3 min read August 2023 — President and CEO of Catawba Valley Health System, Dennis Johnson, discussed with Invest: his organization’s community-first approach to healthcare, growing with Charlotte, how the hospital is addressing workforce challenges and more. “With the growth around Charlotte and other similar cities in the post-COVID world, healthcare has to be prepared,” he said. “It’s a great place to live, work, play and have a community.”
What have been the most significant milestones for Catawba Valley Health in the past 12 months?
Catawba Valley Health System is one of the largest not-for-profit hospitals and health systems in the region. This is not only one of the best hospitals in North Carolina, but many don’t realize it is also one of the best in the country. One would measure the success of any health system based on three things: quality of care, culture and financial stability. This hospital is beyond exceptional across all systems of quality of care. Very few health systems excel in all three areas. Our culture is so phenomenal as well. Culture is one of those subjective things that can be measured objectively by looking at patient satisfaction, physician satisfaction and employee satisfaction metrics. Once again, we exceed at all of those. Our mission is not to make money, but to take care of patients physically, emotionally, and spiritually, which we excel at. We are not only serving patients; we are serving their family members, as well.
What challenges are you currently facing and how is your organization addressing those issues?
Our biggest challenges across the industry stem from workforce shortages. This is especially true of healthcare coming out of a long war with COVID. The healthcare industry did not see it coming –and while it isn’t over yet, we are now winning it. COVID impacted and changed everybody on the planet, but especially those in healthcare, and specifically frontline workers. That took a toll on people physically, emotionally, and spiritually. People left the industry to take other jobs, creating debilitating shortages. Hospitals have had to utilize contract labor as a result in order to keep up with community needs. We are no longer competing with other healthcare providers, but with other industries. Hospitals struggling the most are those without a strong culture to keep employees’ needs met, which causes them to utilize even more contracted work, which is more costly. That bleeds into financial issues. Our top priority is workforce – I believe that is the glue that holds it all together. Recruitment and retention across disciplines is top of mind. Our strategy is to reduce the need for contract labor and fulfill every vacancy.
Our second task is to meet the demand of the growth across the entire region, which is an exciting opportunity. We are recruiting additional physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants at each of our primary care practices, and we are also looking to expand into new markets.
How is Catawba Valley Health addressing access to quality healthcare?
One of our exciting strategies is “FaithHealth,” a program where nursing resources connect with the local faith-based community across denominations. This helps us reach communities with less access to quality care where we can do mobile wellness visits as community events. For example, we can do mammograms at a local church instead of patients having to find a way to drive further away to get to one of our facilities. I call it “access for all” – I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Our hospital will take care of everyone who walks through our door or lives in our community, regardless of their ability to pay or their background. We take care of all comers. For example, we have a Ryan White center to provide services and resources related to HIV/AIDS – this is rare for hospitals across the industry, and we have patients from all over the region coming to receive care there.
How are you working to improve health outcomes?
We are big in the preventative healthcare and wellness space, but like many health systems, that took a back seat during COVID when all of our focus was focused on our COVID patients. We are almost post-COVID, where we need to be more about health than healthcare. There is so much to be had in regard to preventative healthcare. I previously lived in Kentucky, which has very similar demographics to North Carolina. There are a lot of cancers and obesity to be found, much of which is preventative. If we can be about educating and creating awareness from an early age to break the cycle of obesity and smoking, it would be huge for our communities. I know these states grow a lot of tobacco, but there is also a lot of disease. If we can begin to attack that early on, not only would we see health and wellness improve in our communities, but it’s also less cost to the states in paying for Medicare and Medicaid. We have a wellness center on our campus open to our employees and the community at reasonable membership costs. We also do direct work with employers on doing screenings and ergonomic assessments to help keep the workforce healthy, thereby reducing employer health plan costs.
How is Catawba Valley Health taking the lead on innovation?
Robotics have really taken off in the industry in recent years to assist surgeries. We have a robot that assists with gynecological and urological surgeries and procedures, and we are also vetting robotics in pulmonology and orthopedics. This hospital has a long history of being in the robotics space, and that will absolutely continue. There are some AI applications in healthcare which will increase exponentially in the next two to three years. Overall, technology has changed healthcare completely. If you needed hip or knee surgery years ago, you would be in the hospital for a week. Today, you often have surgery and leave the same day.
What is your outlook for the healthcare sector and Catawba Valley Health in the next two to three years?
North Carolina is friendly for business, which means new businesses are coming in and existing ones are expanding. That attracts people of all ages, so the area is booming. Our outlook is to be forward-thinking and to consistently pursue growth opportunities. It will be exciting to grow along with the region.
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