A Positive Culture of Patient Care and Community Impact (ft. Sowmya Viswanathan, MD)

Thanks for tuning to Digital Voices Podcast, where we chat digital transformation, challenges, and opportunities across healthcare and life sciences. And now, your host, Ed Marx. Hey, it's Ed here. Welcome to Digital Voices. And first of all, thank you again for listening. I know you have a lot of different choices what you can listen to, and you've chosen us. So I really appreciate that. That's what's made us top 3%, depending on the month, sometimes top 5% in the world podcast. So thank you for that. It only happens because of 2 things: you, the audience, and number 2, the guest. And I'm super excited about this week's guest. Her name is Soumya Viswanathan, uh, physician, chief physician executive for BayCare. So Soumya, welcome to Digital Voices.

Thank you, Ed. Thank you so much for inviting me. Real honor and feel blessed.

So, the first time we met, that's the standard sort of description I give, is right now as we are recording our session together. But I've followed you for a good year now since you've taken over, been part of BayCare, and the things that you post attract me. So, it's like all about leadership and compassion and empathy and Always giving thanks. And that's one of the common themes I saw in there, whether it's for Physicians Day or for other teammates doing things, it's always very uplifting. And I think that's pretty neat and thankfully not overly unique, right? In healthcare, we seem to attract a lot of those types of people, but I really appreciate sort of the heart in which you take on your vocation. So that's sort of the background there.

Thank you. Thank you so much for your kind words too.

Yeah, I'm really, like I said, excited about this conversation. But first, Soumya, the thing that people want to know the most of all of our guests is what songs are on your playlist? So what kind of music do you like to listen to?

So I think, so I am of Indian origin and I love listening to, India has a lot of performing arts talent. So when I grew up as a child, you know, I liked, I love music. It is, it can be soothing and it can calm you down and it can also be uplifting and bring joy. So I like both these extensions of the music. So when I was growing up, it was the ABBA and the Boney M that was very popular. So I am, you can sort of say how old I was, but I also have Indian classical music. So there is South Indian and Hindustani classical, which is very, very soothing, melodious. It just calms the nerves down. I love— there are music directors, specifically Ilai Raja, who has produced the most melodious music in Indian songs, in Indian music world. A.R. Rahman is well known throughout the world, and I love his music as well. As I have transitioned and I have lived in US now for several decades, I have really come to like a few people here, you know, some of the singers here. And a couple of my favorites are— one of my favorites is Taylor Swift. I just see the ball of energy she is. And I can tell you that when there are Taylor Swift concerts that are going on, I'm probably the first one who gets excited and says, can we get the tickets? And it's pretty interesting. I love some of her songs. Some of her songs have really made an impact too. they're impacting the next generation and the current generation in a positive way. Very, very uplifting. A few of our songs are deep.

Yeah, I like how you've kept some of the tradition of the music you listen to when you grow up and then also mix it together with what's contemporary here. I also have a good sense about some of that Indian music and It is pretty good as well. So, what about your life message and mantra? Are there sort of words that you live by that guide how you live your day-to-day life?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, I definitely believe in, you know, it was interesting, my younger son, when he was, I think he was 10 or 12 at that time, He wrote his first essay that he was supposed to write, and it was about his favorite word. And I have no idea where he picked this up from, but it has stuck with me. Whether it has stuck with him or not, I'm not sure. He's a young adult now, but it stuck with me. It's called— it's the word called C-A-N-I. So when I first looked at it, I said, huh, cani? Like, what does that mean? And he looked at me, he said, Mom, that's not cani, it's can I. So, I said, okay, it's CANI. And he said, yes. So, I said, what does it stand for? He said he read it in a book. It stands for Constant and Never-Ending Improvement. And I love that phrase because it's easy to remember. It's CANI. So, can I continue to improve? Can I do this? Push yourself to continue to improve every single day. And it stands for the first letter in every one of those words. constant and never-ending improvement. So, I have kind of kept that as my mantra to constantly improve on what I can do because that brings out the creativity in people. And I'm a firm believer that when you are creative, you bring the best out from people. So, when I talk to people, I look for good intent. I look for positive intent in people. I try to bring the best out in my team members as well as anyone who interacts with me. I want them to gravitate towards me because they feel like I bring the best in them, best out from them. So that's, that's been my constant. I want to say my life's mantra, probably something that I adhere to. And I, because of that, I hope to never retire because I'm going to be constantly creating something positive.

Yeah, I love that. You know, we're trying to create a playlist of all the music that our guests present on the show, but I also want to do one of all the sort of mantras or words to live by because they're quite rich. And I love that, can I? I wrote that down as well as the description. That's very cool. Sonia, you already shared a little bit that you came from India originally. Can you tell us a little bit more about your story, sort of like where you grew up and then how you came to the United States and to the, you know, being chief physician executive?

Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for asking that. So when I grew up in the southern— so I was raised in many areas, many states in India, and each of the state is quite diverse in how they embrace different cultures. Culturally, they are diverse. The languages are diverse. The even the the cuisines are different in each of the state, and you can go from one state to the other and have no clue what language they are talking because they are so diverse and so different. The script, the dialect, everything is different. So the positive thing about that is I came, I lived in so many parts of India, I picked up a lot of languages. I know a lot of Indian languages. I know at least five different ones. It's almost like saying. Oh, I know French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese. They are different languages in each of these states. So that's one of the positive things. I grew up in the northern part of India for the most of my childhood. And then for my medical school, I was down in southern part of India. Just absolutely love the different cultures, the different, like I said, different types of, even the attire is different. Their clothing, the way they wear their clothes, they are different in each of the states. So that actually evolved in me as somebody who loves different cultures and can adapt more easily to any culture and embrace any culture. So then when I went to med school and I came here, I landed in Boston. I was married. I got married to someone I fell in love with in India, and he came here. He was He's a PhD and he came here for work, landed in Boston. So I was with him. So I ended up staying in Boston, Massachusetts for 33 years before I came to Tampa. So 33 years, my career evolved there. At that time, I didn't know how competitive it was going to be to continue medical school, medical education, but I applied for residency and I only applied to one school in Massachusetts. I didn't even think that I may not get in, but I did. So I got into residency at the BU School of Medicine, and it was a fantastic journey. Just culturally, Boston was a place I just absolutely loved the culture. Finished my training in internal medicine, and then I decided that I'm going to be a hospital medicine physician or a primary care physician. I wanted to continue in that role. So I joined UMass Medical Center for— I was there for 10 years. I practiced medicine there. Eventually, I graduated to doing more of primary care, more of primary care outpatient medicine than inpatient. Initially, I was inpatient. Then I started getting leadership opportunities. I had opportunities where I could raise my hand and say, I want to be involved in this project. And I have to say, Absolutely fantastic mentors and people who believed in me, who said, I think she can do it. Let's see if she can take this project on, because that's what made me a leader is all the diverse interests I tried to raise my hand and volunteer my time for in addition to continuing my clinical practice. So I had people who believed in me, which is critical, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunities they gave me. So I ran quality and patient safety department. I then transitioned over to the Partners Health System. So I was at Partners for a few years where I did everything from raising my hand to be part of the ACO, look at the transition from paper medical charts to electronic health records. And then at the same time, I also said, oh, I like the health plan piece. So I transitioned to learning more about insurance products. So this was around the time that I was blossoming and I was growing, and I felt like the one thing I needed to do more is to really amp up my credentials. So I decided to apply and I got an MBA, and I also got a master's in healthcare management from Harvard School of Public Health. So Harvard University master's in healthcare management, and then I also got an MBA. These credentials really made me super confident that now I can really take on a role that will be all-encompassing where I can run a health system. I went to Dartmouth-Hitchcock. I spent some time there as the Chief ACO Officer because I wanted to bring all these skills together into one role and not have to diversify my portfolio. And subsequent to that, I spent a few years with Tenet Health because I also wanted to experience for-profit world. All of the work I had done in Massachusetts was all nonprofit academic health system, and it was really my intent to learn the operational and financial rigor that goes into with a for-profit health system. So I went to Tennant briefly, for 4 years I was with Tennant, really had a great time learning so much from a for-profit health system. Then when this opportunity in Florida came up, I really had to think hard because that's Boston has become my home. And I was like, well, I'm not sure if I can move to Florida, but when I came down here to Tampa and really engaged with the BayCare Health System team and the leaders here, I can't say enough about this system. Outstanding culture, outstanding group of people. And it didn't take me long to say, you know, I really wish— I have interviewed now. I hope they make an offer to me. Like, that's where I was. I really wanted this job. So it was, um, it was just fortuitous, and I got this opportunity, and I'm absolutely thrilled to be part of BayCare. So that's been my professional and personal journey.

Yeah, no, it's— that's fascinating. And I picked up a lot of, uh, great, great traits without you calling— naming them, uh, that have led to your success, which I'll summarize towards the end, but it's very, very informative for, for, for those listening. So thank you for For sharing about that. And yeah, BayCare is really lucky to have someone like yourself, you know, so well prepared and then, you know, coming in to help them. What's one unique thing about BayCare that most people may not know?

Actually, a couple of things, if I can share. Their culture. Anyone who touches BayCare, like when I was in Massachusetts, I did not know about BayCare Health System. You know, you keep hearing Mayo Clinic, you hear about the big names, Kaiser and Geisinger. Did not know enough about BayCare, but the minute you touch BayCare, you land here, you realize everyone from a culture standpoint is positive, upbeat, team-oriented, high, high, high quality on patient safety and clinical excellence. And they do their job like it's nobody's business, but they don't Rave about it. Like you won't hear too much about this is what we do, this is what we don't do. It's pretty much we do the job and we do a great job and the community orientation. It's investment in the community really focused on let us be the best healthcare system that West Central Florida can have and we all of us will team up and we'll do it. So it's it's that mentality. It's a It's a feeling that you get that everybody is here to bring out the best in people. And I said that that's a trait that I live by. And I could feel people bringing out the best in me when I came here.

No, that's awesome. Yeah, it makes me wanna move down there. I'm jealous of my friend. I have a couple friends which I may mention.

Me too.

A little bit, yeah. So no, that's great. So let's talk about the role of the chief Physician executive, what are one or two of your key responsibilities?

So the physician executive role is pretty unique these days. You know, traditionally we used to have the chief medical officer and then people started having the tag term of executive vice president and CMO. So EVP CMO was a role that So this is pretty much that with a little bit of a nuanced approach. So chief physician executives tend to be a little bit more operational than the traditional CMO. The traditional CMO would be mostly clinical. And as more and more health systems evolved, the health systems felt like, I need a clinical leader, but I need that person to also understand the fiscal rigor that goes into managing health system and operational responsibilities. So even though I don't directly have operational responsibilities, I have chief operating officers who do that work, but we are like dyad partners. They don't do anything without discussing with me and the chief nurse executive, and we don't do anything without talking to them. We are a strong team together. So that is the chief physician executive role. So my— our— in our health system, the pillars or the verticals that roll up to me are All of the hospitals, we have 16 hospitals. We just announced our 17th hospital that's going to be built by 2027 in Manatee County.

Nice.

So our 16 hospitals, I have all of the care centers around it. So if you go into the next phase, it's ambulatory division, ambulatory surgery center, freestanding emergency department, urgent care center, post-acute space and the digital health space. So going into remote patient monitoring, home care space. So all of that is under the Ambulatory Division. I have chief medical officers in the Ambulatory Division who report up to me. Then we have the employed physician group, which is called the BayCare Medical Group. It's a fairly large group of physicians and allied health professionals. So we have allied physician professionals as well, APPs, who are physician assistants and nurse practitioners. So we have a fairly large group there, about 900+ in that group. I also have BayCare Physician Partners, which is network. So this is the network of physicians who are independent providers who are part of, who have some form of affiliation with BayCare, but they're not employed by us. And that's a very large group. It's 4,000+ physicians total between the employed physician and the independent practitioners. So it's 2,700 or 3,300 physicians plus. Then we have, I have the quality department and patient safety, really critical for the entire health system. I also have population health management services, so PHSO, which services all of our needs for the entire community, as well as all of the population management piece for all of our physicians. and the hospitals. And then more recently, I have also been tasked with ramping up our academic portfolio.

Hmm.

So we had a very small— when I came to BayCare a year and a half ago, we had a very small footprint on the graduate medical education side. I have a new CEO, Stephanie Connors, and when she came on board, both of us started at the same time with our new roles. And she basically said she came from Jefferson and she said, why are we not an academic medical center? So I came from academic place as well in Boston. And she said, that's what we're going to be. So the vision was set and we went down that path. And now we have almost— we'll be at 600. And we went from 24 residents to 650 residents who will be graduating starting from 2029. Wow. Every year we'll have 650. So it's been a huge, huge positive. impact. And we're also looking for academic partnership from a college of medicine and university perspective. So all of this falls under my bucket.

Wow. And you took the time to be with us on Digital Voices. Thank you. Wow. That's quite, that's quite the portfolio. I know you also work with a couple of friends of mine, and I'm curious how that works. Dr. Alan Weiss with the CMIO and Will Walders, the CIO. So how do you interact with them when it comes to digital technologies or patient experience or whatever it might be?

I love the digital space myself. I'm very— I'm not techie from the engineering perspective, but I love— I embrace technology. So Alan Weiss and I have multiple conversations. In fact, there are several conferences that I attend And sometimes Alan will attend because AI has become such a buzzword these days. And we wanna bring out the fairness about AI and how technology can be included and included in healthcare in a positive way. So in fact, I'm going to be at Becker's on Monday talking about AI and transformation in healthcare. I just, right before our podcast, I was on with William Walders. We were actually talking about all things innovation and all things technology and BayCare. We do have regular meetings with the technology team. Digital health is gonna be a force that's not going away. I mean, there'll be clinicians who may not know AI, but if there are clinicians who don't embrace AI, I think they're gonna be sidelined in the future with the next generation of clinicians who are coming. who are so tech savvy that they cannot see the world without technology. So very much, very much in cahoots and very much engaged with the team.

Yeah, no, that's great. And I figured based on your entire philosophy that you've shared thus far that that would be the case, that you're a very collaborative style of leader and always very interested in what can be done with technology and how to leverage it for better experiences. And speaking of experiences, clinician burnout still remains sort of a challenge. What are one or two things that BayCare is doing to help with that?

We are— so we are engaging with technology, going back to tech, to see how tech can actually be supportive for physicians. So what that has happened, what that has done is a couple of things. So we have tried to pilot with a few technology, innovative technologies such as DAX. We have now another, we are looking at a couple of other programs that will help physicians do documentation and be that scribe without putting too much pressure and too much workload on physicians. So initially, just like, you know, when I was during those times where we transitioned from manual paper to EMR, it was tedious. It was a very, very difficult task. Nobody knew how to do it. People were resigning because they didn't want, they didn't feel like they had the wherewithal to do it. We've come a long way since then. And now people cannot do without EMR. One day we don't have access to EMR, we don't know how to take care of patients. It's come to that.

Right.

It's similar with ambient AI tech tools where if we don't have that in the future, I think physicians are going to feel the burnout even more. So we have piloted, and I can share with you that almost 100% of our physicians who piloted the technology to help them document better, they love it so much that they're almost afraid that we will take it away.

Right.

So they pretty much, they have spread the word. All of our physicians want it now. So we are working on a platform that's gonna help that. So now we are looking at nurse, nurse, virtual nurse or nurse voice, because we wanna do the same thing for our clinical team. If the physicians have it, the nurses also, from a documentation and scribe perspective, we want that AI technology enabled platform for nurses. So when they go into a patient's room, they can just freely have the conversation with patients and not have to worry about, I have to now go back and document all of this. It's being documented on the side by the scribe, the virtual scribe. So that is one. The second piece is we also have created a very flexible hybrid workforce. So when physicians came back from COVID COVID actually enabled us to embrace technology very, very much. Very fast. Telemedicine became a norm. People were doing telemedicine phone calls and patient visits on telemedicine platforms. So now as physicians came back to work, they wanted a hybrid option where they could be in the clinic a few days a week, they could be doing telemedicine visits a few days a week. It is really helpful for younger physician, younger moms, who have children to take care of, who cannot be spending time driving into clinic, coming out, coming back. So it gave that flexibility and many of them are requesting that. The other place we have looked at for clinician burnout is we have created value-based care teams. So what we are calling wraparound services and wraparound teams for physicians in the clinics. So they are, they can, all they have to do is go into the patient rooms, They should be making eye contact with the patient. Even if they spend 15 minutes, the patient should come out and feel like, I actually saw my doctor and I feel so good about my visit. Not saying my doctor was there, but he was, he or she was looking at the computer the whole time.

Yeah.

Like I did not feel he was present. So we want to steer away from physicians having to do anything when they're in meeting with a patient Whatever we can do as support services to support them outside of that, to make the patient visit most meaningful is what we are providing. Yeah.

So those are great examples. And I'm not surprised that BayCare is kind of leading the way with many of the things that you just mentioned. So I want to talk a little bit about leadership here. How do you continue to evolve as a leader? So you've done a lot with education. And, you know, you've done a lot of diverse roles and responsibilities. Are there any other things that you do, maybe on the personal side, that allow you to continue to evolve as a leader?

I do. I talk to a lot of people. I enjoy conversations, whether it's, you know, whether it's intellectually meaningful, for me to learn. I learn from every encounter I have with people because I think there is always something that other people have or know that I may not know. So, every single conversation I have is going to make me a better person. So, from a professional standpoint, the master's in healthcare management course that I did at Harvard has been a huge blessing for me. Because the alumni group, we are very close-knit community. We bounce things off of each other. Many of them are in really super high-level position, accomplished so much in the world that I can literally tap into anybody. I mean, you tell me, do I know somebody in the WHO? I do, because of this network of people who I have connected with and made friends with. So, if I run into a crunch and I have to call up a friend, I know the group of the network of people I can tap into because Somebody knows somebody. So that's one. I do attend a lot of conferences because I think for me to stay engaged and on top of what's happening in healthcare, we learn a lot from what other health systems are doing. We learn from each other attending conferences. I love to attend conferences and actually sit in in most of the meetings because I learn so much from them. I also read quite a few. I am a voracious reader. JAMA, New England Journal, from a clinical perspective. Healthcare, health affairs, health tech magazines. You know, these are some of the most common ones that I fall back on to see what's happening in the healthcare industry, you know, to keep myself up to date. From a personal perspective, I get my energy from people. So like I said, I learn a lot, whether it's about politics, whether it's about finance, You know, my older son is in finance, my younger one is in healthcare, but they both have their own startups. I learned so much about startups just from talking to them. So, for me, it's like, I'm sure I'm going to have some takeaways from talking with you today because that's where I get most of my energy and my intellect from.

Yeah, no, this has been fascinating. I could go on and on because I really want to dig even deeper on the whole leadership side. But unfortunately, our time is sort of wrapping up, but I learned so much. Let me share really quick. You know, the can I, I love that. The constant and never-ending improvement. And then having positive intent is another way that you live by. I think it's so, so important. I learned a little bit more about BayCare and so sort of the humbleness of BayCare. Like, you're knocking it outta the park for patients and the communities. And so it's the culture there enables sort of this way of doing it. humbly. And then when I think about sort of the virtues that you were discussing that made you who you are today and super, super successful, you were volunteering all the time. You were raising your hand, as you put it. You were educating yourself. You had mentors. You tried new things. You tried the ACO. You tried, you know, the different opportunities, the EHR. You diversified your experience. And so all those things sort of made you who you are today. And, and so I loved hearing your perspective also on how you work closely with your colleagues, especially on the tech side, and what you're doing for clinician burnout is quite remarkable. And then the whole academic piece, I mean, that's huge growth. That's not a simple thing to take on and to have that amount of growth in such few years. That really says a lot about you and Stephanie and the entire Baycare institution. So covered a lot of ground, and I want to see if there's anything we missed or anything you want to double down on. I'll give you the last word.

I want to say that, you know, for me, with all this growth and everything that's around me, all the positivity that's around me, family is critical. So I do want to say that a shout out to the family and the whole concept of, you know, a support system, whether it is your own family or your group of friends. We all need our support system to push us every single day. So if I didn't have my best friends who said I could do it, I don't know if I would've continued to do it. So I want to say a big thank you to all of everyone, including people like you, you know, who call us for podcasts and want to shower shower us with questions and get the responses back from us so that it disseminates positivity in the rest of them.

Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate that. That resonates with me. I think resonating with the audience. You're right, no person can do it alone despite what great organizations we may serve. And it's great to have a family or some sort of support system to enable our success and keep us mentally there and focused. Things like that. So thank you so much. You were as wonderful as I saw you to be online. Just a great—

Thank you so much, Ed.

A great leader. I'm really jealous now of my friends at BayCare. So it sounds like a great organization, which I knew it was already, but having you there, I think, you know, really helps even more. So thank you for being a guest on Digital Voices.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Ed.

Hey, that wraps up another episode of Digital Voices. Thanks again for listening. Thank you for listening to Digital Voices podcast with Ed Marx. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe on your preferred streaming service and leave a rating and review. And most importantly, thanks again for listening.