- Program Spotlight:
Explore the Solutions Center—the Place to Be at Congress 2023 - Survey: Workforce Challenges Cited by CEOs as Top Issue Confronting Hospitals in 2022
- Reminder: ACHE Graduate Student Scholarship Applications Due March 31
- The Question of Private Equity
- Experience the Value of Mentoring Relationships
- CMS Addresses Rural Health Inequities in Medicare
Program Spotlight:
Explore the Solutions Center—the Place to Be at Congress 2023
When you attend the 2023 Congress on Healthcare Leadership, you’ll discover myriad opportunities to learn, network and relax at the Solutions Center. Open Monday, March 20, through Wednesday, March 22, from 7:00 a.m. through 3:30 p.m., and during the receptions on Monday, March 20, from 6:00 through 7:00 p.m., and Wednesday, March 22, from 5:45 through 6:45 p.m., the Solutions Center offers Congress attendees a comfortable environment to simply sit and recharge and avail themselves of the following services:
- Complimentary Career Services (by appointment) such as career advising and resume review.
- A professional photographer will be on-site offering free headshots.
- Networking opportunities in the Exhibit Hall with ACHE’s partners in learning and diversity and inclusion.
- The Ignite Stage will feature short presentations from experts in the field on cutting-edge topics such as “The Do’s and Taboos of Employee Engagement.” Explore all sessions scheduled Monday, March 20; Tuesday, March 21; and Wednesday, March 22.
- Opportunities to view posters and meet presenters during the 2023 Management Innovations Poster Session, Monday, March 20.
- Information about programs and services at the ACHE Membership Booth, including how to earn the distinction of board certification in healthcare management as an ACHE Fellow.
- A chance to explore the latest releases and bestsellers at the Health Administration Press Congress Bookstore. Stop by to purchase books at a 50% discount, including titles written by Congress speakers such as Carson F. Dye, FACHE, and Amer Kaissi, PhD.
Dye’s latest book, Leadership in Healthcare: Essential Values and Skills, Fourth Edition, focuses on the importance of developing a core set of values that drive the actions of healthcare leaders when things get difficult. This new edition features five new chapters that cover subjects such as inclusive leadership and facilitating the transformation from clinician to physician leader. At Congress, Dye will discuss the unique challenges physician leaders face during “Physician Leadership: Daunting Issues and Hurdles.”
Kaissi, who wrote Intangibles: The Unexpected Traits of High-Performing Healthcare Leaders, which earned him the 2019 James A. Hamilton Award, will also lead a Congress session on a similar topic. “Leading in Difficult Times: The Role of Leader Humility and Ambition in Improving Engagement and Innovation” will address the idea that leaders who model and stimulate humility and ambition can play a major role in improving employee engagement.
If you haven’t already reserved your spot at Congress with one of our registration options, don’t delay! Education sessions are filling up quickly—some are already full—and early bird pricing ends one week from today, Mon., Feb. 27. Visit ache.org/Congress to register and learn more.
Survey: Workforce Challenges Cited by CEOs as Top Issue Confronting Hospitals in 2022
Workforce challenges ranked No. 1 on the list of hospital CEOs’ top concerns in 2022, according to the American College of Healthcare Executives’ annual survey of top issues confronting hospitals.
Workforce challenges is a category of concerns introduced to the survey in 2022 to better represent a multitude of workforce-related issues hospitals face. The category includes personnel shortages, which was hospital CEOs’ top-ranked issue in 2021, as well as staff burnout, among other workforce issues.
Financial challenges ranked second in the 2022 survey, and behavioral health/addiction issues ranked third.
This marks the second year in a row that workforce or personnel challenges has been the top-ranked issue. Before that, financial challenges ranked first in the survey for 16 consecutive years.
“Hospitals need to take both long- and short-term measures to address critical workforce issues so they can continue to provide safe, high-quality care now and in the future,” says Deborah J. Bowen, FACHE, CAE, president and CEO of ACHE. “Longer-term solutions include strengthening the workforce pipeline through creative partnerships, such as those with colleges to grow the number of nurses and technicians. More immediate solutions include supporting and developing all staff, building staff resilience, organizing services to reflect the realities of the labor market and exploring alternative models of care.”
In the survey, ACHE asked respondents to rank 11 issues affecting their hospitals in order of how pressing they are and to identify specific areas of concern within each of those issues. Some key results from the survey are available here, and in the March/April Healthcare Executive and the winter Chief Executive Officer newsletter (the latter is available only to CEO Circle members), both of which will be available in print and online later this month.
The survey was sent to 1,321 community hospital CEOs who are ACHE members, of whom 281, or 21%, responded. The issues cited by survey respondents are those of immediate concern and do not necessarily reflect ongoing hospital priorities.
Reminder: ACHE Graduate Student Scholarship Applications Due March 31
Students have until the end of March to apply for 2023 Dent and McGaw scholarships. Offered annually, the Albert W. Dent and Foster G. McGaw Graduate Student Scholarships are awarded to outstanding students enrolled in their final year of graduate programs in health services administration to help finance their education. The Albert W. Dent Student Scholarship is designated for racially and/or ethnically diverse, as well as LGBTQ+ students, only. Every year, ACHE awards up to a total of 15 scholarships, each worth $5,000. Applications for the scholarships are due Friday, March 31.
To learn more, visit the Albert W. Dent and Foster G. McGaw Graduate Student Scholarship webpages for more information.
The Question of Private Equity
“The healthcare services [private equity] landscape closed out 2022 with a declining, but still healthy, level of deal activity,” according to a recent report from market research firm PitchBook. “Firms announced or closed an estimated 863 deals in the year, making 2022 easily the second-best year for PE healthcare services dealmaking, after 2021,” the report states. And although the firm’s analysts predict ongoing staffing issues and other challenges will continue to slow deal volumes during the first half of 2023, they expect a rebound in activity if macroeconomic conditions stabilize mid-year.
Like it or not, private equity investment in healthcare is likely here to stay, at least for now. Critics of private investment claim it is usurping healthcare, and that private investors’ dogged pursuit of profits can relegate patients to second place and push competitors out of the marketplace, according a feature article in the January/February Healthcare Executive. However, advocates contend in the article that private equity groups have the necessary business expertise and the capital to eliminate waste and fragmentation, fuel innovation, improve quality, and generate substantial returns for providers and investors in a relatively short time frame.
In “The Question of Private Equity,” healthcare executives discuss the pros and cons of entering into a private equity agreement and offer advice to help organizations strike the right balance between maintaining their focus on quality and patient care and generating revenue.
Visit HealthcareExecutive.org to read the full feature and check out the rest of the January/February Healthcare Executive.
Experience the Value of Mentoring Relationships
At ACHE, we believe that no matter where you are in your career, mentoring others—and being mentored—should be part of your professional growth. The ACHE Career Resource Center’s digital Leadership Mentoring Network provides enhanced matching and support for successful mentor partnerships. Each formal mentor-mentee partnership will last six months, although we encourage the partnerships to extend beyond the formal timeline. The next cohort will be matched in early April.
Many healthcare leaders seek mentors to build professional self-confidence, sharpen critical thinking skills, increase professional visibility and executive presence, and clarify long-term career goals. ACHE members must complete a mentee profile to be matched with a mentor on a first-come, first-served basis.
We also invite healthcare leaders with a minimum of five years of experience at the director level or higher to consider becoming a mentor through the Leadership Mentoring Network. Being a mentor provides numerous benefits, which you can learn about in this ACHE Blog post and in the November/December 2021 Healthcare Executive “Careers” column.
If you are ready to explore a professional mentoring relationship, visit ache.org/Mentoring today to learn more about the Leadership Mentoring Network and to complete your mentor or mentee profile.
CMS Addresses Rural Health Inequities in Medicare
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently shared a three-pronged approach to address rural health inequities in Medicare—a cornerstone of CMS’ effort to improve health equity. Compared with urban Americans, rural Americans are more likely to have heart disease, stroke, cancer, unintentional injuries, suicide risk and chronic lung disease. In a Feb. 10 CMS blog post, CMS leaders shared plans to support rural providers, make rural healthcare more effective, and transform its delivery system to improve access to high-quality, coordinated care.
Specifically, CMS plans to help address the shortage of healthcare providers by allowing rural hospitals and critical access hospitals to apply to CMS to become a rural emergency hospital provider type. As an REH, organizations must provide ED services and observation care. In exchange, Medicare will pay REH providers an additional 5%, compared with normal Medicare outpatient rates for most services, and it will provide monthly payments that increase every year with inflation.
Under another prong of its plan, CMS is expanding access to care in rural areas through a number of measures that aim to increase access to behavioral health services furnished via telehealth and in person. Additionally, CMS will have Medicare pay for opioid use disorder treatment services delivered by mobile units.
Finally, CMS is expanding access to high-quality, coordinated care through value-based arrangements to better support the needs of rural Americans. To do this, CMS is improving the Medicare Shared Savings Program to provide up-front investments to new ACOs that treat low-income patients or patients who live in rural or other underserved areas. With these payments, ACOs can hire new healthcare workers, such as community health workers or behavioral health practitioners, helping to address provider shortages in rural areas.
To learn more about these measures, please read the full CMS blog post, which has links to the various programs mentioned.