The Becker's team is excited to announce the launch of our new CFO and Revenue Cycle podcast. Tune in for conversations with finance experts from the top hospitals and health systems. We'll discuss key trends and ideas to drive meaningful change in the industry. Look for Becker's CFO and revenue cycle podcast wherever you listen to episodes. This is Madeline Ashley with the Becker's Healthcare podcast, and I'm excited to be joined today by doctor Bally Yehia, president of Jefferson Health. Bali, thanks so much for joining. Thanks so much. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Awesome. So before we kick things off, I would love for you to just describe to our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background and and maybe just some more on Jefferson Health. Happy to do so. I'm a physician by background, trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases, and really started my career taking care of people living, with HIV, which really got me interested in community health and health equity and populations and thinking about how we can improve the health, of various cohorts and people as well as where, our communities that we live in. And from there, moved into more administrative roles, throughout the last ten years. And now I'm president of Jefferson Health. Jefferson, crosses, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 32 hospitals, thousands of clinicians, and, nurses across our, our geography with a mission of improving lives in our communities. And it's been wonderful, to be part of this organization for the last two years. The other thing that really makes Jefferson unique is that we have Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health Plans and really putting together the health system, our health plan, and our university, is allowing us to do some unique things to better take care of populations, make health more accessible and more affordable. And I have to ask you with your your MD background and, you know, also being president of Jefferson Health, I'm just kind of curious if you can share just some some leadership there. How how your your background in medicine has has helped you become the leader that you are today? You know, I think, serving in health care in a leadership role, and having gone through internship residency and practicing really does give you a unique lens. You're a little bit closer, to the front line, and the challenges and also the opportunities that they face every single day. And, there's something special about developing a cohort of physician leaders, that can lead us into, this next rapidly changing era of medicine. And so I definitely do think it has influenced my leadership style, how I think about patients, how I think about the community, and how I think about our our care team workforce in general. And with that being said, curious to hear maybe two to three trends that you are following in health care right now and and just kind of your thoughts there on how you feel that this is impacting the the industry. I would say one of the trends that we're closely watching is just the rapidly changing health care landscape, and it's changing in so many different areas. Clearly, on the technology front, AI and tech, innovations are happening every single day. And what does that mean, for the delivery of care? What does that mean for patients and community members? What does that mean for back office functions? But also the continuing change in who is a player in health care, whether it's, payers that now have provider arms or private equity and for profits, or various folks that are entering the health care landscape, that are really having different models, and what does that mean for traditional health care systems and doctors and nurses. And then we continue to see movements, in various value based and population health products. There's been a lot of conversations about MA, and how that's been performing over the last year, and so continuing to to monitor those. Plus, we see something that has not gone away, which is really how do we continue to focus on advancing health equity. And even though we've been advancing and marching forward over the last number of years, we still have a lot of opportunity in those spaces. So, you know, the one thing that is constant is change and being attuned to all these different, these different puzzle pieces that are coming together, is really important as you define a strategy forward for improving care for a community. The other trend that we're very, monitoring very closely and responding to is really just the increased cost of delivering care. You know, I saw a statistic the other day that the average cost of a new drug entering the market is almost $300,000. That's a humongous number. And, many of these drugs are amazing. They're life saving. They help control various chronic diseases. But how do you accommodate for that? And how do we make sure that we continue to provide, you know, cost efficient and affordable health care for, Americans across the country. And that's only just one example. You can use that on the supply chain side and there and many others, which is what is this, discrepancy that's happening between what it costs to deliver care, and what's being reimbursed for care. And that's something that needs to be addressed at a global level, not just by a provider or a payer, or many of the in between, institutions, but really more globally, at a national and a state level. And then lastly, what's really, really important, it's what makes health care health care is our workforce. I mean, at the end of the day, it's a relationship between a patient and a caregiver. And how do we make sure that we continue to prioritize our workforce, our doctors, our nurses, and everyone that supports them, but also evolve. As we know that models are changing, technologies are changing. There's a lot of competition, for health care jobs both within the sector and outside the sector. And that's something that we think a lot about of how do we make sure that we recruit, retain, and train up, the best talent within our system. So those are the three that really, are top of mind for me that influence our strategy is really how do we adapt to the changing health care landscape, how do we deal with the rising cost of delivering care, and then how do we make sure that we are responding to changes in the workforce. And, you know, talking to other health care leaders like yourself, workforce is always something that comes up. It's it's a big topic right now, especially just in terms of recruitment and retention. Can you share some ways that Jefferson Health is is working to to bring on workforce and and keep them there? You know, does it start with culture? What what are some, initiatives here? You know, it definitely starts with prioritizing it, this year. And and, honestly, for many years before, we've always had as one of our health system level goals. So one of the highest level goals is something related to workforce. And this year, we're working on, retention strategies in the first year and then also really leadership development, for our managers and above. And so I think that's where it starts is it has to be made a priority, by the leadership, and it has to be resourced and, viewed upon as something that is monitored closely and that there's a lot of emphasis behind it. Having the ability to have a university as well, the health system has really allowed us to, be a little bit more responsive. And so we have great partnerships with Thomas Jefferson University, and they've started programs like respiratory therapy or perfusion medicine, not to mention, our nursing school. And so all of those allow us to better meet the needs where we're able to really train up the next generation of caregivers and then be able to have them, intern and be placed within one of our hospitals, get used to the system, and then hopefully be able to, you know, offer them a job right out of graduation to work within the health care system. So that's been one of our secret sauces, if you would if you will, of really creating, pipelines that that cross from the university to the health system. And then the other is really just recognizing that, you know, it is about the people. It's about that's how patient experience is delivered. That's how change, leading through change happens. And so really investing in the workforce, we have all kinds of tuition benefits, all kinds of leadership programs, and we are very focused on talent. And we're investing a lot of resources into identifying top talent and being able to give them the skills, to move up and continue to lead in the organization. Oh, thank you for giving, you know, a little bit of a deeper dive there into the the secret sauce, for workforce. You know, Valerie, I wanted to also touch on you know, it was a very big year for Jefferson last year. You guys had the Lehigh Valley, merger, in August early August, I believe, or, yeah, late July, early August. So curious kinda how things are going there right now and maybe some of the things that you're most excited about going into 2025. Yeah. 2024 was a huge year for Jefferson. We celebrated our two hundredth anniversary. It's kind of amazing, that this institution has been around for two centuries. And the way we commemorated that was by doing two hundred thousand hours of community service. In fact, we actually surpassed that, just really going to our roots and our mission of improving lives. And so that was just such an amazing event activity we did throughout the entire year. And I will tell you, nothing brings a team together like community service. And we did this both as colleagues across Jefferson, but also with community partners and patients and family members. And, people contributed throughout the year. And we're we're planning on doing the same thing this year, but that's how we commemorated our two hundredth. We also opened up the new Hahnikman Center, which is, a brand new, really one of a kind, specialty care, pavilion, within Center City Philadelphia that really creates a one stop shop for patients. It was a building designed for patients, by patients, And we, were lucky enough to have this space for, for our family members and for our community members to receive care and for our staff to work in. We also received the comprehensive cancer status for our Sydney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, which is, from the NCI, which really, puts us in the elite and recognizes the amazing cancer care that Jefferson delivers. Plus Lehigh Valley, as you mentioned, which came on board in August, now making us a top 15 nonprofit health care system, in the country. And so it has been a banner year. The year ahead is really to continue to, focus on our mission of improving lives and delivering exceptional care, but also on how do we integrate the system, and really make sure that we march as one and that we're not independent mini systems under an umbrella, but really we are operating as one integrated health care system. And it's been wonderful, to bring the Lehigh team on board, as we start to, really craft that plan forward. Can you share what the integration process has looked like, following the merger and just kind of plans for, you know, continuing to integrate this year? Sure. It it really does start, with culture, and we've done a cultural assessment for both, our legacy organizations and, you know, crafted a way forward. It's just so that's so key. And I think what we found during that assessment is that, in fact, the cultures are very highly aligned. And I think one of the reasons, is that about 10 to 15% of the medical staff at Lehigh actually graduated from Jefferson, and there was such a camaraderie. A lot of the doctors and the nurses already knew each other, having worked in the same, or or, adjacent regions. And so that commitment to excellence, that commitment to quality and safety was there. And so we started with culture by just assessing the two cultures. And then now we're really just starting to bring different teams together, and we're leading with our service lines, of really uniting those service lines, cancer, neurosciences, heart and vascular, as well as various entities, you know, quality and safety, patient experience, nursing and the medical group. And by going in that order, we really are, leading with the people, and it's honestly been going very, very smoothly, as we think about just how aligned, the two organizations are. And now we're really just thinking more broadly of how can we take the best of both worlds to to deliver, to deliver that to the communities that we serve across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Well, that's great to hear. Very exciting stuff. And kind of piggybacking off of that, it seems hospital consolidation is is booming across Pennsylvania. So can you share maybe how you predict the state's hospital landscape might evolve maybe in the next four to five years? I think, you know, hospital consolidation, like you said, continues to move forward, and I think it's reflective of some of the trends that I mentioned earlier, that changing health care landscape, the increased cost of care, and, as folks start to think about partnership and, for some of them, really survival. And I think it's kind of emblematic of what's happening in some states in the country, as we continue to see some of these different pressures. And it's important to find ways forward because each of the different hospitals serves a key community, and those communities need access to health care. So I would anticipate that there would be continued, movements, m and a activity, and and restructuring happening, in the state and and other states that have, similar sort of pressures. And that's something that, you know, we care about a lot because we wanna make sure that we continue to deliver services, that are there. But health care is moving very, very quickly, and a lot of, smaller hospitals or even larger hospitals are looking for how do we make sure that we're around for our communities, that we are sustainable. And one of the ways to do that is by looking, towards partnership. And in that same vein, can you share how Jefferson Health is thinking about growth over the next twelve months, maybe even two years? Like like, we talked about a lot of exciting things that happened last year in 2024. So just moving into the next twelve months, anything else you'd like to share about growth? Sure. You know, our focus, as I said, is really around fulfilling our mission, which is improving lives. But one of the key aspects of that for Jefferson Health is really our strategy around access. Our goal is to be the most accessible health care system in the region, And that really means equitable access for all populations. And so we have been really focused on opening up the doors, opening up our ERs, and opening up, sites in the community and at home and virtually to better connect with individuals. And a couple examples, this summer, we launched our same day, next day cancer program where if you have a new cancer diagnosis, you will be seen within forty eight hours at Jefferson Health. And we've already had more than 500 patients utilize that service and really get connected to care quickly. It's one of the hardest things is really dealing with uncertainty. After you get a cancer diagnosis, you you don't wanna wait. You don't want your family to wait. And we really set up this program after lots of conversation with our community members and our physicians, to better support patients. We're doing the same thing for, virtual primary care where we can, patients can access primary care virtually, even if they live in a different county or different areas. So we're really looking about how we create different ways that folks can get care more timely and more conveniently. And that is a big focus of ours, and how we plan to grow over the next twelve months. The other is really continuing to think about synergies, and unlocking, potential between the health system, the health plans, which for us are mostly government payer health plans, Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, and ACA products, as well as the university. And I think the more we're able to find efficiencies there, the better. And, you know, for example, we've been able to remove various prior authorizations, between the health plan and the health system that just make sense, to get people to the right side of care and the right care, when it's possible within our control. So we're looking to to unlock more of that potential between our three, enterprise units. Well, thank you so much for sharing. It sounds like a very exciting time of growth right now for Jefferson Health. And so I truly appreciate you hopping on this podcast with us. It's been a pleasure speaking with you, Valerie, and I look forward to connecting with you again down the line. Thanks so much, and take care.