dedicated behavioral health unit within that department
to continue to meet the needs ofthe community. So I think one of
the things you'll see is we're laserfocused on where are the things where people
(18:08):
are saying to us, Gosh,I wish I didn't have to wait six
months to see the specialist, orI wish I didn't have to drive to
Boston to get this, and sohow can we keep growing and meeting the
needs here? Amy, is thereanything we haven't talked about yet today?
I think we've covered it. Thankyou so much for having me. Amy
Brewer is president and CEO of SturdyHealth. Thanks so much for your time
(18:30):
today. Amy, Thank you verymuch. I appreciate it was great talking
with you.
I'm Bill George. We're talking withAmy Brewer, President and CEO of Sturdy
Health. Hi. Amy, Hi, how are you. I'm good Amy.
Congratulations on celebrating the one tenth anniversaryof caring for the people of southeastern
Massachusetts in Rhode Island. First ofall, thank you, thank you very
much. I think most folks insouthern New England are familiar with Sturdy Memorial
(00:20):
Hospital in Addleborough, but I knowthat Sturdy is a lot more than that,
So tell us about the mission ofSturdy Health. Let me just first
of all, say what Sturdy Healthis, because some people are familiar with
the Sturdy Memorial Hospital. But weactually underwent a name evolution earlier this year,
and we really it's one hundred andtenth anniversary, and we thought that
(00:42):
what we'd realized is there was alot of sort of actually misconceptions in our
area that people didn't realize the depthand breadth of all of our services throughout
the community. And we have overtwenty six locations and primary care and specialty
that we can get into later.But we realize there there's a lot of
people that didn't realize we had allof that because of our name and so
(01:03):
we went through this process to evolveour name to Sturdy Health, from Sturdy
Memorial Hospital to Sturdy Health, whichis really reflective of who we are and
where we want to go. Italso reflects our focus on health. We're
obviously here when people are sick andinjured in our urgent cares, in our
emergency departments, or when you're deliveringa baby, or when you need surgery,
but we're also here to keep youhealthy. So we're excited to talk
(01:26):
about the name change and talk aboutwhere we're headed. Yeah, well,
let's talk about that. So whenit comes to Sturdy Health, you mentioned
it's a lot more than just SturdyMemorial Hospital in Adelborough, So tell us
about some of the other areas whereSturdy Health has expanded. Yeah. One
of the things that people are sometimessurprised to hear is three hundred and eleven
(01:49):
thousand patient visits occur outside of ourhospital walls each year. So three hundred
thousand patient visits are occurring in ourprimary care and specialty care clinics across the
region. And so we have pediatrics, we have family practice, we have
internal medicine, and we have awhole host of specialty practices cardiology, vascular,
(02:10):
gastrointrology, general surgery with a dedicatedbreast surgeon. We have a wonderful
oncology practice, really proud of ourorthopedics and sports medicine. We have a
phenomenal hand surgeon, and we dojoint replacements all the way through pain management
and prietry, rheumatology, pulmonology,we do spine surgery. Now we do
(02:31):
vascular surgery. And I don't wantto forget our really comprehensive women's health program,
which is through all stages and agesof a woman's life, from obviously
delivering babies in your the ob gynface, but also euro gynecology and minimally
invasive surgery. So it's really evolvedover the years again to this twenty six
(02:52):
location multi specialty practice. Wow.Tell us about what's unique about Sturdy Health.
You know, one of the thingsI've been at Sturdy for about just
over a year and a half,and what I find to be so special
about Sturdy is our true connection toour community. You know, the organization
began one hundred and ten years agowith a gift from the Sturdy and the
(03:14):
Windsor family because they really wanted tosee healthcare close to home and in the
community. And I think that oneof the things that is so unique and
special is that we still one hundredand ten years later, are an independent
health system, local leadership, localroutes, local decision making, and really
laser focused on providing comprehensive care toour community. I think the other thing
(03:38):
that is really unique about Sturdy isour medical staff and the physicians we have
here because of where we're located.We have physicians who practice medicine here who
are trained at all of the topinstitutions in the country, right you know,
trained at Brown, trained at Toughs, trained at Harvard, trained at
Dartmouth, Sloan Cattering, I mean, many of these incredible institutions, and
they all know they choose to practicemedicine and it's Sturdy because they can really
(04:00):
have a close connection with their patients. And I think that is something that
differentiates us. You know, youhave the sort of highest highest quality of
care, but in a location whereit's right here in your community. We
don't have to deal with traffic,you don't have to pay forty dollars from
parking, and you really get toknow your physician and your care team now
(04:20):
since the pandemic, which has hadan impact on every business in the world,
especially healthcare. What are some ofthe ways that you are approached to
medicine and I guess the business modelof sturdy has changed in the post pandemic
age. Sure, yeah, Imean the pandemic certainly. I mean,
(04:42):
we could spend a whole podcast onthe pandemic or a pandemic recovery, right,
I mean, I think there's noindustry was impacted more than healthcare and
impacted, you know, both froma from a workforce and our staff,
but also just from the sort ofmoral injury that that you know, the
continued loss and suffering that you knowso many in our communities experienced. And
(05:04):
certainly you know there was the healthcarehero and my gosh, where they ever
coming in day after day, youknow, dealing with so many uncertainties,
And to think how far we've comeis a health system in a country over
the last three years is pretty amazing. Where we're at now. You know,
through the pandemic, a lot ofthings changed in terms of healthcare and
(05:24):
our model. Right number one,we saw a tremendous, tremendous increase in
behavioral health and the deterioration of ourmental health, and that that is true
in our adolescence and our children,that is true with adults, that is
true with our elderly population. Weare just seeing a huge, huge increase
in people needing mental health support andour community needing mental health support. And
(05:47):
we could talk about that after theother thing that we saw. You know,
we'd been dabbling in telehealth and virtualvisits, and the pandemic really escalated
that to a place that we're ableto provide a lot out of our care
virtually overnight, virtually, and whenyou're kind of forced into that and when
people were asking you to stay hometo not you know, spread disease,
(06:08):
we were able to really use thevirtual visits and a lot of our specialties
that we didn't think we would inthe past. So that's certainly been a
way that the pandemic has changed theway we deliver healthcare. I think also
a huge focus on infectious disease nowin hospitals and in healthcare. You we've
always performed, we've always had infectiousdisease teams and always really focused on it,
(06:30):
but I think that's something when wethink about how we're building out new
buildings. Typically you would have youknow, one or two isolation rooms,
and now you're building out to haveyou know, many, many more.
I think the other piece is justthe financial impact of it all. You
know, we had pretty significant workforceshortages like everybody else did. We saw
(06:51):
our supply inflation come up, goup about twenty percent. You know,
we've just seen these incredible impact toour finance health and that's something that we're
also laser focused on recovering over thenext several months and years. I want
to follow up with on mental health. You had talked about that. That
(07:12):
is something that has become a hugeissue for Americans post pandemic. The pandemic
but not only caused some new healthchallenges, but also caused challenges for folks
to get the help that they needed. So, how has the pro the
approach to mental health changed in thepast couple of years and what kind of
(07:34):
challenges have you faced in that realm? Yeah, I think let me start
with challenges. You know, Ithink the challenges that we can all agree
upon is that there's a lack ofmental health providers and support, and I
think the rate at which people areneeding and seeking care. What we see
(07:56):
as sturdy a lot is that whenyou get to the crisis level, so
in our emergency departments, when youare now potentially at risk of harming yourself
or others, or substance abuse ora variety of mental health issues that have
now reached a crisis perspective where you'renot sort of safe at home or you
need a higher level of care.And what we've found is that there has
(08:18):
been such a shortage of inpatient psychiatricbeds that we've had patients in our emergency
rooms for hours, for days,for weeks, and even for months.
And I'll tell you one of themost heartbreaking things for me as a CEO
but also as a mother is tosee some of the children and adolescents who
have been I'll use the word stuckin our emergency department for literally over a
(08:43):
month waiting for the appropriate level ofcare. And I'll tell you, while
we have an exceptional emergency department,that is not a therapeutic environment for a
twelve year old who needs an impatientpsychiatric help, right And so's it's something
that we're all deeply passionate about andworking on to continue to expand the access
to the inpatient services that are neededacross Rhode Island, across Massachusetts. And
(09:07):
like the rest of healthcare, it'snot necessarily a bed issue as a staffing
issue, so there are physical spaceavailable, but we need to keep enhancing
that workforce to keep improving. Theother thing that we're really focused on is,
like, so I just mentioned that'sall the crisis level, we all
need to work so that we candecrease the number of people who get to
the point where they need inpatient psychiatriccare. And that is a lot of
(09:31):
work that we're doing with different communitypartners in our own health system to really
strengthen the outpatient, to summarize,like to simplify it, like the therapy,
to ensure that there is therapy availableat no cost or low cost,
because it's very hard often to finda therapist who accepts your insurance if you
have insurance, or there's long waittimes. And so again, working working
(09:56):
with the YMCA, working with theschool systems, working with different agents,
needs to say what sort of differentgroup sessions can we set up, what
sort of different we're working with theYMC. I'll give you one example,
to open a team center so there'sa safe place for teams to go after
school on the weekends. And notonly does it provide the sort of social
support, but it also provides somelearning and some therapeutic support as well when
(10:18):
needed. Now, when it comesto an organization as big as Sturdy,
or the size of Sturdy, Ishould say it isn't just a health system,
it's also an economic engine for southernNew England. So tell us about
how you see Sturdy's role in thelocal economy. Yeah, I mean that's
a great question, Thanks for asking. You know, Sturdy is the largest
(10:39):
employer. We employ over twenty onehundred employees of physicians, clinicians and team
members. We invest two hundred andten million dollars a year in salary and
benefits. So I mean, sothat in and of itself, I think
is an economic that kind of definesI think an economic engine for our region.
To give you a mention of thesize I already mentioned, three hundred
(11:00):
and eleven thousand patients or visits occuroutside, but forty eight thousand patient visits
in our emergency department. You know, we do over seventy three hundred people
are admitted each year. I alwayslike the stats as well, Like we
run over seven hundred thousand laboratory tests, so it kind of gives you a
different feel of the volume of workthat is occurring here each day and year.
(11:24):
Hiring in twenty twenty three is achallenge for every industry. Tell us
about what kind of positions you're lookingto fill in twenty twenty three. I
know that they are probably plentiful,and what would you tell prospective employees are
the most rewarding parts about working atDirty Health. We are certainly hiring and
we have a lot of focus onrecruiting and retaining clinical roles. So if
(11:46):
you are a nurse listening to this, we would love to talk with you.
We have many different nursing opportunities inour emergency departments, in our operating
rooms as well as our medical surgicalunits. We also are recruiting for different
radiology positions and you can go onour website sturdyhealth dot org to see them
off. I can put in alittle plug, but you know, I
(12:07):
think one of the things for Sturdyis that it really is a wonderful community
to be part of. We aresort of this perfect size where you know,
I mentioned there's about twenty one hundredemployees and people know each other,
and people work really well together.You know, we had a employee survey
last year, and of course there'salways opportunities to improve, but I was
so proud that ninety three percent ofour workforce said that they enjoy working with
(12:31):
our coworkers. And that is likean off the charts number and something we're
really proud of. Like, Ithink there really is a wonderful team that
works here. The other thing thatwe've been working on, and I talk
about new higher orientation and I talkabout with people are as I'm rounding and
meeting with people, is that weare laser focused on continuous improvement. We
(12:52):
are a great organization. I standby that all day, all night,
but we can always improve, rightand so, and part of that is
not only involved our employees, butlike it's beyond involving memords. It's beyond
listening to their voice. It's reallyvaluing their perspective. Our employees are the
ones that are here twenty four toseven, three hundred and sixty five days
(13:13):
of the year, and so wereally look to our employees to say,
how can we make this better.We're constantly focused on patient safety and employee
safety, and so what are thethings, what are the best practices that
you can share with us? Andso I think that involvement really makes employees
feel like they have a they're really, you know, a part of the
organization. Amy Sturdy is smack dabbetween two medical hubs, one which is
(13:39):
world class in Boston, just fortyminutes away and just twenty minutes away from
Providence. So when you are betweenthose two worlds, being involved in the
community becomes so much more important becauseyour connection to the important to the community
is really what makes you different.So tell us about some of the community
and filling throp big issues that you'reinvolved in. Sure, and you can
(14:03):
cut me off if I'm going ontoo long, But first of all,
I just want to say that youjust mentioned it really well that we're sort
of right between two wonderful cities thathave top rated healthcare in the world.
And don't get me wrong, wehave patients that go to Boston and Providence
all day and there are multiple differentsubspecialties that we don't do here. We
(14:24):
don't do transplants, we don't doburns, we don't do cardiac surgery,
and we have phenomenal partners who dothat. But what I will tell you
is that the vast majority of healthcarecan be done local, and we're very
proud to do that. And weknow, I mean, I have to
go to Boston later tonight for anevent, and that's fun, but it's
a hassle. It is a pain. There's continuous traffic and parking, and
(14:48):
so our goal is to keep providingall that care local. But to answer
the second part of your question,our connection to the community is really I
think one of the things that differentiatesus. And first of all, you
know, I think about Sturdy asa philanthropic engine as well. You know,
we have twelve million dollars a yearin charity care are on compensated care
that we give back to our community. And then we also really partner with
(15:11):
a wide variety. You know,we are in out of Borough and north,
out of our own Mansfield we areand I don't want to leave out
any towns Norton. You know,we are so fortunate to have some wonderful
nonprofit organizations. We have phenomenal thrivingYMCA's Habitat for Humanities. We partner with
Empty Bowls on food and security,the Agency on Aging, and we partner
(15:33):
with several different local high schools withtheir sports medicine teams, and we also
host like an annual event just forthe health of it putting all these organizations
together. And so we have acommunity Health Needs Assessment that really says when
we look at our region, ourcounty, where the top healthcare needs and
some of that is housing, infood and security, some of it is
(15:54):
obesity, mental health. Then wego and tackle each of those issues and
partner with these different organizations to meetdifferent parts of the community and improve the
health and well being. That isa lot of community involvement. Obviously,
that is something that's at the coreof what you do at Sturdy. It
really is, it really is.Yeah, I mean again, you know,
(16:15):
I think we talked about our missionat the beginning, but our vision,
which is slightly different, is reallyto be a trusted partner to our
patients, our communities and each other, enabling an inspiring hope and enabling better
health and quality of life. AndI think that really brings true to what
I just mentioned with you, likewe really live by we are here for
our patients, we are here foreach other as colleagues and our community,
(16:37):
and we exist to improve the healthand quality of life, and so it's
something that all of us are quitepassionate about and spend a lot of time
and energy thinking about how we cankeep making progress every day and where does
that vision take sturdy health in thefuture. What are some of the things
that you're looking to accomplish well.Last year we did a strategic plan,
(16:57):
and really a lot of that strategicplan was to stay Look, we have
all of the challenges from the pandemicand even just from healthcare evolving that we're
really escalated during the pandemic, andyou know we're going to end up stronger
together from this if we're gonna staylaser focused on our future. And so
a lot of what you'll see iscontinued growth. We're in an area where
(17:19):
several health systems have closed, eitherpermanently in Pawtucket or temporarily in Norwood closure,
Brockton's closed, we saw the abruptclosure of Compass Medical a few weeks
ago, and then just the community'sgrowing. So we're growing alongside them.
And one of the things you'll see, which you're really excited about this fall
is the groundbreaking of a new sixtyfive thousand square foot medical office building on
(17:44):
the Sturdy Hospital campus, which willhave our brand new cancer center, cardiovascular
center, and so many more thingswe're moving into that. We're also working
on expanding our emergency department and addinga dedicated behavioral health unit within that department
to continue to meet the needs ofthe community. So I think one of
the things you'll see is we're laserfocused on where are the things where people
(18:08):
are saying to us, Gosh,I wish I didn't have to wait six
months to see the specialist, orI wish I didn't have to drive to
Boston to get this, and sohow can we keep growing and meeting the
needs here? Amy, is thereanything we haven't talked about yet today?
I think we've covered it. Thankyou so much for having me. Amy
Brewer is president and CEO of SturdyHealth. Thanks so much for your time
(18:30):
today. Amy, Thank you verymuch. I appreciate it was great talking
with you.
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