The following transcript was generated using automated transcription software for the accessibility and convenience of our audience. While we strive for accuracy, the automated process may introduce errors, omissions, or misinterpretations. This transcript is intended as a helpful companion to the original audio and should not be considered a verbatim record. For the most accurate representation, please refer to the audio recording.
Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. A CEO fired in shame, an attempt to bring in an out-of-town operation that angered local doctors, and of course, closing Eugene's hospital. One could say it's been an extremely rough time for PeaceHealth leadership. Today on the show, you'll meet the person in charge of turning around the fortunes and reputation of PeaceHealth. She's new CEO Heather Wall, and you'll hear how she plans to wipe the slate clean, reestablish trust, and chart a new course for the healthcare institution. She's a nurse by training, and she believes her career path as a caregiver can help restore the ethos of an institution that provides quality care both to patients as well as the medical professionals who serve the region. Heather Wall, the relatively new CEO of PeaceHealth Oregon. Heather, it's so great to meet you virtually. Thanks so much for coming on.
Heather Wall: Thank you so much, Michael, for having me today.
Dunne: Yeah, you've been with PeaceHealth in various capacities for quite some time, why don't you give us kind of a read on how things are going? How's morale? How is sort of things both at the hospital and other facilities in the PeaceHealth universe?
Wall: Yeah, thank you. I've been with PeaceHealth for 22 years, and as you state, in in many different roles, predominantly in nursing leadership. Currently at PeaceHealth, I feel as though our morale is starting to turn upwards. Looking forward to the future, we have tremendous opportunity in front of us in the Oregon region and beyond in the larger PeaceHealth system to continue to serve our communities in really meaningful ways around improving access, growing to meet our community needs, and then really deeply engaging our caregivers, clinicians, physicians, and community in being part of PeaceHealth and being in service to the Pacific Northwest. Here in Oregon, I'm so honored to be given the opportunity to serve in this role, and really looking forward to continuing in a collaborative way of having all of our caregivers working towards a common goal to better serve our community.
Dunne: Okay, you're replacing someone who is forced to leave. Has there been sort of this effort of repairing trust with the staff, and sort of how's that going?
Wall: Yeah, it has been a necessary step with the disruption that we experienced over the past several months. And being the chief nursing officer here at Sacred Heart at RiverBend, I did I had the opportunity and I the privilege of being in a lot of relationship to begin with, with my many, many, many clinical years and years in leadership. So, for me to be able to step into the interim role and move into a space of needed collaboration, rebuilding of trust, transparency, sitting in a lot of community with each other, it was a really natural place that I could lead my or tend my leadership to, given the history and relationships that I already had established. I will say that this has really caused me to reflect and to grow and to learn and to move into new relationship that that I just hadn't really been privy to in my previous chief nursing officer role, but that is the center of my plan. Is continuing to rebuild trust and collaboration as we all have a lot of work to do to better serve our community.
Dunne: Okay, your career in nursing. Let's talk about that. You know, with the background in nursing, how does that career path sort of help you do what you're doing now?
Wall: Yeah, coming up through a clinical background, in my being nursing in particular, really having the patients at the center of everything that we do, always being remembered of those who we serve, of our community members who are in their greatest need, in times of tremendous stress and also in times of great joy. So being able to lead the region with the background that I have, where I have provided direct care to members of our community, it's not. Far from my heart or from my memory, and keeping me truly centered on what matters, which is living our mission and providing the highest quality of care that we can, I believe puts me in a position to where I am making decisions through that decision-making framework to continue to serve to meet the community's needs.
Dunne: Obviously nationwide, it's a real challenging time right now in healthcare, and I just wanted to kind of ask you how you and your team are managing through. I know there's a lot of challenges in staffing shortages, and of course, rising costs in health insurance. How are you managing through what is a you know a very challenging environment pretty much everywhere.
Wall: Yeah, yes, healthcare is extremely challenging. We have a lot of headwinds. My philosophy is is coming together as a team with a shared vision in strong collaboration, strong trust, bringing our teams together, we're stronger together than we are apart. So really working in the organization to ensure that we aren't creating our own internal disruptions or anything that's maybe unnecessary that keeps us from focusing on our objectives at hand, which are delivering the highest level of quality care that we can to our community, and we are better suited to address those headwinds that you just described when we are really internally healthy, aligned, collaborative, being part of a team, having a shared vision. So, there's although there's many challenges out there, ensuring that we have leaders that understand those challenges, that are bringing the right people into conversations and decision making, that readily escalate when they need support, and that I have the infrastructure in place to be able to provide that to all communities when and where appropriate. But ultimately, we won't be able to do this alone. We need to do this together, and that includes our external community as well. And that really is what I see the role as the chief executive.
Dunne: Remind folks, or for, or perhaps even for folks who know but want to learn more about the expansion plans that PeaceHealth, the facilities expansion that PeaceHealth is has been undergoing, and talk about perhaps some of the future expansion that you might be looking at.
Wall: Yeah, we're very excited about where we're intentionally growing. So, we recently opened the state's first inpatient rehab facility. It's near the River Bend campus, and that that center will be able to serve our inpatient rehab facility needs, including the first traumatic brain injury unit like it here locally within our community, that inpatient rehab unit previously sat in the RiverBend Hospital, and so with that unit moving out to a freestanding facility, that opens up capacity for general inpatient medical surgical adult patients of about 31. So, we have expanded our capacity just even over the last 30 days with the opening of that facility. We're also continuing our work towards opening of Timber Springs, which is an 89-bed behavioral health hospital to really meet the community and the state's needs, in particular in our adolescent behavioral health psychiatric patient population, that would allow future additional patient volume to be seen in that space, and then relieve some of the volume that we're currently serving in RiverBend's emergency department and in our critical access facilities. We’re also we're also currently undergoing a RiverBend ED lobby expansion project. With that, we will have more space for patients in our lobby, better line of sight, improved patient flow, and we also will be adding 16 treatment spaces. So, patients that are needing to be seen by a nurse or a physician's assistant or a physician will have more spaces available over the next several months as we move through that construction project. And then one last thing additionally is that we have a current unit of 35 beds here at RiverBend Hospital that we are building out, and we look to about 12 months, we'll be able to open those and then be able to serve even more adult inpatients in those additional 35 beds. And then finally, additionally, out in the communities of Florence and Cottage Grove, we have very strategic expansion. Of services such as infusion services, wound care therapies, etc., in our critical access communities.
Dunne: This is kind of almost a wish list question, but I mean, in addition to all that you just described, are there areas in in in in where you serve in Oregon where you wish you could expand more, or that you feel like, boy, there's areas in our state that need more services, more healthcare access points.
Wall: Yeah, for us right now, our focus really is on our behavioral health patient population and being able to better serve and meet those patients when and where they need us, and then for us to be able to do that effectively, that then will create downstream capacity in the acute care setting. So that really has been front of center of mind for us here in the Oregon region is our ability to move forward with our Timber Springs project and that 89-bed behavioral health hospital.
Dunne: Okay, obviously a lot of news about the emergency room and the contract that that you've signed. Tell us about how things are going with your emergency room staff.
Wall: Yeah, we are extremely grateful for Eugene Emergency Physicians and coming together in a challenging time, and getting that contract signed for another three years, so we can get back to really focusing on caring for our community. We're still working to stabilize our workforce on both the nursing side and on our physician and clinician side. As you can imagine, there was disruption to our workforce in the emergency department over the past several months. Given all of the events that were occurring, we have some plans for additional positions that PeaceHealth will be supporting to help improve patient flow, and those will be going into effect in the month of November, so we're extremely excited to see the outcomes of those added positions that we believe will improve our patients' experience, help our patients be seen in a timelier manner, and improve the overall throughput and flow of our patients through our emergency department. We have a collaborative meeting structure where PeaceHealth executive team leadership and operational leaders, with our physician leaders, come together in a very frequent cadence throughout the month to look at all of our opportunities for improvement and projects that we're working on together. And we're also engaging, looking at the long-term needs of our emergency department. So as our community grows, as our demographics change, we want to ensure that this emergency department is really set up for success to meet the needs in terms of space, rooms, staffing, etc. So we still have a lot of work to go, but we are in a much better situation than we were several months ago, and overall, we continue to have great collaboration with leadership and our Eugene Emergency Physician partners.
Dunne: Sort of getting back to your first love of nursing, and as it's been explained to me, there still is kind of a pretty big sort of national crisis in in staffing for nursing, and I wanted to talk to you about how you see that impacts in PeaceHealth, and also what PeaceHealth is doing to try and you know provide more opportunities for the nursing profession, whether it's through education or having positions open to be filled.
Wall: Yes, so all of the demographics show that the country could be in a very severe nursing workforce shortage over the next decade. As we look at baby boomers retiring out of the profession versus how many are graduating into the workforce across the country, locally we are extremely proud that our nursing turnover rate, for example, here at RiverBend, is under 10%. When nationally, it's looking, depending on the data source, about 18, 19% is the annual turnover rate of nursing. For RiverBend, for example, we need about 1,700 nurses, so we need to ensure that we have pipeline that would cover, say, that 10% turnover with increased projection of higher turnovers. Our baby boomers retire. So, we work really hard with Lane Community College, Bushnell University, and other community partners, as well as out-of-state partners to ensure that we have a pipeline of nurse residents who are coming to practice here at Sacred Heart and also in our critical access hospitals and clinics. And then we've also put evidence-based structure around what research shows retains registered nurses. So, once we get the nurses here practicing with us at PeaceHealth, how do we ensure that they want to keep maintain their career here practicing clinically at PeaceHealth? PeaceHealth is looking forward to the future in terms of what I described of our baby boomers retiring, and looking at ways that we can keep our nurses in our workforce longer. So, researching flexible staffing shifts. You know, instead of possibly working a 12-hour shift, is there opportunity for nurses to work four or six-hour shifts where possibly nurses could stay in the workforce longer? If it is the hours that are a barrier, ensuring that we have meaningful spaces to where nurses could be even possibly virtually. Is there a way that we could have our nurses who may be physically believe that they no longer can fulfill the job requirements, but they could help us and support us in a virtual way in nursing expertise. So PeaceHealth is really looking long term on what the needs of our workforce will be, while ensuring that we're retaining the excellent nurses that we currently employ and that we provide them meaningful career development opportunities and support, so they want to stay with PeaceHealth.
Dunne: Okay, kind of on the flip side of that question, maybe talk a little bit about the people who are going into healthcare. Talk about the young people who are making this a career. What are you seeing? Are you seeing people who are freshly energized by the opportunity? Are you seeing some challenges because of the stuff we've been talking about.
Wall: Yeah, I there's I would say that during COVID, there was an obvious disruption to even registered nurses wanting to come into the hospital, and we know that enrollment was down in healthcare careers across the country, and that makes a lot of sense. COVID was an extremely challenging time, a scary time to think about. Is that where I'd want to be in my career? We've worked really hard with our community partners at the high school level, at the middle school level, really engaging our kids around the community and in the community colleges around being excited about a career in healthcare, and many people think, well, that means being a physician or being a nurse. But in this organization, we employ electricians, we employ cooks, we employ surgical techs, and so really being out in the community to support a thriving workforce development plan at all levels of academia and education. I love when I get to visit with high school students, give them tours of the hospital, and share with them all the different places that they could that they could be employed within the hospital. I would say yes, there's a lot of energy, exciting energy in that stage of your life as you're looking forward to what your profession will be, and PeaceHealth wants to support that development. It's so important to our community, and it's so important to the care that we provide. So overall, I would say since COVID, there's been an increased excitement to be in the healthcare space again. But want to remind everybody who's listening, it doesn't just mean that you're a clinician. So, if you think that that's not something that maybe you would enjoy doing, there's so many opportunities to have a different kind of profession within either the hospital or the clinic setting.
Dunne: Okay. Last question. You know, ultimately, what's your vision for the organization specifically on serving both Oregon's, the rural and the more urban areas that we have here in our state.
Wall: Yeah, my vision is being out in the community, really hearing the needs of the individual community, having partners, both what I call the external community and the internal community, which the internal community are our caregivers, physicians, and clinicians, where we have a shared vision, we have pride of what we represent and the work that we do, and that our community really feels that they are a part of their healthcare, and that we are in partnership in both the successes and the challenges that we had talked about earlier, the headwinds that are there for healthcare, but then the tremendous opportunity. So my vision is is that we are together and united as a community, meeting each of the community's needs, acknowledging that we cannot be everything for everybody, but deeply being thoughtful around where we are and where we aren't, and sharing the narrative around both of those decisions, and really having people feel that PeaceHealth is showing up consistently, reliably, meeting the needs not only now. But our future needs as our healthcare community changes.
Dunne: She is Heather Wall, the chief executive of PeaceHealth Oregon. Heather, it's been great to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on.
Wall: Thank you so much, Michael.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at klcc.org. Before we go, I wanted to spend a minute on listener comments about a show from a couple weeks ago related to the cull of barred owls in the Pacific Northwest, in order to try and save the native spotted owl. We received a huge amount of feedback on both sides of this issue. Here's a sampling. Katrina said, "Way past time for this to happen. It's literally the last chance to keep the northern spotted owl from going extinct. Is it ideal? Of course not. But it's necessary. Spotted owls aren't the only species that will benefit." But Felt says, "I thought we were told if we stopped logging, the spotted owl would be fine. What happened to that narrative?" David said, "so the spotted owl is crossbreeding with the barred owl, and they're both basically disappearing. Sounds like natural selection and humans saying, no, nature, you can't do that." And Joseph says, "At what point did humans become experts on wildlife management? First, it was that protecting old-growth forest would save the spotted owl. Now, it's culling the barred owl will save them. When that fails, what's the next step? Some species are simply destined to extinction. You are interfering with natural selection at the expense of another species," and finally Jeffrey says simply "leave the owls alone."
Monday on the show, we begin a two-part series about the aftermath of the horrible school shooting that happened in Bend earlier in October. I'm traveling to Central Oregon and will talk to leaders and observers about how the community is trying to overcome a tragedy that every community in America dreads. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record. Thanks for listening.
