Albert Wright serves as president and chief govt officer at West Virginia College Well being System.
Mr. Wright will serve on the panel “Tutorial Medical Facilities in 2023: Key Methods, Points and Partnerships” at Becker’s tenth Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable. As a part of an ongoing collection, Becker’s is speaking to healthcare leaders who plan to talk on the roundtable, which can happen in Chicago from Nov. 7-10, 2022.
To be taught extra concerning the convention and Mr. Wright’s session, click on right here.
Becker’s Healthcare goals to foster peer-to-peer dialog between healthcare’s brightest leaders and thinkers. In that vein, responses to our Speaker Sequence are revealed straight from interviewees. Here’s what our audio system needed to say.
Query: What’s the smartest factor you have carried out within the final 12 months to set your system up for achievement?
Mr. Wright: Over the previous a number of years, we’ve constructed many profitable partnerships with a number of impartial group and important entry hospitals throughout West Virginia and the broader area. These partnerships have finally led to these hospitals becoming a member of our well being system as full members. This has been a win-win for everybody concerned: The group and important entry hospitals have a brand new associate that may allow them to proceed serving their communities, however in new and expanded methods, and the well being system advantages from creating further entry factors into its community of suppliers. As we speak, we’re a well being system with 19 hospitals in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio.
Q: What are you most enthusiastic about proper now and what considerations you essentially the most?
AW: I’m most excited concerning the West Virginia College Well being System serving as a spark that ignites significant, optimistic and lasting adjustments to the well being trajectory of West Virginia. Many West Virginians of all ages are burdened with vital well being points, and the state continuously ranks poorly in a number of key well being outcomes. To alter that course, we’ve made vital investments to develop our entry and community of hospitals and clinics, in addition to their packages and providers. We’ve been particularly targeted on recruiting suppliers in a wide range of specialties and subspecialties, increasing our telehealth and outreach clinics to achieve essentially the most distant components of the state, and in September, we’ll open a brand new, 150-bed kids’s hospital on our principal campus in Morgantown, W.V. In tandem with the investments in our folks, packages, and infrastructure, we’ve additionally launched a medical health insurance firm in partnership with Marshall Well being and Mountain Well being Community. That new firm, which we’ve named Peak Well being, will assist carry all these items collectively by constructing an inclusive, provider-led well being plan to assist West Virginians dwell more healthy and fuller lives.
I stay most involved about our workforce members and the stresses they face in any respect ranges of the group throughout some very unsettling occasions. I do know we’re not alone in that regard – the previous few years have harassed us all. Greater than ever, leaders in any respect ranges should be seen, extremely engaged, accessible, and empathetic.
Q: How are you desirous about development and investments for the following 12 months or two?
AW: Our strategic choices are guided by one, easy query: Are we assembly our mission as the educational well being system of the land-grant college of the state of West Virginia? If the reply is not any, then that’s the place we focus our power and assets. As a land-grant establishment, West Virginia College has a particular place within the hearts of all West Virginians, and because the college’s affiliated well being system, our obligation is to make sure that West Virginians have quick access to a complete community of care.
Q: What’s going to healthcare executives should be efficient leaders for the following 5 years?
AW: Be genuine and plainspoken; be accessible and type; join instantly along with your workforce members in any respect ranges – from these working bedside to these engaged on the loading dock. Take heed to their ideas and suggestions; empower them to make choices; problem them to take dangers; and ensure they know you’ve got their backs.
Q: How are you constructing resilient and numerous groups?
AW: The ups and downs of the pandemic have taught all of us to be extra resilient and nimble. What I’ve been most impressed with is how shortly our groups have tailored to the sudden and disruptive adjustments that the pandemic compelled upon us. By all these ups and downs, our workforce didn’t miss a beat. They’re wonderful folks. While you see such excellent efficiency throughout a disaster, that cuts to tradition, and on the West Virginia College Well being System, we work arduous to nurture and maintain a tradition that faucets into the grit and fortitude inherent on this a part of the world whereas inspiring folks in any respect ranges of the group to do nice issues.