How 3 Hospital CEOs are Striving to Strengthen the Workforce

Here’s what the guiding hands at three organizations recently told HealthLeaders about solving for their biggest pain point.

Whether you’re at the helm of giant health system or leading a rural hospital, building and maintaining a sustainable workforce is almost certainly at the top of your to-do list.

As the saying goes though, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. In the case of tackling workforce challenges for CEOs, there are multiple ways to go about solidifying recruitment and retention in your organization.

Some leaders are prioritizing the wellbeing of their people and thinking of ways to improve the workplace culture, while others are more focused on reducing the work burden through technology.

Three hospitals CEOs recently shared their approach to the workforce with HealthLeaders. Here’s what they had to say:

Seth Kronenberg, Crouse Health CEO

“We’re in the greatest healthcare workforce shortage in the history of the world,” Crouse Health CEO and HealthLeaders Exchange member Seth Kronenberg said.

The pandemic is over, but the workforce is still recovering from its effects. One of the impacts has been a drain of workers exiting the industry, which is expected to only get worse in the coming years. By 2028, healthcare is projected to have a shortage of over 100,000 critical care workers nationwide, according to a report by Mercer consultancy.

One of the strategies Kronenberg highlighted to retain workers is to provide them with more flexibility and optionality so they don’t feel inclined to leave, whether it’s for an opportunity to transfer into another discipline or have more work-life balance.

“Healthcare in general, we all were caught a little flat-footed with, certainly with COVID, all of the opportunities people had to work remote,” he said. “There were many more opportunities in other industries, other than the hospital environment. So now we want to make sure we can meet the demands of the workforce as we go forward.”

Kronenberg will be among many senior-level leaders from hospitals, health systems, and medical groups at the Workforce Decision Makers Exchange in Washington D.C., from November 7-8 to discuss solutions to building the workforce of the future.

Peter Slavin, incoming Cedars-Sinai CEO

At Cedars-Sinai, Peter Slavin is set to take charge on October 1 as the Los Angeles-based health system enters a new leadership era.

Coming into the role, Slavin shared that he wants to shape the workforce by improving the experience for clinical staff and leaning on technology to counteract the buildup of administrative tasks.

“Clearly the workforce was traumatized during the pandemic and is slowly recovering,” Slavin said. “How do you make the work environment as positive and joyful as possible?”

Investing in and implementing generative AI can go a long way to easing the load on physicians, Slavin highlighted. By fighting burnout among your physicians and nurses, CEOs can significantly increase their chances of holding on to staff and keeping them happy.

“One of the sources of trauma that the healthcare workforce is facing is just the trauma caused by spending too much time in front of computers and not enough time in front of patients,” he said. “Generative AI and other aspects of artificial intelligence, there’s incredible opportunity to shift that balance between time in front of computers and patients and make it much more favorable from clinician standpoint.

“But I would emphasize that I don’t think technology is the only answer to the issue. I think it’s a variety of other things. It’s just management paying close attention to the needs, the voices of the workforce and making sure that we’re as attentive as ever to how to make the work environment as positive as possible.”

Jeremy Davis, Grande Ronde Hospital CEO

At Oregon-based Grande Ronde Hospital, CEO and fellow HealthLeaders Exchange member Jeremy Davis understands that his organization has to be even more proactive with workforce strategies as a rural hospital.

That means understanding and being attentive to the needs of his staff, which allowed Grande Ronde to cut down on open positions from 220 two years ago to 50-60 in July.

“That took a lot of reflection and introspection about some of our policies and procedures,” Davis said. “We have updated our personal policy manual and tried to find ways where we can be a little bit more flexible.”

Developing nurses of the future through a nurse residency program and a partnership with a local university is another way Grande Ronde is adding to its workforce. By building a pipeline and training newer generations of workers, CEOs can mitigate the consequences of staff turnover and an aging out of older workers.

“It also just comes down to culture of being an organization that people want to be a part of,” Davis said. “We’re not perfect. We still have our things that we need to improve on but we’re certainly listening. We’re certainly trying and when people see an organization that’s growing and trying to expand and trying to improve, they want to be a part of that and help determine that destiny.”

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