The HOPCo Administrative Fellowship: Caleb Speyrer

<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy joined by uh Caleb Spire of an organization that I'm really fond of uh Caleb please introduce yourself who you work for and and what your current role is yeah so my name is Caleb Spire I'm from south Louisiana uh a little about me I practiced for five years as an occupational therapist during which time I uh got my masters in healthc care administration with a concentration and health system management from GMU and uh use the administrative Fellowship to kind of springboard me from clinici to administrator and landed at hopco and it's been uh a [Music] blessing thank you so much for coming on I love the people at hopco I you know I've been meeting quite a few of them and it's interesting because they have this great fellowship program but they're not a kind of what people traditionally think where they usually get a fellowship at a hospital or at kind of a larger academic institution they're a bit different which is really cool they have some great opportunities and then of course your resume is so interesting because of that uh occupational therapy background right that's a unique background you know you have a bachelor's in exercise science and then you got of course the Master's um in occupational therapy what was the the kind of start of of wanting to go into occupational therapy how did did that come about for you oh yeah so I'm from south Louisiana uh a little bit about Cajun culture other than talking funny uh and cooking well we uh we're kind and we're Community Based and we give the shirt off our Bel to uh to help the person next to us if they needed it and uh so naturally that kind of aligned very well with going into Healthcare I didn't know what role that wanted to be but I found the therapy role nice because I could kind of help people change their habits roles routines and rituals the thing that led to them having a complaint in the first place so that's why I became an occupational therapist and then why did you end up going into healthcare administration right you spent time practicing uh you know the occupational therapy so what kind of wanted you to go towards that administrative route yeah so I uh got into occupational therapy at a hospital at in Mississippi that was where I got my first job and uh I think I went in kind of uh green if you will uh I was blind to a lot of things there were things that I didn't expect we kind of romanticized healthcare going in and we think it's going to be all pretty and clean and we get to help and save people to some extent we do but there were things that was just not prepared for like the amount of alarms that take place in an ICU that are ignored or the amount of times I had to fight for a patient to get discharge to the appropriate environment or to get the resources they need and their hands were tied or the fact that by the time someone reached me at the hospital a lot of what their outcome was going to be is rooted in you know what happened before they got there so uh in order to kind of expand my reach and to expand my capacity to help people achieve good health and well-being in quality of life I I felt like I needed to to make a move where I could have a more broad impact and uh I did the math as a clinici I think over five years I probably helped around 5,000 patients and families in that's excellent uh it really is I'm I'm very proud of that that's why I got into it but you know I've only been a fellow for two months and there's one project I work on that is going to go live systemwide uh on our analytics platform and it's going to give people better insights in clinical uh kpis quality operations and finance and in turn help those Health Systems to perform better and that just impacted the care of about 33 million lives so uh it's a much broader reach in Administration and that's what I was shooting for and I got nothing short of that with hopco that is awesome yeah congratulations too on being able to make that transition were you worried at all or nervous when you decided to go back for a second Masters and and start transitioning the career yeah definitely uh one I had to find a program that kind of fit my needs and align with my goals uh I felt the need to get a a degree from an accredited institution but I also needed the flexibility to continue working full-time because I mean life is expensive right uh nothing comes free and uh so I had to work full-time so George Mason fit that perfectly uh I was able to work full-time pursue my masters in the evenings and on weekends took me about two and a half years but managed to get it and uh that was definitely scary and then it was also scary to think that you know I get this degree and maybe I don't land a job uh I like to think of healthcare administration kind of like a like like driving a Ferrari right like you wouldn't just let anyone drive your Ferrari you you want someone with a proven track record who's going to be safe and knows what they're doing same with healthcare administration they wouldn't want someone running a service line or managing a group of employees with no experience so how do you get that and so I felt like an administrative Fellowship would be a catalyst for me to get that experience and kind of Drive the Ferrari with the training wheels on or or maybe that that little Driver's Ed steering wheel uh I appreciate that because that that is a big challenge right like it's without experience and doing something how do people know that you actually know how to do it and how do you actually know how to do it and one of the kind of questions I have for you since you were you know um you know through how many months now four or five months right no uh we actually just crossed month three started June 24th so just a hair over uh three months so three months in do you feel like you know you've already learned a lot oh yeah um in school you get a broad overview of kpis you get a broad overview of these different departments and different Health Systems and like payer arrangements and finances managerial accounting uh and that's all great but you don't really get to see what the health system or what the physician's office or what the payer finds is really important what they're trying to drill into to make change and so if anything this reemphasize what I learn and helped me to highlight kind of the most important areas it kind of pruned my focus to where I could see what was important and what was kind of noise absolutely know that makes a lot of sense and then you know just looking at the resume here as well you know you have an impressive resume you've done a lot of great things I want to ask um you know how did you come to kind of learn about a fellowship or an mha as a potential option what what LEDs you to discover those options was it uh through networking or just something that you already had known uh I think that really came from being in the health system seeing who is in charge seeing what their backgrounds and credentials were kind of networking meeting with people in different Healthcare roles and learning kind of their road to being an administrator uh and I tried to emulate that as best I could so that's kind of where I landed on mha I I kind of went back and forth between MBA and mha but I really like the the focus on healthcare administration so I chose mha and then I noticed too that you seem to be you know you've gotten quite a few of these hfma certifications right and you've done quite a bit with them what was how did you come across that oh yeah so I love to find resources that are affordable and accessible uh as a student you have a lot of perks like some discounted memberships hfma was great because you can sign up it's a huge discount on the annual cost for membership as a student you get access to all of their resources textbooks webinars and certification exams uh so this was a kind of way of stacking the odds in my favor so that I could be successful as an administrative fellow I got a project management certification business intelligence uh operations excellent uh quite a few uh and it wasn't necessarily to have letters after my name it was more so that I could kind of reinforce what I learned in my mha and show that I'm preparing myself to hit the running once I started my fellowship and would you recommend that to other potential fellows or students absolutely if anything it just kind of helps you learn the business Acumen uh to where you sound like you have a familiarity with the concepts and things that you come across as an administrative fellow or as a entry-level healthcare administrator uh project management certification was very useful in terms of how to organize run a project manage Communications uh and you know meet schedule limit scope uh uh and to measure your performance and success and then the business intelligence and financial management uh certifications were really great in just how to kind of explore data learning about data sources how to prepare data how to analyze data and how to structure results in such a way that you can communicate that to various stakeholders no absolutely nice thank you for that recommendation because a lot of people are looking for those resources as well and so whenever I see it on somebody's resume I want to ask about it um and I also notic you you've been involved in in you know a few different various volunteer opportunities as well and I wanted to ask do you have any advice on how to manage your time across the volunteering the education you know the work I mean a lot of these things you've done all at once looking at the resume and so any advice on how you've been able to manage your your time yeah definitely so time is an interesting thing I think of it kind of like a port folio and your priorities are reflected in how you allocate your time uh I choose to invest my time in things that give back to the community but also give back to me and kind of help fill my cup a lot of people think long hours are working on multiple things is the main contributor to burnout there's something to be said about that but then there's also something to say about the Fulfillment you get from doing things outside of work like volunteering uh that really kind of help you fulfilled even though they are a time constraint they kind of energize you to get back to what's important at work uh so balancing family is also important uh uh no one I think at the end of their life ever says I wish I would have worked more I wish I would have studied more you know so it's just trying to triage your priorities balance them to where you're allocating them to what you feel like is most important and then trying to find ways to fill your cup so that you can keep going nice yeah thank you for for sharing that too that that family is uh I I agree with that very much myself right uh it's it's so important to put I think family first and I wanted to ask how does hopco deal with that are they you know good about work life balance there do you feel like it's been uh you know a good experience in terms of that yeah so that's an interesting question uh there's a couple different ways I want to approach this question uh first and foremost I will say that a lot of people around me work some long hours uh the managers and the directors they they they put in work I I see them on teams or in a operations PB like the file used to manage data for a different service line uh at all hours of time and so there is this kind of pressure for me to put in those long hours because I want to show that I'm part of the team uh but no one's ever asked me to stay late or to come in early in fact they've never pressured me to be even in the door at 8:00 a.m.</p> <p>or to be out you know after 5 uh everything that I've done outside of my normal work hours is because I just felt like it was important and was motivated to do so uh that being said hopco has allowed me the flexibility to put Family First in ways that I never anticipated I'm actually I just found out about a month ago that I'm going to be a father for the first time oh congratulations that is amazing yeah super excited and uh when hopco found out they actually offered me the opportunity to go back home to my wife and work remotely uh so that I could support her during her pregnancy and uh still complete my fellowship without the distraction of worrying about what's going on back at home so Landing this Fellowship is probably the best thing I could have ever asked for uh in that Fellowship hunt you know you kind of have your top choices and the places you think are the best fit for you I'll be honest with you I I had put other places higher and I'm so grateful that I ended up where I am now uh we don't always know what's best for us uh so things work out and uh this Fellowship has afforded me the opportunity to advance my career and then support my family in ways that I wouldn't have thought possible that is awesome and that's what I wanted to ask about too it's a different type of Fellowship ship than what maybe a lot of people are originally thinking of when they're looking for a fellowship and so can you just help us understand you know what hopco is what they do and then how it differs from you know traditional Hospital operations uh Fellowship absolutely so hopco is an msk value based care company the largest in the US we do everything across the mha space in terms of Business Development uh service line management or pract ice management and analytics and uh as a fellow you are in a Project based role as opposed to rotational Project based meaning you you work on projects throughout you don't necessarily filter through different departments or service lines or or Health Partners um it's good for someone who kind of has an idea of what area of focus they want to be in or someone who's probably a little familiar with Healthcare as opposed to someone who wants to get exposure to different departments and the way the project selection works is at the start of your fellowship you're introduced to every executive leader you're introduced to the directors of every uh partner we have and you're given an overview of all the different service lines that we have and meetings are added to your calendar the the routine reoccurring meetings for each of these service lines and as you kind of attend these meetings there will be opportunities to say hey uh I see you need help with this or you're working on this I think this is something I could support you in uh so it's very very exciting to be able to just jump in and say this is what I'm interested in and then select projects based on that um it how do I say this it uh you kind of prune your interest and the meetings kind of slow down gradually over time you kind of stop attending all the meetings and just focus on the meetings that are directly related to which you're interested in and what you're focused on in terms of projects uh so you very much guide your fellowship experience and you very much got the selection of what you work on nice and and I appreciate that saying that because you know some fellowships are very general and you do that rotation based from Department to department or you do a project in every department but I like how here it allows you to have that option as well if you have a little bit more experience in healthcare or you're coming out of your internship knowing a little bit more about what you want to do and then you can narrow that down and so I have to ask you know what area have you been narrowing it down to what are some of your areas of passion yeah so I like quality operations and finance uh a lot of what I'm working on are all very much rooted in those things I also like being exposed to data analysis and analytics uh my goal is maybe not to understand indepth you know powerbi but to be able to use tools like that to ask important questions to identify areas of opportunity and to figure out ways we can do things a little better or maybe how see how one partner does something well and how another partner also is able to do it well and kind of compare and contrast to different approaches to solving a problem what do you like about the the quality area you know that that interests you the quality area I feel like is kind of directly related to my background uh we're an msk focused company we do orthopedic Ambulatory Surgery centers Orthopedic practices therapy clinics so it much it very much aligns with what my experience was as a clinician and kind of being able to use that background and perspective in combination with like evidence to and data to kind of draw performance Improvement and to deliver better care to the patients it's one of the areas that I feel like everything you do directly impacts or changes the way someone provides care or receives care uh which is very fulfilling do you think that having been a clinician has helped you or benefited you as an administrator sure uh just because I'm familiar with hospitals I'm familiar with therapy clinics I'm used to interacting with Physicians or nurses uh different stakeholders in the healthcare Arena so it definitely supports it but it's certainly not a requirement uh you know it helps to be familiar with health heare I would think anyone in a healthcare administration degree program or an MBA program with a healthcare concentration probably has a similar experience but it certainly helps to be familiar with Healthcare before starting a fellowship nice yep no I agree I think that can uh it can give you a little bit of a boost right kind of uh where you know some of the terminology a bit easier especially in uh msk because that's I I'm assuming it's fairly related to what you had done in terms of a lot of the terminology absolutely uh I think whenever you're select ing a fellowship you need to choose what's aligns with where you're at currently and where you want to be and so for me it Al this Fellowship align perfectly with my previous experience and align perfectly for my vision for where I wanted to be in the future nice so want to talk real quick about Phoenix Arizona right so that's where it's based out of you're of course a southerner uh you know you're you're from the General South area but what are your impressions of Phoenix you know how are you dealing with the weather you know what is the apartment rental market like what what's that looking like for you so Phoenix is hot uh I think this year we had over a 100 days in a row over 100 degrees we recently broke that snap but there's definitely some heat every time I step outside of my apartment it feels like I'm kind of walking in front of a hair dryer uh so that is a little tough to deal with but that being said there's a huge diverse community in Phoenix a thriving kind of downtown area and suburbs of Phoenix Phoenix so there's tons to do tons to explore if you ever want to get out the house there's plenty of opportunities even for things that are outside of the Heat and then there are several lakes and different kind of outdoor things that you can use to cool off uh so nothing there's never a moment where you're gonna run out of things to do especially in the year-long period that you're a fellow nice that's awesome and then what is the future looking like for you what are your you new plans you have about eight months left into the fellowship right so I mean that's that's a little ways to go you have a lot to learn still but what are you most looking forward to and and what are your plans yeah so that's an interesting question I uh I'm really excited to see where this Fellowship takes me I've been able to network with tons of different people in my area in Phoenix uh across the country every Health System I work with you know I'm on a first name Bas just with a lot of healthcare administrators in Florida in North Carolina um so I'm excited to see where things land I am not really particularly fond of of mapping out specifically where I want to be I don't really want to pigeon hole myself into one position but I would love to expand on my ability to perform data analysis work with different stakeholders to improve their service lines and uh to guide providers to kind of giving the best care that they can to patients and so that's what I hope to be doing more of in the next few years why do you think it's a good idea not to like you said pigeon hole yourself not to lock yourself into one thing I mean you have experienced in changing your career path so what you know for younger ones maybe who are an undergrad any recommendations on why it's not a good idea to do that sure Healthcare is dynamic things change and we have a lot of disruptive forces influencing Healthcare right now right we got AI we have all these analytics platforms there are so many changes taking place that I like the idea of being open to opportunity where it presents itself and accepting the idea that maybe what you think for yourself is good but it may not be the best fit for you when push comes to shove uh I thought you know I would be at a hospital doing a fellowship and that was where I wanted to be and when I got rejected from the first hospital Fellowship that I applied to I was a little dis disgruntled a little disappointed uh rejection happens and you know sometimes it's a tough pillow to swallow but I'm grateful I'm so grateful that it happened because I am where I am now uh and I just have faith that things are going to work out as they're intended to so I like to keep my my my options open and to kind of just see where my experience and abilities and network take me yeah that's excellent advice though I really do appreciate it I appreciate you coming on Caleb and sharing kind of your journey with us throughout your career as well as giving some really important advice and tips um um and you know letting us take a look uh at hopk too I mean it's a great organization it's a very unique and exciting organization I know I think most of the previous fellows there I've interacted with at some point and they're all very incredible so really appreciate your time coming on and I hope that we can have you on again when you get your postfellowship role there we go I'm excited for it we'll see where things go if uh past performance is indicative of future success Over The Last 5 Years nine out of 10 fellows have been hired on and the one fellow who didn't continue working with hopco landed a job before the end of his Fellowship so I'm excited to see where things land and excited to see what the future holds and would love to talk with you again</p>