The Role of Passion and Purpose in Healthcare Careers with Dr. Stella Onuoha-Obilor

<p>magic does not happen within your comfort zone your greatness starts from where your comfort zone [Music] ends hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy joined by a special guest with many years of experience a long and very impressive resume uh Dr obor uh please introduce yourself and what you do thank you Cole for having me and um this is a special day because I know you don't have this opportunity all the time whereby you have a large audience listening to you to learn from you especially what you do well like Cole said I'm Dr Stella on NOA OBO um I'm a physician executive and I have unique blend of expertise with over over 18 years of experience in the space of clinical quality population Health strategy both at the head plan Enterprise level we call it quality value and patient safety so I would say including head plan and Hospital patient uh quality value and safety and um I said that to say this is a very um crucial space because we all know that the heads of the members that we care for or the patients that we care for we are always looking out for their best interest and also to ensure that the treatment that they are receiving or care that they are receiving is the best in class at all times so um I am very very proud of the work we do together to fix the heal care delivery system especially here in the United States really appreciate again you coming on and it is tremendously important area of healthcare probably one of the most important is is the quality and safety and looking at the resume here you know you have a Six Sigma Black B of course you have your you know cphq but you have you know you went to medical school for eight years uh you got an mph and a drph after that as well so you you focused a lot on getting education in this area right you you've really tried to be an expert um just for our early careerists out out there who are looking to get into the quality space yeah what education or path would you recommend for them well cool thank you for that question and I get that a lot like people reach out to me via Ling people that I don't even know many of them I haven't even met in person and one of the things I would tell them it's always good for everyone to understand where that passions lie what is your why what is your purpose for me that strong Zeal to partake and be a partner in fixing Health Care developing quality programs that will impact the lives of millions of members and patients that was the key driver for me um I'm not saying that clinical one-on-one practice it's not valuable or impactful but what I'm saying here is it depends on the passion for me from day one I saw myself that I am that individual that will really do well in a platform where I have many millions of people to impa with the work that I do and um I will tell you behind every data point in healthare delivery system is a human story because of that I don't see numbers as mere numbers I see numbers as people parents friends co-workers siblings so that was the key driver that brought me into here for anyone who wants to specialize in this field whether you're a physician and you want to do more in clinical space or even students I have seen many students they would tell me they don't think they want to continue to be Physicians right some individuals after their fouryear program I have seen some go ahead to have master of head Administration mph or drph whenever they ask me me what I tell them is this do you see yourself conducting researches someone asked me that question why did I go for drph versus Frank PhD in public health and my answer was this my my passion lies within developing programs community and population Health Care Management clinical quality where I can develop programs then push it to members it's more of proactive care right I don't want to wait until this individual gets sick and come to me for treatment I want to be a partner with them to ensure that they understand that prevention is cheaper and safer I'm not waiting until you become diabetic if I'm if I have to do more on educating you on what it means to do regular exercise red reduction of stress s and stress in your life or even eating healthy I would do that or take for instance my passion also lies in teaching people on the importance of going for their preventive screenings right so if you can just pay one day and go and get colonoscopy as versus treating colon cancer that is what I love that is what is driving my passion so I would tell anyone at the early stage of their career to please understand what is your why what is your passion where do you think that you will do more all of this field all of this professions they are all equally important but then you as an individual who is going to do this work it's very important that you find out where your passion lies because it's your passion that will continue to fill the work you do every day so that would be my um advice for them plus if you are getting into clinical quality certifications will always make you stand that right because if I'm looking at different resumes like you're a graduate of mph or maybe you're even a physician or what other maybe academic qualifications you have I will equally look at is this person a certified case manager is this person a certified professional heare quality or maybe do you even have process Improvement knowledge project management like in my case I have both Lin Sigma green and black belts because Health Care delivery system is such a complex environment you need two set of skills here to be successful you may be a wonderful leader you know how to manage people but if you don't know how to lead processes if you don't know how to streamline processes and help your team members to work on top of their licenses then it will be equally difficult for that individual so I would recommend them that they look and search up there and see the certifications that will be in alignment with what they are trying to do like for me I'm studing to get my fellowship on Africa sorry American healthare Executives I'm already a member of AC but I'm taking the B exam soon so that'll be a fellow in that space yeah yeah that's I mean your your certifications of course are impressive and and you can tell in in the work experience that you have as well I know you recently not too long ago got you well back in 2017 I guess that is a while ago now right but to me it's recently but um you you also uh got your certificate in health outcomes uh research from from Harvard and so I think very very important advice and and your passion does come through in speaking to you uh especially and you and me have similar passions right so I think that it's easy to connect with um I think one of the questions is what are some of the major issues that you know some of these students who are going to be graduating they're going to be getting these certifications what are the major issues that they're going to be tackling in the Health Care system today what are you seeing out there right now H A Million Dollar Plus question I wish we I wish there is one size fits all in all the problems we have within this healthare delivery system it's always complex it's Dynamic it keeps changing but I will tell you now two cute things here data data and data in head care delivery system data it's everything and I am saying that because I've been there I've done that most of the head care Delivery Systems or even head plans they struggle with data and I say that because the data that they have is siloed right a head care delivery system a head plan manage Care Organization whatever that platform is you are talking about your Clinical Services your talking about your state and federal regulations you're looking for data for your case management looking for data for your hes projects you have data coming in house for your risk adjustment projects but these are in different departments and you know what you can even request a medical record that you already have in house without knowing you have it and that results to provider abration providers already bond that right so we are looking for a situation whereby he plans or manage Care organizations should invest in the quality of data that they have and also create an inventory of the data they have so that before even you go out that to request for a medical record you know that you don't have it in house and also data management data governance right you don't give your data into the you don't keep it in the hands of vendors take ownership of your data because vendors I know they are good but for you as a manage Care Organization you know the type of data that you're requesting for so you should be in the front seat to direct your vendors the quality of data you're looking for what you need the data for because if I'm looking for data that I use for my hi requirement or ncqa requirement or CMS regulations it might be a little bit different from the data a k manager is looking for case management right but when we get all this data from different sources from different departments for different reasons if we can normalize and centralize them in one place it's it becomes resourceful and also becomes real like real time data that we can use the end goal here is to use the real time data to manage the head outcomes of the members that we serve and ensure that we are improving their head accounts see those are all the means to the end but not the end right the end will be the outcome of the clinical care right so that is one of the challenges that they will be facing if they come on board and the second one but not the last will be patient engagement and member engagement it's been very difficult to increase and improve member engagement you will ask yourself why is that because nobody wants to die it's not even knowledge deficiency I see it as a lifestyle issue if I continuously remind I'm reminding someone who is diabetic the importance of you checking your A1C every 3 months but why is this individual not doing that and sometimes it's not even only the behavioral issues other social determinants of Health right some one comes out from admission now and we are telling them visit your primary care physician at least in the next 7 to 14 days so that you won't go in for readmission but have we even taken time to know if this individual if they have transportation to visit their pcps right so when we blend other social determinant on influencers of Health into the care plan into the management into the education of the members then I think that is what will help us to tackle member engagement that has been very difficult members need to be partners in their care if we have to be successful no matter how beautiful our programs are or our interventions may look like even if we have the best primary care physicians within our network if our members are not partnering with those pcps if our members are not doing what they should do if they do not have good understanding understanding of their chronic conditions then their engagement will not be um functional to the level that they will be partners in their care that would make their understand their chronic care be compliant with their medications and all that so those are the key things right now that if anyone has just one quick solution to these two giant problems maybe we would not even be talking about heare problem problems here well that is my next question is from a leadership perspective especially on the patient engagement and I ask that because you know I'm a senior engagement partner and so um that's one of the things I'm trying to solve so some advice from you would be very useful for me and it's what are some solutions from leadership to try to you know put in some of these Solutions get some of these Solutions going in the engagement space this episode of the strategy of Health was sponsored by modality Global advisors modality Global advisors optimizes Hospital Revenue enhances patient experience and delivers proven results visit modality Global advisors.com to learn more thank you so very much Cole and my answer may surprise you or it may not surprise you before we even get to the level of member and passion engagement we need to also invest on our team members engagement because it buffles me a lot when I look at big organizations s they are telling you we need you to do this for members we need you to do this for patients but oft times we are not spending so much on team members development learning education engagement of these team members nobody gives what they don't have before you able to create wonderful and ultimate member engagement it has to start from team members happy team members happy members if your team members are not engaged chances are that you are not going to get that ultimate member engagement you're looking for because everyone has to understand here that it's not a Sprint is a Maron we have to work together as a team right if you understand the why you are doing what you're doing every day you don't want to do it to impress the leader you want to do it because it's the right thing to do and that member engagement is a reflection of the organizational culture if you are paying very closer attention to only the customers remember you have two strong voices voices of your internal customers your team members and then voices of the members and patients that you care for at any point you're neglecting any of these voices there's going to be issues so that is that would be my advice for you if you're working on a project or anything please do not neglect me team member engagement do not neglect staff engagement do not neglect Employee Engagement because your sucess is going to start from the team members you have and then it's a trickle down type of event they are doing all they have to do it's like a puzzle everyone is fixing the plugs where it should belong and then it gets to member engagement member experience patient safety experience and that I've seen this firsthand I've I've been you know I've observed teams which are highly engaged and they somehow produce way better results with less resources and I've seen teams which are highly resourced but unengaged and I think the question is for Middle managers especially you know director level um or manager level how are they supposed to keep their team engaged have you had any experience in your career where you've been able to really motivate and engage the team well I think they say seeing is believing sometimes if you look at yes if you look at this beautiful award I treasure it I go with it anywhere I go because it's a reminder for me to continue to do what I'm doing and also a reminder that good work pays off this is a an award for Leadership Excellence and culture and engagement Champion Award right so I've asked the right person this question exactly so um I have been this type of leader that I'm a servant leader and transformational and I said I'm a servant leader because I believe that I don't just have to tell my team what to do I don't be I don't want to send the information or message I want to be that message myself I want to do things that I'm asking my team members to do so that when they look at me if I'm doing it it's easy for them to follow and again remember if you that if you're that leader it doesn't matter the level of leadership where you are but if you don't value your team members researches have shown that if the basic needs of team members are met two things that that they value will be being valued and being informed y these two things nobody joke with that right and that is why I have that at the back of my mind every team member of my it's a VIP for me it doesn't matter Your Role because it's not about title it's about getting the work done plus you need to Value people as people not just the work they do whenever a team member understands that my that got my back my that cares for me as a person they get along with you they do the work and I have I will tell you at the beginning of my career one of my team members walked up to me and said this was way back in New York she said Dr when I do the things I do it's you that I remember not even the organization and that was my d report I did not understand that I have to go back and like you know play that over and over and say why cuz I laughed and I said to her I'm not the CEO why do you it's said Dr will I'm telling you I'm not joking with you you care for me as a person you lead with empathy you lead with compassion I want to make sure that your face look good at all times I give in my best to ensure that I'm not disappointing you it was an emotional moment for me very special in the sense that I was just doing my thing not understanding that the way I was leading was impacting some other On's life and even impacting their productivity level right because they remember you they want to just not ask you why should I jump but they're asking you how high should I jump so leadership has a reflection on the productivity of the team members we should always have that at the back of our mind as Leaders so I'm someone that my magic when it comes to effective and efficient leadership I will list them for you lead with empathy lead with compassion have respect for the team members you lead know that people are people that is awesome thank you for for sharing that I I've been taking notes here as well for for myself for the audience as well though um you are participating uh in in writing a book as well and I I wanted to share that because the way that you know I think a lot of people listening to this would probably like to be under you as a leader hearing how how good of a leader you are so please share your book and um oh that is awesome yeah this is the book I co-authored and the name of that book is letters to my corporate sisters yeah letters to my corporate sisters stories of endurance elevation and encouragement I think my is in chapter four of this book my section is on chapter 4 and is centered on being inspired by challenges it's a true life story of mine how challenges inspired me when when I got here from Nigeria I was like a fish thrown out of water left all my relatives back home right friends and families like when I got here I'm like oh my God I came here to join my husband but at the same time I didn't even understand that it was going to be that way I realized that oh my God at the airport really do you really want to be here without everyone that you have lived with right it was a tough situation it was a tough decision but what that inspired me to survive was you magic does not happen within your comfort zone your greatness starts from where your comfort zone ends and at that moment I love to listen to John C Maxwell a lot and if you've ever listened to him you will understand what I'm I'm going to say now if you really want to challenge yourself you need to move out of your comfort zone that's where your personal and professional growth starts your growth zone is outside your comfort zone so me moving out of my comfort zone inspired me a lot and advice I'm giving to everyone just understand that you can do it whenever anything is challenging that's an opportunity it's not a time to be in a scar mindset it's a time to ask yourself what if you won't fail what will you do you will do it anyways right so that's really insired me I believe if I did not make that move all the qualifications I have today I may not even have them where I have reached when it comes to public uh I would say Enterprise leadership or being a physician executive I may not have reached to this level but when I was challenged I saw different colors in a rainbow and I know that I wasn't going to fail I started with end of mind because I know quitting was not an option I'm going going back home was not an option all I have to do was to sit down and ask myself what is it in it for me what is my next level what do I want to achieve who do I want to partner with and my advice again for our audience will be please be careful who you spend your time with be mindful of how you select your friends because if you are in a room that everyone is negative all the time do not be with the basement dwellers they would drag you down with themselves no yeah for real I'm not being judgmental right now but I don't really because myself I am someone that I have very strong positive mindset I have abundance mindset no matter how something is challenging I always see that light at the end of the tunnel because I believe that did not happen for me to fall and remain Fallen that happened for me to use that as a Next Level that will prop compel me to the Excellence I'm pursuing so that will be my advice because if you have a negative mindset or positive mindset both are equally contagious yes so who you surround yourself with matters a lot you know I really do appreciate it uh myself and I'm sure the audience will as well of course we're gonna you know produce shorts of this I'm sure that they'll be very well received um exactly yeah thank you so much doctor uh for coming on I really hope that we can have you on again as well uh I definitely uh enjoyed this personally very inspiring and motivating and also some great advice on on team leadership I hope we can have you on again sure whenever that you're ready I'm ready</p>