Empowering Future Healthcare Leaders: The CAHME & Joint Commission Fellowship

<p>good evening everyone it's fangi Shaw with the fellowship review through the American Journal of healthc care strategy today I am thrilled to be joined by Anthony stanowski president and CEO for the commission on accreditation of Health Management education otherwise known as Cammy thank you Anthony for joining me today rangi thank you it's a pleasure being here [Music] yeah absolutely so let's just get started um can you please tell me a little bit about yourself and also share a little bit about your career journey and how you got to the role that you have today well thanks for you know I think that the most interesting part is you never really realize where you're going to wind up on the road that you're kind of traveling particularly in the beginning part um I um I did my undergraduate degree ree came out um I was a Communications and Psychology major and so I was eligible for such great jobs as season ticket salesperson for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Sixers weren't doing all that well at that particular Point um I was also offered a job as a meter reader for Philadelphia electric which would have been really embarrassing as a Magna kumla graduate of the University of Pennsylvania so I took neither of those jobs wound up as a fifth grade teacher and while I was teaching was a really interesting kind of part of my life because um there I was 21 years old I was I got out of school in three years and um I one of my students fathers um died of cancer and um the school that I was teaching in was actually the same school that I went to as a child too so um you know having to counsel his mom about that was really a a very tough thing for a young person to do at that point but it also kind of brought back to me a little bit of my own childhood where I had Childhood Cancer and um I recall the conversation I had just a little bit while I was still in school with the Doctor Who treated me and his name was Dr sakoff he was a Thomas Jefferson University um and uh Dr sakoff was telling me about how in Philadelphia particular in the area that I grew up high incidents of cancer rate really high in rate and not surprisingly we were bordered by the Philadelphia skookul Expressway the Gas Works the trash to steam plant an oil refinery and a diesel powerered electric Camp so I think all those things kind of combined um you know probably contributed to a higher than average cancer incidence rate I decided to go back and got my get my MBA in Healthcare Management and I I really want to say that probably was a major influence in me doing that so while there I went to a Camy accredited school um and U they prepared me well I did a fellowship and that was really the thing that kind of changed my career because I was able to see how decisions were being made at hospitals what the board of directors was like and how how you did an analysis and how you presented it to move things forward I'm really proud to say that the first project I worked on was the cancer prevention center at graduate hospital and as it turned out the cancer prevention center got approved and got activated and I got to work with the uh The Physician who was leading it in a in a good strong way now the boss who I my boss who I presented to at the time said Anthony um you don't realize that this never happens you never just get your first project go through it and get it approved but I think that really kind of ignited the passion for me about what what going in healthcare was all about and I think it was really exciting so I spent uh from 1983 to about 1999 in hospitals and Health Systems in Philadelphia graduate Hospital came graduate health system it was the largest health system in Philadelphia I left and joined Mainline Health which was a community Hospital located in the Philly suburbs which merged with Thomas Jefferson um formed the first version of Jefferson Health System I was a director of planning and market research and uh another merger was coming down the pike and I was really kind of tired of mergers at that point joined an organization called saxs group uh which was doing planning and marketing for hospitals around the country and I think that was really the the part that got me into a national exposure with other professionals around the country other really kind of great smart people um and one of my clients as sax group grew it became solution it became Thompson Reuters it became the IBM Watson healthc Care Division and I left right before the IBM acquisition occurred I joined Aramark and Aramark was uh my client and they had an opening for vice president of Industry relations which I absolutely loved msanii it was an amazing opportunity to really kind of fund important projects with the the generosity of aark and uh one of the projects that we funded was to create a fellowship program and it was it was really interesting because how that occurred was I talked to the president of the institute for diversity my very first week on the job guy named Fred Hobby and uh Fred and I were comparing our careers and he said you know what Anthony no one's doing fellowships anymore hospitals are cutting them back and a lot of programs don't require them he turns to me and says why does an Aramark do a fellowship I'm thinking how do I do a fellowship I'm in a corporate office in Philadelphia on a highrise up on the 11th floor and how do I do a fellowship I went back talked to my boss a guy named Jeff Conor an amazing person goes how's your meeting with with Fred go and I said really well and I told him I said Fred Fred said to me why don't we do a fellowship he goes oh Fellowship what's that so I kind of described what a fellowship is how you you know spend departmental rotations how you report to Executives how you um you know interact develop projects um you know meet with a lot of group people sit on board meeting goes hm he goes um how much do fellas make and I so I gave him the the salary amount that it was back then he goes hm I'll come back to you tomorrow come back to me tomorrow with what I'm going comes back to me knocks on my door says Anthony good news I got for you funding for four fellows this year and your job performance review Will based on if you get the fellowship up and running and he bolts out my door after that I sit back and I go how am I going to make this happen so what we did is we designed a program where we put the fellas and we put them in an aark Hospital aark service Hospital you know obviously aark isn't in the hospital business they do food environmental service and biom put them in an Aramark hospital they report it to the hospital executive so the president or CEO of Henry Ford Hospital the president and CEO of advocate of uh of Mainline health of you know Susana Hospital hospitals in Detroit Medical Center uh in in the Houston Medical Center all around the country and we would bring the fellows together couple times a year we would take them to Aramark events and they would see what we do would do at Philly's games we would take them to a prison and they would see how aark service we took a group to Ireland once and they saw what we do at the Guinness Factory now I don't want this to sound like too much fun we went to the Guinness Factory which a mar but then we they also met with Irish CEOs and talked about the US and Canadian healthc care system we had a Canadian fellow and they also talked to uh education folks and and talked about what they learned and made comparisons and and contrast with the US Canadian and Irish Health Systems it was fascinating they also did a project in conjunction with a a university based person and we work with folks like at Carnegie melon at Wharton at Penn State um great great great sets of projects to do so the folks at at Camy heard that there was this crazy guy in Philadelphia who was spending about a half a million dollars a year on fellows and said we need to talk to them so they they made an appointment came up and talked to me and the CEO at aark and um what they wanted was some money to fund uh Global accreditation and Aramark at the time was looking at how do we expand globally in healthc care how do we consolidate our services so um we we funded two research studies and they asked me to be on the board and rangi let me tell you I made a critical mistake at this point so they asked me to sit on the board and here's a mistake all your listeners need to make sure you write this down never ask any questions at a board meeting because if you ask questions you become the chairman of the board so I was vice chair of the board at aramar I had been on for five years and um the president at the time said she was going to retire and my comment was please don't retire I left Aramark at that point I was with a technology company in New Jersey applied medical software I was on the board at bons sore in uh Baltimore Maryland and uh all I kept thinking is oh my god I've got to do my day job on the board of an of a health system and now I've got a mentor CEO on at to Camy and and at that time nine years ago Camy was in really bad shape we were losing programs we were losing corporate sponsors um we were uh at 90 days cash on hand we were we were close to going out of business and uh I talked to another board member and he said why don't I do it and I looked at him and I went Tim I never pictured ending my career with a failing nonprofit didn't make sense and Tim said Anthony if you do what you love and I think this was the most important turning point for me because if you do with your love and you're helping people then it's worth more than any money you can do I think that's an important lesson for for anyone um so I took the job and I really want to say haven't been happier since I have not been happier it's been the most fulfilling job of my career unfortunately this the person The Other Board member I talked to passed away from pancreatic cancer and we actually have a scholarship name for him the Tim Campell scholarship so um um if any of students out there in CIA credit programs make sure you look at our scholarship page because there's a Tim Campell scholarship and other scholarships that they could apply for as well too so I think you know if you look at your career did I plan on when I was growing up as a little boy I thought oh my God you know it'd be really fun to be the president or a creditor no no no fireman policeman you know those type of things but never the president of a creditor but it wound up that way yeah what an incredible journey um I appreciate you not only sharing you know um your career Journey but also just your personal story and what a beautiful tribute to name a scholarship and help students um you know ease the access um barriers to education um and a lot of things that you said resonated with me as well you know I went to Cami accredited institutions I also did a fellowship and you know I'm so so grateful for my fellowship experience so completely understand where you're coming from um and so kind of transitioning to Cammy H what is something that you want our listeners to know about Cami as an organization and kind of the second part about the about that question is um can you speak more about the fellowship opportunity yeah well let me let me talk about the first part first because um if you go the social media there's there's a lot of stories about Camy and it's it's really kind of interesting to to to kind of listen to I think that the important part about Camy is its Mission and you go to the mission and I really want to say as a CEO I look at decisions and I think about our mission and our mission is to serve the public Purpose By advancing the quality of healthc care management education serve the public Purpose By advancing the quality of healthcare management education we do that in four ways we set standards and then number two is we help programs meet those standards very strange because most people think of a creditor as the the people with the little book with the little checks and minuses on it no what we do is we set the standards we help programs meet those standards and then once they meet those standards we tell the public about it and we also tell the students about the types of programs to look for now the standards are hard and they're based on um criteria and standards by academics and leading practitioners and uh to meet the standards is is very very very significant um now I said Camy helps programs meet those standards but we also have programs that we de accredit and we also have programs that we don't accredit the first time through so um we help them kind of move along now why do we do all that well number one you look at our vision statement our vision statement is we want to work to make sure that students are well prepared to lead in healthcare so it's all about the listeners to this podcast it's all about the students making sure that you're well prepared like you said um you became well prepared and I'm looking at your diplomas it's soou right St Louis and USC yes okay yeah so you know those are two Cami accredited programs and our goal with those programs is to make sure there's great students like you out there we're going to make change and I think that's really kind of critical that so that's the important part about Camy we accredit 150 programs in the US and Canada soon to be Global the work that remember that arar funded yes like 15 years ago we we finally have come true and we will be visiting uh two programs in Saudi Arabia one this uh uh November and then the second one in like January or February so I'm really excited about that and then we've got a few more kind of coming in other parts of the world as well too so you know we've got a global reach and we're making sure that students across the globe are well prepared to lead so that's what we're doing now what I'm excited about and why why I'm I'm on this you know podcast and thank you you very again very much for this opportunity but um a marked with the worked with the joint commission and you know I I talked to you about my my career at sax group and Solutions and you know before aark one of the great people that I got to meet during that point point was Jonathan pein Dr perlin and he had just left the VA and joined the HCA he was my primary point of contact at HCA they were my uh biggest uh client at the time that I was working with and John was just a phenomenal person he had a great team and they really worked you know it was interesting because people you talk to outside the the hospital the the for-profit healthcare industry Comm smaller Community Hospitals would go oh HCA doesn't care about quality they're just concerned about making money absolutely false people like John pein set up very very sophisticated benchmarking tools both on a clinical and an operational point of view and I tell you working with John on that was probably one of the highlights of my career wow just a great guy so um John and I stayed in touch through the years I joined Cammy I you know pinged them let him know and then about a year and a half ago I think just about a year and a half ago he joined the Joint Commission as the CEO and for the listeners out there The Joint Commission is the largest accreditor of hospitals and other health care providers across the globe um and John to me he is someone that's going to make a significant change in health care and one of the areas that he's focused on is sustainability he said if hospitals he said this to me at a launch he goes of hospitals were a country they would be the seventh largest polluter in the world who and he goes and think about the hypocritic oath which is first Do no harm and what are we doing we're doing harm how do we change that how do we change the industry so John is really interested in sustainability he talked to me and we actually have Cammy has a a program award for sustainability that we do with Canon Solutions America which is again one of those organizations that's committed to sustainability not just as oh you know this is a nice thing for but they're really all involved with it and they fund an award for programs uh around sustainability so I I told John about this and he goes well we should do something together too and I went back to the fellowships and I said John what do you think about funding of fellowships and John was a graduate of VCU a cami accredited program he's also a medical doctor and just again really one of the smartest people you could ever meet most passionate people you could ever meet and um John said um we sat down at lunch and we kind of specked out a fellowship program and and what it is similar to what we did in the old aark days is it's Camy and The Joint Commission getting together the student the fellow reports to the Joint Commission they work out of Chicago in the joint commission's office off they do Project work as assigned by The Joint Commission particularly focused on their sustainability initiatives but they are going to get to visit hospitals and be part of site visits and other programmatic and special work go to board meetings get to meet some folks get to do some really wonderful mentorship opportunities with John plin and other folks Mark Grafton at the joint commission do those kind of wonderful things but they're also got with Camy we want them to go on a cami site this and see what and then the fellow this year is tasked with writing a white paper that says how do how do we need to work together better to really Foster and in gender sustainability so that's her project this year we picked a fellow um that's just amazing sad is just an amazing fellow um just doing a wonderful job came from Rush University and uh just just an amazing part so this is the first year and uh when uh the Joint Commission has kind of seen how the fellowship has kind of moved through they immediately um went to a a second year for the fellowship so um our fellowship opportunity is open right now I think it closes really soon September 27th now hopefully we do one again um in 2026 but this is the fellow for 2025 starting July 2025 and ending June 2026 again closes September 27th 2024 so uh open to any students out there from cam accredited programs that's incredible and it seems like such a unique opportunity um and you answered so many of my questions you know I was going to ask you why joint commission and also um you know what prompted The Venture and you kind of touched on that already so I guess what I want to ask you NE next is you know what is a an absolute must know for interested candidates what is what do you believe are the most significant benefits of applying in doing this Fellowship yeah well I think um you know the uniqueness of this Fellowship is very similar to the what I what I call the uniqueness of the aark fellowship when we when when I was with them and we did that what we want to do with this is you know um I think a lot of students go I want to do a fellowship I want to go work for a hospital and usually they'll say nine times out of 10 Cleveland Clinic is my first choice them and 72,000 other students want to go work in Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic is a a a fabulous Fellowship it is right and then there's Advocate and there's there's several others that are kind of the must mustsee ones what we think with the Joint Commission is the ability to see how the Joint Commission conducts their reviews is something that no students ever seen before yes and to work at a very senior level within the Joint Commission is is significant so I think those two things are really unique the focus on sustainability is also really unique so I think to me if I'm a student I go through the joint commission part it makes me more valuable for my next job which might be with the Joint Commission might stay or it could be in the hospital industry or it could be a consultant or it could be with physician practice management I mean you could go anywhere from there to kind of look at how do you kind of improve and where do you kind of move from there so to me that's the incredible value you're not coming out with the the vanilla I did my fellowship at you know ex community hospital or X Big City hospital but you're doing something a little different a little unique but still gaining all of the analytical experiences that you need to do out of it yeah absolutely um and I think I caught this but just to clarify for our listeners um you know a lot of fellowships are built with the idea that you do have the opportunity to stay on for the future um so is that also true um I I think I heard you say this but is it also true that a fellow can complete the fellowship and then stay on with the Joint Commission there there's there's no guarantees of course and you know I just want to kind of be clear with that and and I think you know even with I I I want to kind of bring that back to my own Fellowship experience when I did that at graduate hospital um it was a one-year fellowship and it was uh it ended June 30th and you know I've been asking my boss about you know am I going to stay on it's like well Anthony we're working to make a spot for you and we're trying to do it and I think was June 29th where she came to me and said well good news we'll keep you on for another year so you know it was it was that level of experience for me now I you know I don't know what the Joint Commission is going to do afterwards sure and there's you know no long-term commitment but there's certainly that possibility got it no and I mean it's an incredible experience regardless but I think to our listeners I also want to highlight having done a fellowship you know um that that is the common notion right no guarantees but Fellowship organizations um such as the one where I I did my fellowship you know at UCLA health there is a strong effort to find a home for you post Fellowship but yes remember no guarantees no guarantees yes um and you know uh kind of my last two questions for you really have appreciated um everything you've said so far um and you touched on this a little bit but would you be able to provide a little more insight into what other kind of mentorship and professional development opportunities um the the most significant ones in your opinion that this Fellowship could offer okay well you know before I do that I want I don't want to forget this is Camy has done a weight paper on fellowships so if you go to cam.org and if you remember this if you go cam.org white papers you'll go right to the site where all the white papers are and we did a really great white paper in coordination with the national Center for healthcare leadership so if you want to know how much Fells are making it be a place to go or if you want to you want to understand you know what people are looking for when they hire fellows because we actually kind of talked through that along with some data from nchl so it's a great resource for students to go to so what other opportunities are there and I think you know if I'm a student you know uh absolutely want to do a fellowship and um you know I think uh you know sometimes you talk to students and they go well gez you know why do I want to do a fellowship if I go and get a job I might make more than my fellowship and so I'm giving up money by doing a fellowship why do I want to give up some money to do it and my my answer to that is yes you're you're giving up money but you really look at it as you're investing in yourself now first of all you will get paid for a fellowship and what I want to say is if you go to someplace and they offer you a fellowship and you don't get paid I think you should walk away because then they're they're really not invested in you to do that so that's just uh and aside there might be reasons why you want to do it and you know again I would just look at it very carefully but you should look for a paid Fellowship um so number one it's an investment in yourself although you might make a little bit less money because you it will take you years before you step back in the boardroom yep and for me it took me a couple decades I know the students out there are a lot smarter than I am so I think you might be able to get into the boardroom a little quicker than I did but um you know it takes a while and being able to see and understand and do the departmental rotations and work with different executives are all benefits that you know it takes you a long time to see so I think you know that's an important part with doing it um I would say you know other things to look for is look for um you know internships as you kind of go along your your student depending on where you are you know obviously a fellowship is a post-graduate experience and some schools actually require a residency which is structured similar to a fellowship uh there's I think there's only about a handful of programs less than a dozen that still require a residency that's there to get their graduate to get their degree um but um you know if you are in your first year look at some opportunities and with those you can volunteer for a short-term internship you will learn things on that so I you know again I would still you know kind of look at those is you know what are some good learning opportunities for you to do also take advantage of the professional assist associations that are out there AC is Far and Away the biggest and the broadest but it's not for everybody if you are into supply chain as an example you might want to look at the American Hospital association's professional membership groups and Human Resources aha has got a wonderful uh Association around human resources or Healthcare planning and Market development the society for healthcare strategy and Market development of a a is wonderful so AC is a very generous big tent Organization for healthc care Executives and people and management aha's professional membership groups are interesting if you're interested in finance hfma the healthcare financial management association is wonderful physician practice management the medical group management association is great quality and safety National Association of Healthcare quality uh some of these are on cammy's website and a lot of them are corporate members kind of look through but I think you can tag on to a professional association that makes sense for you now I know a lot of folks are students out there and they're going gez you know gotta spend some more money yeah on this but you got to look at it as an investment yes it's an investment in yourself and look if you're not willing to invest in yourself but go spend 1,200 or ,400 or $1600 for an iPhone what does that say right you know a 100 bucks a year 100 and a gives a nice discount for student fellows coming out is is really a worthwhile investment so I think those are probably the biggest mentorship now the other thing is once you sign up with it first of all don't sign up with all eight and go I'm gonna do them all no pick one yeah okay try to join one where there's a local chapter AC has wonderful local chapter so does hfma and a lot of other organizations and get involved and the first thing I would say is call up the president of the chapter and say Hi I'm new I'd like to do something at the chapter when's your next event and can I register people no one wants to register people no one it's the worst job in the world no one likes doing it as a student it's absolutely positively 100% the best job because you get to meet every executive exactly and if you get there early and you get the list you can go oh the executive I want to meet is the guy from Advocate or the guy from Methodist or the guy from and or the the woman from the female leader from you know this hospital and I think you can go around and go these are the people I want to get a hold of and make sure you kind of look them up and you know as you're prepping LinkedIn so you know their faces and everything and then when they come up you go oh hi Sally just wanted to introduce yourself introduce myself and I heard you're doing some really kind of interesting things at Advocate could I spend a little time with you talking about that yeah those little things are a great way to get invested also when you go the first words out of your mouth should not be do you have a job for you no don't do that what can I do for you how can I help you yeah and I think that's the great thing and I think that's the wonderful part about your organization I mean Cole I met him and Cole was what how can I help you Anthony and I I looked at Cole and I just went you know gez what a great guy um you know I I'm happy to kind of help him along and what you're doing with the journal and everything I think is really cool and it's it's it's totally impressive the early careerist that you all are working together and really trying to help other people learn more about fellowships bring that along it's just it's just the coolest thing in the world I wish you all the best of luck you know what you've done is you know that's that's an example of what people need to do because all of you are going how can I help other students find a good Fellowship absolutely absolutely you're all going to get it very far in your careers well thank you and and service to others is just an incredible core value of mine and so I have found the fellowship process to be so incredibly rewarding um and I feel like I'm still reaping the benefits it's um it's been so incredible that I want people to know that fellowships you should do a fellowship I'm so biased when it comes to that um and you know the very last question that I want to ask you um you've had an incred incredible career Journey so um if you had to give one piece of advice or one key takeaway for our listeners not only people interested in fellows fellowships but also just ear early careerists in general what would you want to um leave them with yeah and I think you you nailed it it's service to others how can I help other people and I think if you kind of go through with that mentality how can I help other people succeed then you yourself will succeed and that's I I think that's you mean you you said it first so I'm just kind of jumping on your thing but I think that's really absolutely the best piece of advice to give anyone that's out there and you know again um lifelong learning is important I think well you know there's all those rules out for people but you know helping other people's is great in fact the Tim Campbell scholarship uh is uh is all about helping others selfless service otherso so you know we recognize that it can be yeah absolutely well Anthony thank you so much I know it's later where you are than where I am so I just appreciate your time this evening um and I know our listeners will have a um wonderful time listening to this episode and just taking all the advice that you've left and of course apply to your fellowship as well um and with that everyone this is the end of our episode thank you so much for listening thank you Anthony thank you very much bye</p>