Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeartRadio Providence CEOs. You should know today from Care New England.
We have got the CEO, doctor Michael Wagner. How are you,
Doctor Wagner?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Doing very well today?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Thank you, Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.
We've got a lot to talk about around Care New
England today. Why don't we begin with you telling me
a little bit about the mission of Care New England
and how it is unique.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
So one of the things that I did when I
came on board is really looked at what was Karen
new we've been comprised of. And I'll talk more about this,
but it excites me a lot. Our mission continues to
be to provide exceptional care with kindness and compassion. As
we move forward as a standalone system, our visions really
evolved to lead the way in anticipating and meeting the
(00:40):
needs of our patients, our team members and the communities
we serve, all keeping our values of accountability, carrying and
teamwork intact.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So that's really one of the key pieces.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
And really it's about connecting the care across the continuum
of life and across the journey that a patient has
from illness back to health.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Again, very good tell me a little bit about how
Care New England got started.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, so Kero New Wingland was founded about nineteen ninety six.
Coming together are really three fundamental organizations Women in Infants Hospital,
Butler Hospital and Kent Hospital, and so those comprised really
the foundation of Care New England early on, and then
as we've grown, we've added a medical group, the Care
New England Medical Group, which is where physicians and advanced
(01:23):
practice clinicians are employed, the Visiting Nurse Association of Care
New England, the Providence Center and Integra, which is a
certified accountable care organization. So that's what Care New England
is comprised of today and.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I'm sure across that platform, you guys have a lot
of employees. How many people does Care New England currently
employ So.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
We currently employed about seventy seventy eight hundred employees across
Care New England, across all of our different organizations, including
those who are employed at the corporate level at CNA.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Very good. How do you see your role in the
local economy of Rhode Island.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, are We're one of the largest employers in the state.
We take that role very seriously. We have a broad
geographic reach across Rhode Island, and we are heavily concentrated
obviously in the heavier populated areas where where hospitals and
physicians are predominantly located. For US, stable well paying jobs
(02:15):
is an important part of the work we do in
supporting the local economy and helping people develop their careers
so they stay here in Rhode Island and they advance
both economically and the roles that they play in their communities.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
We support local businesses and communities.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
We do a lot of work with local businesses in
terms of supporting food services and retail, etc. Because of
our high end services. We also bring in patients from
outside of the state. So because women and infants provide
such high level of complex care for maternity care, we
see patients from Connecticut and Massachusetts actually seek that care,
(02:53):
which actually helps to improve the local economy by bringing
people from outside the state. Like many other employers in
the state, we're deeply committed to advancing the economic development
in the state and we want to be a place
that would become a destination for people who want to
get a good paying job and develop their career over time.
That for us is an very important role. We play
(03:14):
in the local economy.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Very good and that really is a great thing as
a part of the overall Rhode Island economic ecosystem. To
know that people are coming from out of state and
going to Care New England as.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, it's great.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
How was the pandemic change what you guys do with
Care New England?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You know, tremendously. I would say that during the pandemic
one of the things that wherever you were across the
US in a hospital environment and physicians offices and really
every part of the healthcare system in the acute and
post the q world, our healthcare teams rose the challenge
and they did a tremendous job, as they do every day,
but during the pandemic it was incredible work that we
(03:50):
had to do together. That also created a tremendous amount
of stress. And before the pandemic even started, our healthcare
system was fragile, it was stressed, and really was trying
to go through some transformation. Pandemic really sidetracked those efforts
and put a lot of stress on our individual employees.
As a result, we saw a large number of people
(04:11):
who left the healthcare profession. Doctors, nurses, therapists, and many
other members of the healthcare team because it was just
a stressful environment.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
We're now in a much more stable.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Position because we've been able to recruit new graduates, new individuals,
and even some people coming back to the healthcare environment
and applying their tremendous talent and skill back to the
healthcare environment. We are seeing a period I think of
continued stress and fragility in the healthcare system and we're
going to continue to see that probably for the next
several years.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Tell me a little bit about the philanthropic causes the
here New England supports, so first.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And foremost, my wife and I heavily support Care New England.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Would be no surprise.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
We're deeply committed to our organization and we have a
very strong philanthropic program ourselves. Our community strategy with regard
to philanthropy is really to work with not for profit
organizations that are deeply connected to the same missions that
we have in terms of health equity, serving the community
needs and dealing with transportation, housing, etc.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So we look very carefully.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
We get a lot of requests and we look at
every one of those and we have a pretty healthy
amount of philanthropy that we provide back out to.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
The local communities.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
In addition, we also encourage our emerging leaders who are
talented and dedicated and passionate to bring that talent and
passion to becoming board members or getting involved from a
leadership perspective in local community organizations. So that's a very
important part of the work we do in supporting the
philanthropic environment here in Rhode Island.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Here in Rhode Island we have got an aging geriatric
population that is outpacing the rest of the country. Tell
me a little bit more about what you're doing at
here in New England to address the needs of our
older population.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I think this is one of the key here is
my predecessor, Jim Finale, was a geriatrician. He was passionate
about the care for the old older Americans than older adults.
We have focused really Kent Hospital is our area of
excellence around geriatrics.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
When Jim was here, he.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Started what's called an ACE unit, which is acute Care
for the elderly, which is a unit specifically designed to
meet the needs of older adults who have oftentimes decreased
visual acuity, hearing issues are more likely to fall and
so the unit is designed from a very geriatric center
or older adult point of view, and that unit has
(06:36):
demonstrated excellent outcomes in terms of patients going home, not
to a nursing home, not being re admitted, and actually
being in the hospital a fewer days than an other
a patient otherwise cared for it on a standard unit.
But we also extended that geriatric focus to the emergency room,
which has now become Silver certified, where our surgical program
(06:58):
is also looking to be become certified and that's going
to be later this year. We've also have the only
at home program in the state located at Kent. So
when a patient presents to the Kent emergency room, and
we've advertised this on the billboards around around the state,
patient presents to Kent and they need to be admitted,
they meet certain criteria, we can actually care for them
(07:20):
in the home and they get nursing care, doctor care,
they get all of the therapist they would have gotten
in the hospital, but they get it at home. Again,
outcomes superlative in terms of what happens with the patient,
in terms of their patient experience, their length of stay,
and also the likelihood of they're going to have a
better recovery after that event as opposed to being in
a standard hospital. We also have the VNA which is
(07:42):
deeply embedded home based care. Really, the care of the
elderly population is not so much hospital centric.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
It's got to actually be community and home centric and.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That is a lot of the capabilities that we've built
for Care New England and again very.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Much center to Kent.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
In addition to that, Butler has a memory aging program
and Women in Infants is continuing to expand their capability
of carrying for women beyond what they're nationally known in
terms of maternity care, but also thinking about as a
woman ages, healthy aging and that midlife time to make
(08:18):
that transition in a very seamless way.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
So a lot of work in terms of geriatrics in
the aging population.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
What is Karen New England currently doing about electronic health records?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, so right.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Now, if you come to Care New England, you get
admitted to the hospital, your records are in a system
called Cerner. It's a very good system in state of
the art. It's it's a great system. If you then
go and get discharged in the hospital and you go
to your doctor, now your records in another system called EPIC.
That creates a problem creates a workflow problem for our
staff because they have to operate in two systems, and
(08:51):
it creates a huge problem for the patient because now
they have to interact from their portal over their doctor
into different systems. So we want to move to a
single system, so we're actually migrating to all EPIC. EPIC
has become the predominant system across the US, and the
benefits of this is that one that has a tremendous
positive impact for patients because now they'll have one system
(09:13):
or one portal to interact with their healthcare provider. It
also helps our frontline staff because now they only have
one system to interact in and not do a lot
of the manual work of moving information back and forth,
which also decreases errors. The other is that it provides
us access to the EPIC ecosystem. Lifespan, for example, is
(09:33):
on EPIC on the inpatient side, and many hospitals in
the Northeastern now on EPIC, So if a patient of
our ours gets admitted in Boston or in Florida and
they're in a system that's on an EPIC, it's very
easy for us to transmit information more seamlessly than the
way we used to do it and still do it
sometimes with a Plano fax machine, which is really what
we need to get away from absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And it's actually interesting that you say that because for
me personally, myself, my wife and my one year old son,
we all have a my chart account using the Epic platforms,
so it ends up being very efficient, I think for
a lot of people, and.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Having myself gotten care in multiple different geographic regions, having
one place you can go to to see what's going
on and also be able to communicate with your providers,
it's tremendously beneficial.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
What do you doing to create the best work environment
for those who choose Care New England as their place
to advance their careers in the healthcare sector.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
So healthcare really is this environment in which it distills
down to this basic concept between and I get this
from being a doctor, is it's between a patient and
their caregiver. For me, that caregiver is not just a doctor.
It's nurses, which actually are really the major source of
that interaction. But it's the therapist, the physical therapists, occupational therapists.
(10:49):
I even include the person who's delivering food to the
patient in the room when they're hospitalized.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It's really every one of us.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
So in order for us to be able to deliver
the highest and most passionate care to our patients, we
have to also provide that for our frontline teammates. If
we don't create a compassionate environment for them, full of respect,
listening to them and trying to support them through tools, resources,
training and other things that help them do their job
more efficiently and effectively, we'll never be able to achieve
(11:19):
that high level of healthcare that we aim to achieve.
So a lot of focus when I came on board
working with the senior team about this has.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
To be one of our core pieces. And if you
look at our we have a graphic that kind of
centers us and we keep coming back to it.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
At the center of that is people, and the people
are our employees, our teammates, our patients, our communities, and
really relentlessly focusing on how do we create that environment.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
That's why moving to EPIC.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Is an important piece because when I went out and
talked to fromline staff, they said, well, it's great, you know,
but I have to transmit information between two systems, and
that's a drag to the work that I do every
day things like that, where we focus on what are
the inhibitors, the barriers for frontline folks to do their
job and remain relentlessly focused on creating the right moment
(12:08):
of moment between them and their patients.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
That's what we aim to do.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Awesome, what are some barriers to mental health support in
Rhode Island and what is Care New England doing to
eliminate those barriers.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So the first thing I'll say is I've talked to
Governor McKee about this, and he's passionate about the work
that Secretary Charest and the team they're doing in terms
of moving to what's called the certified Community Behavioral Health
model of care. And we are deeply involved through the
work we do with the Providence Center, which on an
annual basis cares for about twenty thousand individuals who really
(12:42):
have a tremendously a difficult situation with either substance abuse
or behavior health crisis. And so the state is actually
investing in transitioning to a model it's much more economically sustainable.
So that's one piece is really date level support for
moving to a model that's more sustainable and more community based.
(13:06):
Then coupling that with access to higher levels of cares.
For example, both the federal and the state delegations have
been very supportive in helping us build out a short
stay unit at Butler that will add twenty five beds,
which will help to alleviate when a patient presents the
emergency room with the be aboral health issue and is
(13:26):
languishing there because there's no access to a bed. Actually,
the new unit at Butler will enable us to take
those patients more rapidly and help to one get care
faster for them and to alleviate the over burden that's
happening in our emergency room. So really a lot of
work that's going on. I'm excited about the role that
(13:47):
the Butler plays, the role of the Providence Center plays,
and the fact that the state has made this a top.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Priority absolutely tell me a little bit more about the
current state of healthcare in Rhode Islands. Where are we strong?
Where do we need a little bit of in light
of the ongoing cost challenges facing both patients and providers.
How healthy and sustainable is the healthcare system today?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I'm an optimist and I tend to look at where
are the opportunities for us to create stability We've done
a lot of work at Care New England ourselves of
creating a more stable organization. I keep coming back to
the team and talking about these three concepts of stabilization, hardwiring, performance,
and accelerating our mission, and we're really still in the
stabilization phase. I'm sure of my colleagues that are running
(14:31):
the other healthcare systems and the community based healthcare systems
that we're all working through that stabilization phase.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
When we get.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Through that, though, there are some structural issues that are
a challenge for Rhode Island that We've looked at the
reimbursement rates compared to Connecticut and Massachusetts. We've looked at
reimbursement on the Medicaid population for Medicare, and I think
one of the key challenges for us is how do
we take the tremendous amount of money that's going into
healthcare and provide we're connected and accessible care while not
(15:03):
increasing the cost, but actually doing it more efficiently.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And that's a lot of the work.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I work closely with Blue Cross, Neighborhood Health Plan and
the other insurance to figure out how do we actually
make that transition of what's called value based care and
I think that's one of the key pieces is for
us is to design systems that connect care, and by
doing that we actually can bend the cost curve. More
connected care, higher quality care, is lower cost care, and
(15:29):
that's really one of the key areas of focus for
Care New England.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Very good. Are you guys hiring right now? And if so,
in what roles are you hiring for and how does
somebody apply?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Absolutely, we have about seven hundred open positions and when's interested,
they can go to Carenewengland, dot org, slash careers. We
have openings in nursing, medical assistants, therapy jobs, physicians, etc.
So really the gamut, and we're looking for people who
are passionate about healthcare and passionate about taking their skills
(16:01):
and applying them to the mission we have at here, New.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
England, Very good. How can somebody finds out a little
bit more about your company, whether it be website, social media, etc.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Well, certainly on social media we have a heavy presence
and all of the major social media platforms in addition
again kernewinglyand dot org.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
In terms of looking at the.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Services we provide the physicians that we have, the locations
that we have really a great source of information about
Care New England and our organizations.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Awesome well, doctor Michael Wagner, CEO of Care New England,
thank you for coming on iHeartRadio Providence. CEOs. You should know.
Great interview. We appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Thank you so much
iHeartRadio Providence CEOs. You should know today from Care New England.
We have got the CEO, doctor Michael Wagner. How are you,
Doctor Wagner?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Doing very well today?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Thank you, Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.
We've got a lot to talk about around Care New
England today. Why don't we begin with you telling me
a little bit about the mission of Care New England
and how it is unique.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
So one of the things that I did when I
came on board is really looked at what was Karen
new we've been comprised of. And I'll talk more about this,
but it excites me a lot. Our mission continues to
be to provide exceptional care with kindness and compassion. As
we move forward as a standalone system, our visions really
evolved to lead the way in anticipating and meeting the
(00:40):
needs of our patients, our team members and the communities
we serve, all keeping our values of accountability, carrying and
teamwork intact.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So that's really one of the key pieces.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
And really it's about connecting the care across the continuum
of life and across the journey that a patient has
from illness back to health.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Again, very good tell me a little bit about how
Care New England got started.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, so Kero New Wingland was founded about nineteen ninety six.
Coming together are really three fundamental organizations Women in Infants Hospital,
Butler Hospital and Kent Hospital, and so those comprised really
the foundation of Care New England early on, and then
as we've grown, we've added a medical group, the Care
New England Medical Group, which is where physicians and advanced
(01:23):
practice clinicians are employed, the Visiting Nurse Association of Care
New England, the Providence Center and Integra, which is a
certified accountable care organization. So that's what Care New England
is comprised of today and.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I'm sure across that platform, you guys have a lot
of employees. How many people does Care New England currently
employ So.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
We currently employed about seventy seventy eight hundred employees across
Care New England, across all of our different organizations, including
those who are employed at the corporate level at CNA.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Very good. How do you see your role in the
local economy of Rhode Island.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, are We're one of the largest employers in the state.
We take that role very seriously. We have a broad
geographic reach across Rhode Island, and we are heavily concentrated
obviously in the heavier populated areas where where hospitals and
physicians are predominantly located. For US, stable well paying jobs
(02:15):
is an important part of the work we do in
supporting the local economy and helping people develop their careers
so they stay here in Rhode Island and they advance
both economically and the roles that they play in their communities.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
We support local businesses and communities.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
We do a lot of work with local businesses in
terms of supporting food services and retail, etc. Because of
our high end services. We also bring in patients from
outside of the state. So because women and infants provide
such high level of complex care for maternity care, we
see patients from Connecticut and Massachusetts actually seek that care,
(02:53):
which actually helps to improve the local economy by bringing
people from outside the state. Like many other employers in
the state, we're deeply committed to advancing the economic development
in the state and we want to be a place
that would become a destination for people who want to
get a good paying job and develop their career over time.
That for us is an very important role. We play
(03:14):
in the local economy.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Very good and that really is a great thing as
a part of the overall Rhode Island economic ecosystem. To
know that people are coming from out of state and
going to Care New England as.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, it's great.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
How was the pandemic change what you guys do with
Care New England?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You know, tremendously. I would say that during the pandemic
one of the things that wherever you were across the
US in a hospital environment and physicians offices and really
every part of the healthcare system in the acute and
post the q world, our healthcare teams rose the challenge
and they did a tremendous job, as they do every day,
but during the pandemic it was incredible work that we
(03:50):
had to do together. That also created a tremendous amount
of stress. And before the pandemic even started, our healthcare
system was fragile, it was stressed, and really was trying
to go through some transformation. Pandemic really sidetracked those efforts
and put a lot of stress on our individual employees.
As a result, we saw a large number of people
(04:11):
who left the healthcare profession. Doctors, nurses, therapists, and many
other members of the healthcare team because it was just
a stressful environment.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
We're now in a much more stable.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Position because we've been able to recruit new graduates, new individuals,
and even some people coming back to the healthcare environment
and applying their tremendous talent and skill back to the
healthcare environment. We are seeing a period I think of
continued stress and fragility in the healthcare system and we're
going to continue to see that probably for the next
several years.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Tell me a little bit about the philanthropic causes the
here New England supports, so first.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And foremost, my wife and I heavily support Care New England.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Would be no surprise.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
We're deeply committed to our organization and we have a
very strong philanthropic program ourselves. Our community strategy with regard
to philanthropy is really to work with not for profit
organizations that are deeply connected to the same missions that
we have in terms of health equity, serving the community
needs and dealing with transportation, housing, etc.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So we look very carefully.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
We get a lot of requests and we look at
every one of those and we have a pretty healthy
amount of philanthropy that we provide back out to.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
The local communities.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
In addition, we also encourage our emerging leaders who are
talented and dedicated and passionate to bring that talent and
passion to becoming board members or getting involved from a
leadership perspective in local community organizations. So that's a very
important part of the work we do in supporting the
philanthropic environment here in Rhode Island.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Here in Rhode Island we have got an aging geriatric
population that is outpacing the rest of the country. Tell
me a little bit more about what you're doing at
here in New England to address the needs of our
older population.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I think this is one of the key here is
my predecessor, Jim Finale, was a geriatrician. He was passionate
about the care for the old older Americans than older adults.
We have focused really Kent Hospital is our area of
excellence around geriatrics.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
When Jim was here, he.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Started what's called an ACE unit, which is acute Care
for the elderly, which is a unit specifically designed to
meet the needs of older adults who have oftentimes decreased
visual acuity, hearing issues are more likely to fall and
so the unit is designed from a very geriatric center
or older adult point of view, and that unit has
(06:36):
demonstrated excellent outcomes in terms of patients going home, not
to a nursing home, not being re admitted, and actually
being in the hospital a fewer days than an other
a patient otherwise cared for it on a standard unit.
But we also extended that geriatric focus to the emergency room,
which has now become Silver certified, where our surgical program
(06:58):
is also looking to be become certified and that's going
to be later this year. We've also have the only
at home program in the state located at Kent. So
when a patient presents to the Kent emergency room, and
we've advertised this on the billboards around around the state,
patient presents to Kent and they need to be admitted,
they meet certain criteria, we can actually care for them
(07:20):
in the home and they get nursing care, doctor care,
they get all of the therapist they would have gotten
in the hospital, but they get it at home. Again,
outcomes superlative in terms of what happens with the patient,
in terms of their patient experience, their length of stay,
and also the likelihood of they're going to have a
better recovery after that event as opposed to being in
a standard hospital. We also have the VNA which is
(07:42):
deeply embedded home based care. Really, the care of the
elderly population is not so much hospital centric.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
It's got to actually be community and home centric and.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That is a lot of the capabilities that we've built
for Care New England and again very.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Much center to Kent.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
In addition to that, Butler has a memory aging program
and Women in Infants is continuing to expand their capability
of carrying for women beyond what they're nationally known in
terms of maternity care, but also thinking about as a
woman ages, healthy aging and that midlife time to make
(08:18):
that transition in a very seamless way.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
So a lot of work in terms of geriatrics in
the aging population.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
What is Karen New England currently doing about electronic health records?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, so right.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Now, if you come to Care New England, you get
admitted to the hospital, your records are in a system
called Cerner. It's a very good system in state of
the art. It's it's a great system. If you then
go and get discharged in the hospital and you go
to your doctor, now your records in another system called EPIC.
That creates a problem creates a workflow problem for our
staff because they have to operate in two systems, and
(08:51):
it creates a huge problem for the patient because now
they have to interact from their portal over their doctor
into different systems. So we want to move to a
single system, so we're actually migrating to all EPIC. EPIC
has become the predominant system across the US, and the
benefits of this is that one that has a tremendous
positive impact for patients because now they'll have one system
(09:13):
or one portal to interact with their healthcare provider. It
also helps our frontline staff because now they only have
one system to interact in and not do a lot
of the manual work of moving information back and forth,
which also decreases errors. The other is that it provides
us access to the EPIC ecosystem. Lifespan, for example, is
(09:33):
on EPIC on the inpatient side, and many hospitals in
the Northeastern now on EPIC, So if a patient of
our ours gets admitted in Boston or in Florida and
they're in a system that's on an EPIC, it's very
easy for us to transmit information more seamlessly than the
way we used to do it and still do it
sometimes with a Plano fax machine, which is really what
we need to get away from absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And it's actually interesting that you say that because for
me personally, myself, my wife and my one year old son,
we all have a my chart account using the Epic platforms,
so it ends up being very efficient, I think for
a lot of people, and.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Having myself gotten care in multiple different geographic regions, having
one place you can go to to see what's going
on and also be able to communicate with your providers,
it's tremendously beneficial.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
What do you doing to create the best work environment
for those who choose Care New England as their place
to advance their careers in the healthcare sector.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
So healthcare really is this environment in which it distills
down to this basic concept between and I get this
from being a doctor, is it's between a patient and
their caregiver. For me, that caregiver is not just a doctor.
It's nurses, which actually are really the major source of
that interaction. But it's the therapist, the physical therapists, occupational therapists.
(10:49):
I even include the person who's delivering food to the
patient in the room when they're hospitalized.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It's really every one of us.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
So in order for us to be able to deliver
the highest and most passionate care to our patients, we
have to also provide that for our frontline teammates. If
we don't create a compassionate environment for them, full of respect,
listening to them and trying to support them through tools, resources,
training and other things that help them do their job
more efficiently and effectively, we'll never be able to achieve
(11:19):
that high level of healthcare that we aim to achieve.
So a lot of focus when I came on board
working with the senior team about this has.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
To be one of our core pieces. And if you
look at our we have a graphic that kind of
centers us and we keep coming back to it.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
At the center of that is people, and the people
are our employees, our teammates, our patients, our communities, and
really relentlessly focusing on how do we create that environment.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
That's why moving to EPIC.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Is an important piece because when I went out and
talked to fromline staff, they said, well, it's great, you know,
but I have to transmit information between two systems, and
that's a drag to the work that I do every
day things like that, where we focus on what are
the inhibitors, the barriers for frontline folks to do their
job and remain relentlessly focused on creating the right moment
(12:08):
of moment between them and their patients.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
That's what we aim to do.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Awesome, what are some barriers to mental health support in
Rhode Island and what is Care New England doing to
eliminate those barriers.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So the first thing I'll say is I've talked to
Governor McKee about this, and he's passionate about the work
that Secretary Charest and the team they're doing in terms
of moving to what's called the certified Community Behavioral Health
model of care. And we are deeply involved through the
work we do with the Providence Center, which on an
annual basis cares for about twenty thousand individuals who really
(12:42):
have a tremendously a difficult situation with either substance abuse
or behavior health crisis. And so the state is actually
investing in transitioning to a model it's much more economically sustainable.
So that's one piece is really date level support for
moving to a model that's more sustainable and more community based.
(13:06):
Then coupling that with access to higher levels of cares.
For example, both the federal and the state delegations have
been very supportive in helping us build out a short
stay unit at Butler that will add twenty five beds,
which will help to alleviate when a patient presents the
emergency room with the be aboral health issue and is
(13:26):
languishing there because there's no access to a bed. Actually,
the new unit at Butler will enable us to take
those patients more rapidly and help to one get care
faster for them and to alleviate the over burden that's
happening in our emergency room. So really a lot of
work that's going on. I'm excited about the role that
(13:47):
the Butler plays, the role of the Providence Center plays,
and the fact that the state has made this a top.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Priority absolutely tell me a little bit more about the
current state of healthcare in Rhode Islands. Where are we strong?
Where do we need a little bit of in light
of the ongoing cost challenges facing both patients and providers.
How healthy and sustainable is the healthcare system today?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I'm an optimist and I tend to look at where
are the opportunities for us to create stability We've done
a lot of work at Care New England ourselves of
creating a more stable organization. I keep coming back to
the team and talking about these three concepts of stabilization, hardwiring, performance,
and accelerating our mission, and we're really still in the
stabilization phase. I'm sure of my colleagues that are running
(14:31):
the other healthcare systems and the community based healthcare systems
that we're all working through that stabilization phase.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
When we get.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Through that, though, there are some structural issues that are
a challenge for Rhode Island that We've looked at the
reimbursement rates compared to Connecticut and Massachusetts. We've looked at
reimbursement on the Medicaid population for Medicare, and I think
one of the key challenges for us is how do
we take the tremendous amount of money that's going into
healthcare and provide we're connected and accessible care while not
(15:03):
increasing the cost, but actually doing it more efficiently.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And that's a lot of the work.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I work closely with Blue Cross, Neighborhood Health Plan and
the other insurance to figure out how do we actually
make that transition of what's called value based care and
I think that's one of the key pieces is for
us is to design systems that connect care, and by
doing that we actually can bend the cost curve. More
connected care, higher quality care, is lower cost care, and
(15:29):
that's really one of the key areas of focus for
Care New England.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Very good. Are you guys hiring right now? And if so,
in what roles are you hiring for and how does
somebody apply?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Absolutely, we have about seven hundred open positions and when's interested,
they can go to Carenewengland, dot org, slash careers. We
have openings in nursing, medical assistants, therapy jobs, physicians, etc.
So really the gamut, and we're looking for people who
are passionate about healthcare and passionate about taking their skills
(16:01):
and applying them to the mission we have at here, New.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
England, Very good. How can somebody finds out a little
bit more about your company, whether it be website, social media, etc.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Well, certainly on social media we have a heavy presence
and all of the major social media platforms in addition
again kernewinglyand dot org.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
In terms of looking at the.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Services we provide the physicians that we have, the locations
that we have really a great source of information about
Care New England and our organizations.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Awesome well, doctor Michael Wagner, CEO of Care New England,
thank you for coming on iHeartRadio Providence. CEOs. You should know.
Great interview. We appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Thank you so much
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