This is Laura Dierda with the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Pam Tufel, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Main Line Health. Pam, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. It's great to be here. Well, I I'm looking forward to our discussion and really digging deep into some of the things that you're looking forward to over the next year or so. But before we dive in, can you tell us a little bit about Mainline Health? What makes it unique? Great. We are a suburban health system in, Suburban Philadelphia. We have four acute hospitals, a behavioral health facility, lots of ambulatory surgery centers and ambulatory buildings. We're about 2 and a half billion in revenue and about 14,000 employees overall. Well, it's fantastic to hear that. I know definitely an important area that you're serving within your community. So I'm wondering if you could take us back the last twelve months. What accomplishment are you most proud of from the last year? One of the things that we went after was really to demonstrate what high levels of engagement we have. And, we do take the great place to work survey, and we did land on their top health care employer list. So I am incredibly proud of that. And, really, it's the employee saying that it is a great culture, and they feel that. And they do really think it's the one of the best places to work in this market. As a result of that, the other key outcomes we saw improvement in is, you know, our turnover is dropping back down to what I call pre COVID levels and our mobility. So we measure how many of our positions are filled with internal talent really hovers at that 50% mark, which, again, reinforces that our employees wanna stay here, and they are seeing that we're putting the effort into developing them so that they do have new opportunities. And so, professionally, I'm just really proud and excited about those outcomes. Absolutely. That's, you know, great to hear. And when you think about that employee retention piece and low turnover, I know that's something a lot of health systems are struggling with. So is there anything you feel like you do differently at mainline health that has really attracted folks to stay? Yeah. One of the things we, really for the last two years have started to invest in is our pipeline programs. And so mainline has really pre COVID, we didn't have to fight to attract or retain talent. People came here. It was a great place to work. You know, during the great resignation, we, like other health systems, saw people exiting. And especially for our support services roles, you know, they didn't understand how do I get to that next level. Maybe I have to leave the health system to get there. And so we now have multiple internal apprenticeship programs that we advertise and market to our internal employees. So we have a sterile processing apprenticeship program. You don't need any experience. We put you in this role. We train you on the job. We give you some classroom training, and then you're moving into this new role where you never had that experience before. We also have a patient care tech one. We have a medical assistant apprenticeship program. And so I think that's what our employees are responding so positively to is, wow. You really do care about my future growth and development, and you're actually training me on the job. I don't have to use tuition reimbursement. I can get that development here. So it's it's been a wonderful thing to see. Now we have a lot more work to do. We have to continue to do that in our imaging areas. You know, radiology is incredibly difficult to hire. There's the schools are not producing enough kids these days, and so we are continuing to partner with schools to say how do we get more of those programs. But I think the more we do, the more we solve for having a staffing crisis that we know is coming in the next few years. That makes a lot of sense. And, you know, it's really helpful to get inside a little bit of those programs to see where the real value lies, not only to provide the skill sets that, the team needs, but also, you know, to show that commitment, to that professional development and being able to grow a career within the organization. So that that's really great to hear. Now when you look ahead, what are some of your big organizational goals for 2025? So we are laser focused on our growth in our ambulatory setting. You know, as I said, mainline does have our four acute hospitals, which are extremely busy, and our behavioral health facility, but we really wanna continue to grow and expand that ambulatory footprint. So we now have our own, one of our singularly owned ambulatory surgery centers. We just opened another urgent care. That's our third. We're adding primary care practices, and we're also adding specialty practices in areas where we traditionally have not employed those physician groups. Those have been community physicians that have just practiced at Main Line. We are now starting to employ some of those specialties such as in GI and urology, and we wanna continue to grow that. We have a lot of big plans, really over the next three to five years because, obviously, that's where we know patients enter our health system. You know, they don't traditionally, want to come into the hospital nor do they need to, for certain procedures, and they wanna have easy access where they live. And so really also positioning where that growth is, where the population is growing. So we've increased the number of physician recruiters that we have on board because we know that that focus on that area of our growth plan is really important and competitive. That's really helpful to know. And I I love those examples that you, provided for us in terms of looking at the inventory sites, urgent care, primary care. It seems like more and more, those services that you're able to provide outside of the main hospitals are gaining traction and really, providing needed support for the broader community. So, that that's really fantastic to hear you've been able to have success in that area. Yeah. I mean, the other other area that we are focused on is just continuing to say how can we automate work, and so we don't have manual processes. And so that's for both of our providers, as well as our frontline staff. And so using AI in a way, you know, to help a physician clear out their in basket, you know, translating all that in basket work that they do sort of suffer under that burden to other folks to get it triaged so that they don't have to deal with it so they can spend their time with patients. We also use our virtual care center to really help our nurses on the floor. So we have nurses that work remote that really are analyzing the patient data of the patients on the floor, diagnosing when a patient may be about to crash, alerting that nurse on the floor, there's an issue here. Please go check it. You know, that added resource and use of technology has been such a tremendous support to our people. And, really, what we're trying to go after is burnout. You know, we we know that clinicians and providers have a tremendous burnout. And if we don't solve for this some of these problems, you know, they're gonna leave the industry. And we can't have that happen when we already have a shortage. So we just wanna continue that focus and do even more in automation in the future. That's really great to hear. Having that ability to use AI and automation in a way that's supporting the workforce and the teams as they're working through, whether it's on the clinical side or administrative side. But, you know, those, important things that they need to do and bring the human touch to, and then automating everything else, it seems like a really important step to take, to make sure the organization is functioning, in the best way possible. Now I know there's a lot of opportunities as we've been talking about, but what are the headwinds that you're anticipating for the next year or two as well? I I mean, we certainly, like every health system in the country, are challenged with our payer mix and reimbursement. You know, our payers, you know, not necessarily wanting to give us as large of an increase as we, know that we need because our payer mix is changing. Our population is aging. We have more patients on Medicare where we don't get reimbursed what our full costs are. And then as we do have a health system around us that is really has filed for bankruptcy, may close their doors. As those populations move over, we get potentially more uninsured or Medicaid patients, and that also challenges us. So our ability to be very efficient in the delivery of our care remains incredibly important because we're not gonna have the reimbursement levels that we've had in the past. The second transition is, you know, my CEO, Jack Lynch, is retiring after twenty wonderful years at Main Line Health, and we are in the process of doing that search. And so, certainly, in my role and the senior team's role, we're just preparing for that transition, which will be significant, as we onboard a new leader. Oh, there's a lot that goes into that. You know, and really being able to find the right person, bring them on, and as you mentioned, onboard them successfully, that will go a long way in toward future growth of success. And I know given everything that we've talked about today, some of the big changes, the way that health care in in the industry overall is, moving and evolving. It means that, you know, it requires different things from leaders of the organization. So how are you evolving as a leader, to make sure that you're meeting the needs of the day? I mean, one of the things I I struggle with consistently is I don't wanna become a dinosaur. And, you know, as a Gen Xer, I'm I am constantly focused on, like, what do I need to personally learn, and read up on with AI. You know, I I did not grow up with technology. I think I'm a good adapter, but, you know, my younger employees look up to me to say, like, what are we doing in the HR tech space, and how can we keep our tools up to date? You know, I'm trying to become an expert on Copilot and eliminate as much routine road work that I can because I am the head of HR, and I do think staff look up and say, are you thinking about the future of technology? And so I have to know enough to be dangerous is what I say. I listen to a lot of podcasts on technology and just seeing what other industries are doing. You know, I don't think Main Line Health is gonna be first to adopt a lot of things, but we wanna be a fast follower. Maybe let someone else try something first, but be ready for it. So I sort of, what keeps me up at night is, you know, my ability to stay up on the latest things and make sure that my skills don't get out of date. Absolutely. Well, that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, definitely, it's great that you were able to stay on the forefront of a lot of the different things that are going on today, both health care, technology, and otherwise. Pam, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. This has been a lot of fun. I appreciate your perspective, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon. Thank you so much.