Maggie McKay (Host): A lot of things happen in a year. So today, we're going to take a look back at 2023, the year in review, at Community Memorial Healthcare with CEO, Mick Zdeblick. Welcome to Wise and Well, presented by Community Memorial Healthcare. I'm Maggie McKay. Thank you so much for being here, Mick.

Mick Zdeblick: Excited to be on the call.

Host: So to kick things off, could you give our listeners an overview of your first year at Community Memorial Healthcare?

Mick Zdeblick: Well, it's been an exciting first year just getting to know everybody, getting to know the staff, walking the hallways and putting a face to a name, just being myself, so folks can see who I am versus just a picture on webpage. And also developing a strategic plan, which we'll talk more about as we get through the call today.

Host: And what surprised and impressed you most about Community Memorial?

Mick Zdeblick: The openness and the staff. I mean, to have both our residents and our attendings and our nurses being very open to a new leader. I mean, Gary had been here for over 20 years, a well beloved leader. And for them to just accept me as part of the family, it was very nice. Very nice surprise.

So, another nice surprise has been how committed our staff has been to quality. When I walk the halls and talk to our physicians, we really are passionate about providing the highest level of quality. And that is a nice culture to be building it from versus having to build it into. So, that's been a very nice, pleasant surprise.

Host: I bet. Mick, can you highlight some of the key achievements and milestones that community memorials reached under your leadership during this past year?

Mick Zdeblick: I joined in January of this year and we had already begun to formulate our new brand. So, I got the benefit in the early part of the year, January, February, March to launch that new brand. And that was exciting. It's kind of a fresh look, new colors. But the key message, expect more, which I really like. It sort of ties well with my personality to say we're in healthcare because we want to provide the best care and we should expect more from ourselves, from our caregivers and from community. So, I think that worked really well. We've got some good recognition from the outside. We got CMS Five-Star, which puts us in the top 14% of all healthcare systems in the country. So, that is really a testament to the great quality that our staff performs every day. Health Grades gave us a very good honor on patient carev experience, really recognizing the fact that we've always been a top decile performer in patient experience. So, it's been a good year for some outside recognition.

Host: Sounds like it. Congratulations on that CMS Five-Star rating. That's a big deal.

Mick Zdeblick: It is. You know, now we got to keep it, which is hard work. And if we fall back a little bit, it just makes us work harder to get back up to the five stars again.

Host: Right. What were some of the most significant challenges you encountered and how did you and your team manage them?

Mick Zdeblick: So, last year, Community Memorial lost over 38 million in our operations, and that's a difficult hole to kind of dig out of. So as a team, we really needed to focus on getting back to financial stability. Most likely on pace to close the year at maybe negative 16 million. It's not great to lose money, but it's way better than losing over 38 million. So, we're starting to turn the trend in the right direction. And that's actually caused some pretty tough decisions to be made, really setting us up for what we look at going forward. So, we've looked at programs, we've looked at our staffing, we've looked at how best we can collaborate with some of the other healthcare entities in our market. And that's actually opened up a few doors and some few opportunities clinically. And I think the right clinical decisions are being made.

For example, one of the toughest decisions we made this year is looking and working with our clinicians to look at how we serve our pediatric population. We are very committed to serving our pediatric population. We have a great outpatient program. We have very good clinics, but our inpatient program had less than two patients a day, often multiple days with no patients on the floor. And that's very difficult for our staff and our clinicians to keep their training up to speed, to keep everyone on the ready for patients to come in. And it did have a financial cost.

So, we had some tough decisions. We teamed up with VCMC, Ventura County Medical Center, and they have a fantastic pediatric program. They have an inpatient pediatric floor. They have a PICU, so they have an intensive ICU designated specifically for pediatric patients. And through a lot of good collaborative conversations with our clinicians, we teamed up and we decided to merge our inpatient units, maintaining our ED presence for pediatric patients. So, if a family brings their child to our ED, we will treat, we will stabilize, and we make sure that we will transfer them to the most appropriate care. And that could be VCMC, it could be LA Children's if it makes sense, it could be Cottage. We will make sure we transfer that little one to the best clinical program that they need at that time of their care.

Host: Mick, looking ahead, what's your vision for the health system?

Mick Zdeblick: Healthcare is a collaborative endeavor. I think we need to expand our collaborations, work closely with the academic medical centers in this great market, also work closely, as I mentioned, with VCMC, our county hospital. It needs to be a collaborative approach. So, I am very much focused on how do we create a culture that embraces working with others. Even though we may not be able to make it a formal partnership, we do want to make it a formal clinical handoff, and how we interact with specialists across the board makes us open to really tapping into fantastic clinical talent in this area. But it's the right thing for our patients. We want them to feel like if we can't provide the best care, we will provide the best caregiver and connect you with that caregiver.

Host: How is a strategic plan developed and aligned with the needs of our community?

Mick Zdeblick: During our strategic planning process, we went out and really engaged with our staff. We talked to some of our patients via our patient advisory committee. And we really wanted to understand what's important to them. And what we got back is trust. They want to trust the healthcare system in their community. We want to make sure we're providing the highest quality care we can. And that's sort of the bedrock. So, one of our core themes is a culture of quality. And that really does stem from our fantastic caregivers in the market.

Another key aspect of our strategic plan is financial stability. We need to be able to make money to reinvest in our programs, and those two things together, providing great quality and having financial stability so we can invest in new programs, really is how I think our community sees us as a key asset going forward.

Host: What are the biggest initiatives you see on the horizon for Community Memorial?

Mick Zdeblick: So, this year, coming into 2024, we're going to be spending a lot of time planning for our new electronic medical record. We've decided to team up with a larger system that can offer their Epic product. So, we'll be getting on to the Epic electronic medical record. They have about 65% of the market of all healthcare systems in the country, they have Epic. What I like about Epic, it is very much of a patient-centric, consumer-centric product. They have a product called myChart, where someone could look at all their medical records on their phone, tap into their past test results. So when they're sitting down with their doctor in their office, they can pull up the last three test results and compare that with their physician. When they may be traveling and they're, let's say skiing up in Denver area. And if they get injured and they need care, myChart can pull up all those records, show them to the caregiver in the ED in Denver, and immediately that record comes across. So, I think our migration to Epic will really help our community be embraced whenever they travel, and also their healthcare will be very much integrated.

Host: That sounds great, especially like when you have college age kids, for example, and they leave. That's what I'm thinking because usually you have to fill out all these forms if they're, what, over 18, under 18, I don't know. But that sounds amazing to just have all your things right on your phone.

Mick Zdeblick: It works both ways. You know, so college kids on the market, but also if you have loved one or you're taking care of an elderly parent, you can have their records shared immediately. And then, you yourself can be looking at your care, like if your dad's in Connecticut and they're on the Epic system, they can give you access to it and you can be looking at your parents medical records.

Host: That's amazing. What a great idea. That's so reassuring. Mick, on a more personal note, can you share some memorable moments or lessons you learned during your first year at Community Memorial?

Mick Zdeblick: The joy of this job is meeting new folks and passionate folks about our community. Dr, Golden's family hosted an event in his backyard and it was just a great groundswell support. There was over a hundred folks came together. It was a chance for my wife and I to sit down and meet folks in a casual setting. He has a beautiful backyard setting as you drive up towards Ojai. And it was just a nice opportunity for us to meet some of the folks who've been very supportive of Community Memorial over the years and also meet some new friends for us going forward.

Host: How do you personally stay connected with the local community?

Mick Zdeblick: That's the number one goal is to stay connected and continue to look for ways to connect. I've recently just joined the Chamber of Commerce, the last week actually, so I can't use that as some past learning. But I definitely see that going forward as I've joined the Chamber of Commerce, meet some of our local business folks, get a little closer to how the city politics works. My wife and I almost attend the farmers market every Saturday. We love the local restaurants. Just a chance to get out and talk to folks in the community, and really just enjoy what we have. Ventura is fantastic. Just walking the beach, taking a bike ride. So, that gets us out in the community and enjoying what they can enjoy.

Host: It's beautiful. I used to work up there. How has this connection influenced your leadership of the organization and your vision for its future?

Mick Zdeblick: If you think about what makes a community, it's great people, it's educational systems for our kids, and it's healthcare so everyone feels like they're being cared for. So, I take this obligation and this gift very seriously, that we are here to take care of our community. So, that means taking care of, first, Community Memorial. We need to get the culture going in the right direction around quality and maintain that. We need to get our financials more stable. But also then, be there for the community when they have their most stressful times in their life, often it's around healthcare challenges. And that's when we want to be the best partner with our community.

Host: And in closing, Mick, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?

Mick Zdeblick: I would encourage folks to get involved. Get involved either with the local charity groups, get involved with your loved one's care so you know what's happening with them. Be a healthcare navigator for either the little ones in your family or the more elderly ones in your family. And if you are so inclined, get involved with us. We would love to have volunteers. We would love to have folks on our committees. We are growing our patient advisory committee. So if you've been a patient here or you happen to deliver your little one here, please come back and give us your thoughts and we would love to hear your ideas.

Host: That's Mick Zdeblick. If you'd like to find out more, go to mycmh.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Maggie McKay. Thanks for listening. This is Wise and Well, presented by Community Memorial Healthcare.