The Inova Health Administrative Fellowship: Jonni Smith

<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy I'm joined this evening by a special guest Johnny Johnny please introduce yourself and your rule yes um my name is Johnny Smith um my real name is lean but I go by Johnny and I'm currently serving as the business operations manager for an NOA Health System um surgery service line [Music] thank you so much for coming on happy to have someone from of course the operations the business area and it's also great because you were an administrative fellow and you recently transitioned to your role and so we're trying to showcase the positive outcomes of administrative Fellowship so I'm excited to talk about that today um you started back in undergrad as a Premed and then you transitioned a few times can you tell us about how you came across healthcare administration sure so my journey was not um necessarily a straight path um I definitely took a little bit to get to health administration but very glad that I did and as you said I started off as Premed um biom major my freshman and sophomore year and I just found like the classes just weren't really resonating with me as much as I wanted them to and um it's not exactly the path I wanted to go down um anymore but then you know I started to think I do want to be in healthcare there is um some part of healthcare that was just had a calling um for me but I wanted to figure out a different path on how to be in the healthcare field and so ultimately I ended up switching my major sophomore year I believe till so long ago but um sophomore year to political science um and at that time um calply didn't have a public health program they came out with one a year later after I had switched um but I do not regret it at all I loved my political science major um I had um decided that I wanted to kind of take the health policy route um and started to look into that realm and um I felt like poly side would give me that nice blend of both healthc care and um and then the policy side so that's kind of how I got into healthc care um Administration slowly I had a mentor um who was my next door neighbor actually who was in healthcare administration and I started to you know ask him questions like what are you doing your work and kind of explained to me um what he did um and it really resonated and I felt like it was a happy medium between being in healthcare but not necessarily on the clinical side so that's kind of how I got to healthcare administration W thank you for sharing that and and just to also talk about you've moved around a bit right I see on the resume Colorado of course California and then also the the East Coast with you know Washington DC where are you from originally in the United States yes so I'm originally from Denver Colorado I am a big proponent of moving around I feel like there's so much to see so much to learn so I actually went to Cal Paul University for my undergrad um I was recruited out there to play uh basketball and so that's what brought me out to California um so I ended up being on the wom's basketball team for all four years and then after that um I came back home in Denver because of covid of course I was 2020 graduate so took some time in between um during the pandemic and then eventually went out to George Washington for my masters in DC so been on both coasts how has uh playing a sport has that benefited your career at all yeah I mean I definitely think it has um I love being able to say that I was a part of being a student athlete the schedule and the load of um work that you have both uh within Sports and within your school is um just something that I think really teaches you time management so um for me I think that was the biggest part is like being able to manage your time you know it's a full-time job for basketball you're also a full-time student um so the time management piece was a big portion that I think was helpful um I also just think that like kind of competitive energy and spirit still lives in with me um and I feel like um you know it's nice to have when you're navigating the business World um to just have that energy of um wanting to do better um always wanting to improve and so some of some of that mindset that kind of like athlete mindset has definitely served me well in my role um and I definitely think people find it as like an interesting um you know talking point I guess oh definitely yeah I like encouraging people to to look for some unique areas that that they can express themselves and find ways to to get their skill um in ways that you know people might not have thought of right like you said the teamwork the the having the extra work to do that's excellent your first experience we were talking about before the recording was in a jail your first experience with health you know working in healthcare how did that experience convince you or or change your path at all yeah so actually I love um sharing that story because um you know I don't think it's a unique I think it's a unique start to getting into Healthcare um I had someone who came and spoke in our class um for one of the public health classes that I took and her story just really resonated with me she was the CMO over um the prison system in Stan Louis abiso and um she um was a student athlete when she went to Stanford and she said that she went to medical school but ended up wanting to be a help administrator instead actually and so I was like oh my gosh this is like completely speaking to what I'm going through almost to my exact uh storyline other than the fact that I didn't go through medical school um so I wanted to speak to her about why she chose to go into Health Administration and just grabbed a coffee with her and was just mainly curious about her journey and what she learned from it and what advice she would give to me and so it kind of reaffirmed my decision ultimately not to go the medical school route or the PA route um just hearing how much she enjoyed Administration and I don't think she knocked her background of being in that medical field but I just think that she spoke so highly of being an administrator um and that it's also an equally um great path to be in so we had it that coffee and I just had asked um or I think she had just asked if I was looking for any work or internship and um I was interested in um policy work and so ultimately in the jail I helped do a couple policies um for gel health and I think that was a really unique opportunity as well because um you know that's also whether we like to think of it that way a very vulnerable population they don't necessarily get the best access to healthare um and so being able to work on some policies to enact that was really great for me how big of a part has this networking is this reaching out to people kind of putting yourself out there been to the success of your career because you know sitting down some like that for coffee you know that takes boldness in a way right that's something that I would have been able to do back in in my sophomore year yeah I think you know that's something I love um It's actually kind of one of my like anxious Tendencies I would say I kind of laugh about it with my friends because I'm like whenever I'm feeling like a little bit lost in my journey or wherever I am there's just so many experts ahead of me that I feel like I you don't need to feel that way there's someone out there who can help guide you you know give you some words of encouragement or um just you know give you some mindsights um that are helpful and so for me I just think of it like as a way to help me inform my journey to make better decisions um and I actually you know I love being able to give back to those like who are coming up underneath me um and below me to say here's what I would have done or here's how I thought of it so I think it's just building that sense of community is really important and then also like you never know what it turns into you know I didn't go in with that conversation thinking anything about an internship I was only wanting to just hear her story and you know just learn more about her and get her perspective on where I'm at and then it ended up being an internship so you just never know what these conversations can lead you towards and again my first Mentor um led me and taught me about what healthcare administration is so you just never know who uh who helps you along the way and I think it I would not be here today without mentorship so I love that and I love how you're here now doing that exact thing right you're helping uh you know all these people who are going into fellowships for many years you know this video will be up and so it's so important and I also like how you said you didn't go into it expecting anything you know just going into it to to soak up the knowledge and that's how you ended up getting this internship so that's really cool um you went with uh gwu for your mha yes very popular institution we've you had so many of the classmates on from from that institution what made you choose it yes so for me um I was kind of deciding amongst a couple of different schools for one I knew I wanted to be in DC um my brothers and um my father actually came out to DC for school at Howard University um and I was looking at that that school as well but they ultimately didn't have the program um that I wanted and so I looked I was like I still want to be in this area um I want to explore a different part of the the country and so um and then also you know being DC we're a very y heavy um place you know we have all the government jobs right here for us so when I was still thinking about that Health policy route I thought it was a perfect place to be just in case I wanted to take some sort of internship in that route so it was somewhat the proximity of um just being in DC but also I mean GW is very reputable for our program um I think that the alumni base is another thing that I looked at and I actually got advice from that from a mentor and they were saying like look at their alumni I um Association like how involved they are where they're at um so I started to explore that and really liked the outcomes that I saw and then also how involved they were with GW and um definitely felt that as I went through the program and then um yeah I would just say that you know I think it's just such a great program it was one of the few that I was looking at that also was designed for um young professionals so a lot of programs can you they want you to have more experience or you know those type of things but this was a program specifically designed for someone who doesn't have as much experience so that was perfect for me personally I'm speaking because I didn't have as much experience coming in they helped supplement that along the way um throughout your your program um I've heard so many similar things about about gwu and I also think it's like you said that Alumni network and just for other programs who were trying to create um an equally as popular program as GW I like how you brought that Alumni network out because in our podcasting we've like we were just talking before the episode you had spoken with two or three people who we had had on that are in unrelated job you know unrelated parts of the country even in a way right and and you're still in touch and you're still communicating with them so frequently so I think that's just awesome because as humans we want to be you know talking with other humans so I think that's really cool yes that we're not only like a group that really sticks together and like we I'm still I met a lot of friends which was great because there's also a lot of programs where it's like you're just going to school you're not there necessarily to build a community but I really felt like I felt a community of friends that's like a testament to GW and I think the types of students that they get but then also like the alumni really does give back their time um we have them do resume reviews with us mock interviews um we have different Gibs oration is like our kind of um annual meeting that we have with an a lot alumni comes back and they're able to do mock interviews with the first year so um just so much of giving back to the community they come to our professional development class and speak to us about their career path um so you can tell people stay connected and I just think that's such a testament to the program and I I think that was definitely a highlight of the program um and something that people should look for when they're going to apply yeah absolutely I I very much agree um and and of course your program is a three-year right it has that administrative Fellowship component right as that's okay wanted to make sure yes it's that threeyear which That's Unique too not every program has that threeyear um you know Fellowship kind of mandatory in way component right some are two years some are 18 months and so that's excellent that you were able to to get a fellowship and that they had all that infrastructure to support the fellowship I think that's one of the unique parts of gwu as you were talking about um why Inova Health right because that's still within that Northern Virginia DC area right so how did you you know come across them yes so I started to do of course a ton of research like you do for these fellowships there's a lot out there and so um you just start to kind of comb through one by one all the different opportunities that there are but um I started to look mainly again because I was wanting to stay in the area but then when I started to look into the fellowship I was like oh I really like this rotational based program because that's what we are we're rotational Project based progr program you're set up with two different preceptors you also get a year-long mentor um so I liked that kind of support structure um and I think you get exposure to different service lines so a lot of the parts of the structure of the program um really were appealing to me but then also when I started to look into um the health system as a whole and just like their Mission Vision Values and kind of where they're going and the drive to be one of the best in Virginia um and and just um I think the reputation that it has in Virginia was um something that I wanted to be a part of um and I think they also have a very good focus on um diversity and equity and inclusion and so that was something that was also important me to me looking at fellowships and so um one of the reasons why I also chose Nova was actually when I got to the on-site interview and so um I was able to take a tour of our civil cancer screening and prevention center and they're doing some some really great work there um I really love the idea of doing some preventative work um more of that population Health focused lens and though I didn't get to explore a lot of that in my fellowship um to be able to see that to show that kind of um showed where they were at uh as this health system and um they were had a lot of great technology and you know research a small research component going on there um so just seeing where they were pushing their Direction um then also um just getting to meet the people and ultimately very connecting with the leaders and so um you know I had multiple interviews and each of the leaders just felt really genuine um and I could just feel this sense of like we care about our fellows we care about our people we want to see you succeed and that definitely translated in the fellowship it's not one of those things where it's like not as advertised like it is just as advertised I think if not even better um so it was mainly the connection with the people uh but also just seeing the facilities and being able to see the great work that was going on um and there's just a certain energy um that I felt as compared to some of the other on-site fellowships that I went to I loved the um just the energy I guess they could say of the people and the health system as a whole so and I have to ask because you know you're talking about these on-sites how many programs did you apply for and how many on-sites did you have yes so I applied for 11 um about 11 fellowships which is actually on the lower side as compared to what GW would probably advise especially because we require a fellowship but I took it as and I give people who now reach out about Fellowship advice the same advice to me I think I can be more intentional about where I'm applying to and I can actually understand those Health Systems and be intentional about what I know about them why I'm applying to them why I want to be a part of their organization versus if I'm applying to you know 30s something odd organizations um though it is a very competitive process I don't think there's any way I can know and really you know get to know these organizations on that level so I ultimately decided to go on the lower end and was just strategic with where I applied to um and so my on-site interviews if I can remember I think it was about I want to say because I also applied to my internship at UC Health um so that counts as one I think it was three or four on sites yeah three four so that's a pretty good success rate out of out of the ones that you applied to yeah yeah no it went great and some of them are just at different Paces so I was in like first rounds or second rounds it's actually a very um stressful time for sure because you're in first rounds with some of the programs and then other programs you are in the final round and so you know decisions are coming up but I think it was about three um on site interview so yeah I had um um a pretty good um T like you know it's a pretty good route with fellowships and um yeah so great and so you get into this Fellowship you know as you said you you really liked it during the on-site so it must have been really awesome to get in um what was the setup like in terms of what kind of rotations did you do are there any projects that stick out in your mind sure so for my rotations my first rotation was in finance ambulatory finance and so I knew that for me Finance was something that I needed to um kind of get a little bit uh Stronger in and you know wanted to increase my financial Acumen so um I decided to ultimately take a finance rotation um and then the second rotation was with women's service line um and then my mentor was the CNO of Fairfax so um really great opportunity to get insights from each of those different leaders um so for a project that I worked on in um Finance I'll just tell you a few of them that I worked on I did anywhere from budget workbooks um I helped with some margin Improvement efforts and initiatives um I also was able to work on more of the denials in rev Cycle World so those were a few of my finance projects I really enjoyed the denials project just because it was uh data analytics heavy so more creating dashboards and just being able to get insights out of that which is something I enjoy um and then for my women's service line it was a little bit more um on the Strategic side so helping with some program development um and in addition to that you actually get um a lot of system work so um we get projects from anywhere from in the system that our chief of staff might be working on as well and so one of those was an innovation project and launching um you know doing some Innovation work at an NOA um so uh that was a very interesting one and very different than I think any of the operational work that I was a part of um and just kind of made you start to think differently about the type of work that there is in healthcare so lots of lots of variety as far as projects go that is an awesome variety that is really cool wow uh and so and that's over a year right it's only a year long yes yes yeah so that's how a lot to pack into a year yes yeah it's definitely all about the I think that you know basketball time management came in um you know it's a lot different um than probably like those 10 week internships that you do because those are usually like one Project based so having to learn to manage your time knowing where to prioritize knowing what's urgent versus what's not um because you do have some issues where leaders are like we just need to get this done and uh we need help on this and this is more more of an urgent issue but you might have a lot of other projects going on so definitely um time management is key in a fellowship I would say how uh confident are you now with your financial skills after that Finance rotation you know I would definitely say there is so much to learn under the financial umbrella um you don't even begin to unpack it in your classroom setting so I still think that I have a lot to work on as far as the technical skills but I think I have a better understanding of how Financial finance actually functions as it relates to a health system so for me I think the advantage of having this Finance rotation was more understanding how Finance flows through a system and how it impacts the system how business decisions are made what parts are under Finance you know um what decisions are made in the finance team versus the operational team um and ultimately how it impacts the bottom line so I think it's more so that I got that strategic level what I think now I'm need to be more tasked with is getting that Hands-On technical skills of Finance which you will of course in any kind of operations and business Ro absolutely so I'm very glad at least I have that um more accurate lens of finance and don't get me wrong GW has a really great Finance Professor uh there's a lot of things that I don't think I would have known without my finance class so I'm very thankful for um that that class even though it really pushed me um during the program it wasn't the easiest um but I think that both were necessary and I think there's even more work need needing to be done as far as that more um you know reading financial statements and just understanding what that means and how that impacts our uh bottom line and just being able to do that more technical work um that a lot of operators actually don't get until later in their career or don't necessarily hone in on until later in their career and I've gotten a lot of advice to like if you can do this early on and you can get good Financial Acumen early on um then it will serve you well in your career so try my best but I wouldn't say um it's necessarily my strong suit yet and why do you think it is real quick why people don't learn that until later in their career yes I think um so much of it is I think unless you do an NBA a lot of mha programs don't necessarily have that like intense focus of accounting Finance um and so it's kind of hard to get like real Hands-On work within Finance not only that I don't I don't want to be presumptuous but I don't think numbers are always everyone's favorite thing to deal with but it's something you can ignore when you're an operator so it's it's very very necessary but I don't think it's everyone's favorite you know you want to think about how can we improve this process or you know physician relation or quality or safety or all those other buckets that go under that might um might kind of take uh precedence over Finance at times uh but when you know you think about it some people don't love the say some people do but they say no margin no Mission um and I think that there is um some truth to that um so you have to have some sort of focus on it but I just think it's something people kind of avoid um I I'll talk to a lot of my classmates and even me coming out of the program out of GW it's something I never thought I would want rotation in but very very grateful for it I think that is an interesting point because you know quality metrics and satisfaction metrics are way more exciting right than financial metrics I think to most people um and and I saw that in the public health space too right you know BPH students they don't like Finance that's why they're in you know Public Health and then it's like well if I don't have any Financial backing for this project then it won't get done so I guess I have to learn how to do this financial part so I appreciate that and and so now you know I know you're new into this role it's you just started this month right yes yeah just last week was my official start date um yeah wow so that must be an excellent outcome can you can you tell us how you got the role and you know what the the kind of generic title and job description is um but so I can tell you a little bit about how I came into the role and I think it's a great Testament to the fellowship at an NOA um and just how um I guess much attention that they put into the fellowship and so for me um actually I had a leader that I had networked with a little bit and I don't it wasn't even intentional necessarily um it was more so just by way of being in the fellowship and connecting with him as a leader um he's a fantastic leader one that I sat in a lot of meetings with we went to um the na NSC um we now calling it um organization and so we went to that um conference and I was able to spend time there um and so just being able to have small interactions throughout the fellowship I think is something that um fellows should definitely keep in mind um and so I think through those Interac and speaking to him really appreciating him as a leader and just hearing him talk in these different meetings um definitely felt uh connected to uh in that aspect but um ultimately he had came and said that there was a position open um and if I was interested to take a look in it look at it that um it was definitely an open position and so surgery was not necessarily on my radar at the time um it was ambulatory um that I was looking at um but then of course I think I think it's so important to stay open to Opportunities and so I ultimately decided to go with surgery after just again being really connected to the leaders learning more about a surgery service line um they're a great leadership group um and um I think I could learn a lot from surgery because we um are all across a system rather than focused on one area so it gave me another opportunity to explore more broadly and then of course surgery is a revenue generator for most h hospitals so I feel like if you can learn surgery you're able to translate to a lot of different areas um further on along your career but yeah it's really a testament to um putting you know highlighting the fellowship uh our fellows have done really great we have um 100% transition rate so all of our fellows have transitioned to a role at an NOA we've only had one fellow who ultimately is not um there anymore but that was due to personal reasons and going to a different city but um they definitely look out for the fellows I think um you know you have to put in the work as well and ultimately have to apply but just the fact that you know you have exposure sitting in those meetings um having those small interactions going to conferences with them I think is what ultimately landed both my co- fellow and I um position so yeah that is wonderful wow thanks for sharing that and again congratulations on that new role and and so have you had experience rotating at all or being even adjacent to surgery uh in the past no I actually haven't I didn't rotate I did the surgery um project for finance yeah I had um shadowed two surgeries in women's um they have their own o a separate o from the um or that we have but um I shadowed a surgery in women's and that was my only exposure uh to surgery and I actually had a lot more exposure to ambulatory which was the route that I had that wanted to go to but I think that really it I think the fellowship did its job I think that's exactly what it's supposed to do I think you're supposed to be able to explore broadly and look at other opportunities um again I think the leadership team was just with surgery I'm very excited to be under them and to learn um from these leaders and um I mean Anova has incredible leaders in each area so I couldn't have gone wrong but um very excited to learn under the surgery team because no I have not unnecessarily um explored that area before which is great I mean because that means the opportunity for learning is massive right I mean that that's really great so uh yeah so now you're going to have both that ambulatory expertise that you got during the fellowship and now that more inpatient surgical hospital expertise so so you're really you know setting your sights on a COO role eventually hopefully I that would be nice Definitely that's awesome well thank you so much for coming on uh Johnny I really do appreciate your time this this evening and it's great to hear about the successful outcomes at Anova not just yourself you're saying all the fellows have been really successful so that's wonderful yeah mik copal is great he's in a great position as well and um that's the other thing you have a great supportive uh person alongside you along the way you're not alone in this Fellowship so that's also very a nice part of uh being an Nova fellow but yeah I'm very excited to stay with the health system and I don't think I could have landed a better um spot and a um better fit for me um so just encourage anyone who's applying to fellowships just find the right Organization for you um and um it's a definitely a great journey thanks again for coming on and let's stay in touch we'd love to have you back on again in the future as you progress uh to your leadership roles of course</p>