Last month, Carle Health named Dr. Robert Cavagnol the new president of its central region, which includes Bloomington-Normal. He replaced the retiring President Colleen Kannaday on Feb. 2.
Kannaday was president of the service area for over 15 years. Although she was an amazing leader, Cavagnol said, he isn’t sure right now what substantial changes need to happen in the organization.
“But what I am learning is that we’ve got an incredible team of dedicated people committed to providing outstanding care,” he said during an interview for WGLT’s Sound Ideas. “And so, over the next weeks and months, we’ll be putting together sort of an opportunity analysis and figuring out where we need to make some tweaks.”
Cavagnol said he was attracted to the area because of Carle’s attention to patient care and engagement in the Twin Cities. He’d like to continue expanding access to care.
“We’re always interested in ways to make it easier for patients to get care,” he said. “Patients don’t care how good you are if they can’t get in, and so we want to make sure that we’ve got access to primary care, specialty care, urgent care, emergent care and so, from a programmatic standpoint, that’s a continual focus of ours.”
In his initial stages of meeting staff and learning their stories, Cavagnol said the longevity of the organization has stood out to him. He said the culture and camaraderie of Carle is what keeps staff around upwards of 30 years.
Challenges in health care
At the conclusion of last year’s historic government shutdown, subsidies for the Affordable Care Act were not extended leading to a rise of health care costs for most Americans.
“I don’t think that we know yet exactly how it’s going to impact [Carle], those just expired the beginning of the year,” said Cavagnol. “What we anticipate is that, unfortunately, it’s probably going to push more people off of insurance because they’re no longer receiving those subsidies.”
Carle will expect to see a larger portion of its patients become uninsured or move to Medicaid.
“And we’ve got a robust Charity Care Program and like I said, our doors are open to everyone who needs care, because we’re here to serve the community.”
Insurance companies are also dealing with rising costs, which Cavagnol said has caused a lot of downward pressure onto health care providers. Another concern is staffing shortages.
“Now, getting people to move to Bloomington-Normal from other communities can be a challenge, and so we need to show the bright spots and we want to make sure that when people come to visit, we share everything that Bloomington-Normal has to offer,” he said.
“You start with the basics, right? Pay and benefits and that is the floor. We need to make sure that we have growth opportunities and that we’re investing people.”
Cavagnol said Carle is not fully staffed but that the numbers are doing well.
Future directions for Carle
Artificial intelligence is amid the newest advances in the health care industry.
Again, Cavagnol is still formulating ideas for how to continue improving patient care at Carle, but he recognizes the potential for it while decisions are still being made.
“AI is already being used in health care for claims adjudication. Physicians are using it broadly in the United States,” he said. “Physicians are using it to help with documentation. I don’t think we know all of the applications that will be embraced with AI.”
He said it presents a tremendous opportunity for Carle to automate parts of their care.
Other technology has already given the health care industry a chance to do so.
“This isn’t something that we have at Carle today, but an opportunity. There’s a technology that can assess whether a patient is turning over in bed or trying to get out of bed, and if they’re getting out of bed then they can potentially fall and it alerts the staff,” Cavagnol said. “So, there are these opportunities that we can embrace.”
He said if Carle is able to embrace technology, staff shortages would be less of a concern because they would not need as many people. However, a human oversight is a necessity to supervise any new technology, he said.
