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Joan Dentler - What to Know If You're Considering a Hospital/Physician ASC Joint Venture
160 Plays2 years ago
If you are considering a hospital/physician ASC joint venture or are just curious about learning more about what a relationship could look like, then this episode is for you. Joan Dentler is the Founder of Avanza Healthcare Strategies, and she is sharing why hospitals are taking an increased interest in ASCs, the challenges both parties will face, and how to achieve short and long-term success.
In our news recap, we’ll cover the ASC landscape through numbers, states capping travel nursing rates, seven staff retention tips, and of course, end the news segment with a positive story about an approved cancer pill in England and Wales.
Articles Mentioned:
5 numbers ASC leaders need to know
Missouri latest state to introduce legislation to curb travel nursing rates
Administrators Share Retention Strategies
A cancer pill was approved in England and Wales
Brought to you by HST Pathways.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'This Week in Surgery Centers'
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to This Week in Surgery Centers. If you're in the ASC industry, then you're in the right place. Every week, we'll start the episode off by sharing an interesting conversation we had with our featured guests, and then we'll close the episode by recapping the latest news impacting surgery centers. We're excited to share with you what we have, so let's get started and see what the industry's been up to.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Here's what you can expect on today's episode.
Hospital-ASC Joint Ventures
00:00:31
Speaker
If you're considering a hospital physician ASC joint venture or just curious about learning more about what that relationship could look like, then this episode is for you.
00:00:43
Speaker
Joan Dentler is the founder of Avonsa Healthcare Strategies, and she's sharing why hospitals are taking an increased interest in ASCs, the challenges both parties might face, and how to achieve both short and long term success. In our news recap, we'll cover the ASC landscape through numbers, states that are capping travel nursing rates,
00:01:05
Speaker
seven staff retention tips, and of course, end the new segment with a positive story about a cancer pill that was approved in England and Wales. Hope everyone enjoys the episode and here's what's going on this week in Surgery Centers.
Joan Dentler's ASC Industry Experience
00:01:24
Speaker
Joan, welcome to the show. Thank you. Happy to be here. Joan, can you give us a quick overview of your background in the ASC industry?
00:01:34
Speaker
Sure. Well, I kind of got into ASCs by being hired by a hospital to sort of be a utility player for them. And they were putting together a hospital physician joint venture at ASC. And this was back in 1996. And so it was a little bit of a baptism of fire. Since then, I've worked for private consulting firms. I did a little stint with an ASC management company.
00:02:03
Speaker
And in 2007, along with a partner formed a company that was then called ASC Strategies, later rebranded as Avonsa. And with our goal being that we were going to be a boutique consulting firm focusing primarily on hospitals that wanted to get into the ASC space.
00:02:28
Speaker
or large physician groups that hadn't already built ASCs. And our model was really to work with them, not as a management company, but more as a fee for service advisor.
00:02:41
Speaker
and work with them through the whole process of either building an ASC or if they already had an ASC working with them on fine tuning those operations for as long as that client needed us. And then in 2014, I rebranded the company Avanza Healthcare Strategies because we started getting requests for things
00:03:06
Speaker
in the outpatient space other than ASCs like imaging and infusion and some other services. So Avonza in its current form started in 2007 and then sort of expanded to take on more outpatient in around 2014. So I've been in the ASC space ever since the late 90s. Fantastic. And you've got a great background for the topic that we wanted to hit on.
Trends in Hospital-ASC Joint Ventures
00:03:36
Speaker
with you today, which is really this trend around hospitals doing joint ventures with ASCs. And so from a high level perspective, join, can you kind of help set the context for us? What's kind of the latest in this trend of hospitals looking to partner with ASCs and what's driving it? Well, you know, it's interesting to me because a lot of people consider this like a new trend and for those of us, they're not many, they're absolutely not many of us, but for those of us that have been working in this space,
00:04:06
Speaker
like I said, for 20 years almost. It doesn't seem new at all, but it has definitely picked up steam. And I think the last statistics I saw was that the joint ventures or hospital owned ASCs
00:04:22
Speaker
in general, are one of the fastest growing groups. And I really think that currently, as we said in 2013, there are a couple drivers. One is COVID. COVID has changed everything else in our lives. The idea that hospitals are for sick people, and most people having surgery, outpatient surgery, and an ASC, they aren't sick. By definition, they're not sick.
00:04:49
Speaker
And so they don't necessarily want to be around people who are sick.
00:04:54
Speaker
That's caused a big growth. Physician employment, a lot of physicians that have been employed by hospitals either already owned an ASC or getting an ASC for them to operate in was a condition of their employment. And then just the whole idea of improved technology, improved anesthesia services, things like that have really pushed a lot of cases from inpatient to outpatient.
00:05:20
Speaker
I definitely think that the payers have had a huge influence with value-based contracting and as have consumers who are having to pay more in high deductible plans or HSAs for their outpatient surgery. So I think all of those factors coming together this time is really a big time for hospitals to get into this space.
00:05:50
Speaker
And we're seeing it. Our phone is really learning for help in this area. Yeah. And so that
Financial and Strategic Benefits of Joint Ventures
00:05:57
Speaker
makes sense. There's kind of a long list of factors that you mentioned kind of driving this acceleration. From the hospital perspective, Joan, I'm curious, has this been controversial? Because there's lots of reasons, as you mentioned, to do it. But at the same time, moving procedures to an ASC from a hospital perspective could be viewed as cannibalizing revenue.
00:06:20
Speaker
And so has this been is this been controversial to certain folks within a hospital? It's interesting. It really does depend who you speak to. The CFOs are not terribly excited about this because in general what it's doing is taking any outpatient procedure and cutting their reimbursement in half.
00:06:38
Speaker
And then if the surgery center is joint ventured with some physicians, it's cutting it again. And so if you look at it strictly as a money play, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're very short-sighted. I'll tell you, the hospitals that didn't do this or haven't done this are really seeing the damage that all of that outpatient surgery leaving the hospital
00:07:04
Speaker
You know, people say it all the time, you know, 50% of something is better than 0% of everything. So I'd say that the finance people usually are the hardest people for us to bring around. But once you sort of lay it out for them and they see what's happening, it makes sense. The strategy people and the payer contracting people are
00:07:27
Speaker
so excited that we are moving in this, that their organization is considering this. So I think it sort of breaks down around those lines between sort of strategy payers and then finance not quite understanding the motivation behind this, if you look at it strictly from a reimbursement standpoint. Yeah, it sounds like there's some innovators dilemma at play here in terms of these hospitals have to be willing to at least consider
00:07:57
Speaker
um, cannibalizing existing revenue streams with lower gross margin business, as you mentioned a lot of times, at least on the revenue side. Right. But I have, I will, I wanted to say on that topic, I have had people who did not weren't supportive mainly CFO types who were not supportive, who later come back and tell me it was the smartest decision they ever made because, uh, if they are fortunate enough to be able to backfill,
00:08:24
Speaker
and really put in the cases that are now very appropriate for hospitals, they're making more margin off of those cases than they made off their easy, healthy outpatient cases. So again, those people really then see an uptick, overall uptick in reimbursement revenue. Great. And that kind of hits on my next question for you, which is you've been kind of participating and observing in these joint ventures
00:08:54
Speaker
for a while, what have you seen as the critical success factors, right? Both from a hospital perspective and an ASC perspective to making these partnerships work.
Keys to Successful Hospital-ASC Partnerships
00:09:06
Speaker
One of the first ones that we always tell people is really having a line vision for success, really asking both the physicians that want to be involved and the hospital leadership
00:09:19
Speaker
what would success in this look like for you? Making sure that everybody is aligned on what we're focusing on. If a group of physicians want a huge return on their investment, but the hospital is looking for a larger facility to maybe offload more cases, sometimes those things can
00:09:44
Speaker
can be counter forces. So making sure that everybody's sort of looking at the same, having the same measurements for success. Mutual trust and respect. You know, these, these first two are sort of, they're not concrete. They're very sort of soft, but people have to really talk through this because
00:10:04
Speaker
When we have clients that are looking, you know, the hospital or the doctors call us after a meeting and say, well, what I really wanted to say was, whatever. We sort of really, really caution them and say, this is going to be your business partner. You're entering into a like, you know, something very akin to a marriage.
00:10:24
Speaker
if you can't talk straight to each other, right in front of each other, this could maybe not be the right partnership. So those two things are very important. Mutual risk tolerance when it comes to debt, because they're gonna have to agree on things like that. And sometimes we see that as being a big divide between, and all over the place, it's interesting. Some hospitals want
00:10:51
Speaker
You know, you put a lot of cash in these deals. Some doctors, you know, want to leverage them as high as they can or vice versa even. So making sure that there's some agreement in that. I think.
00:11:05
Speaker
Again, the one thing I just said, but I just want to reiterate is that constant, transparent communication. If you're not seeing that, um, it really, it really won't work. And I've seen partnerships, not that many, but a few that were not, um, I, we could feel it as we were going into this, that there were going to be issues and either they were never able to actually, um, ink a deal or they did. And it, it was just not a successful surgery center.
00:11:36
Speaker
Got it. OK. And in terms of hospitals that decide, hey, we want more of an ASC strategy and footprint, how do you see them going about that? Is it more acquisitions of already established ASCs? Is it building their own? Or do you see kind of a healthy mix of both of those strategies?
Hospital Strategies for ASC Integration
00:11:59
Speaker
Pretty much a healthy mix. What we're seeing is a lot of hospitals got involved in ASCs because
00:12:05
Speaker
let's say in the last five years that they hadn't done it before. Uh, maybe they were really, really not wanting to take that leap, but when they maybe acquired a large physician group, um, as part of that, um, it was part of that acquisition, the physicians also wanted their ASC purchased because that's usually a higher than the, uh, than the practice. And so now all of a sudden the hospital is owning an ASC that it hadn't planned to own.
00:12:35
Speaker
We're seeing that a lot more now, or maybe a hospital owns five or six ASCs that it wasn't planning to own. And there's no strategic reason where they're located, things like that. So they really have kind of been drug into this space. And then we also are seeing sort of on the flip side of that, a lot of hospitals that understand the move towards ambulatory care and outpatient services in general, and they're building what
00:13:04
Speaker
They're typically calling ambulatory care centers or medical malls in a new market or in a more suburban area from the main hospital.
00:13:12
Speaker
And the AS they want an ASC to be the anchor tenant of that building because it one reimbursed is probably the best of all the outpatient services. And it also can draw a lot of people to that space. So, um, and those are what we're seeing a lot of the de novos that we're doing now with hospitals and physicians are not just sitting out in a field somewhere, but they're really part of a bigger ambulatory outpatient strategy.
00:13:40
Speaker
So we're seeing, we're seeing both of those, but the acquisitions and the, and the de novos. And I think the other trend that we're seeing from hospitals is the conversion.
00:13:50
Speaker
of HOPDs, a lot of hospitals, probably in the early 2000s, they weren't ready to go all the way and cut the reimbursement in half, but they were hearing, they're both the doctors and the patients saying they really loved the ASC experience. So they built freestanding HOPDs or maybe, you know, connected to the hospital in some sort of
00:14:13
Speaker
tangential way, physically tangential. And it was a provider-based entity that was still able to bill hospital rates. It was on the hospital license, but they tried to run it much more like an ASC, faster turnaround times, maybe more physician input, smaller footprint, those kinds of things.
00:14:35
Speaker
And so now what they're realizing is they do need to make the leap all the way into a freestanding ASC. And we're called because converting that space makes the most sense from a, you know, reusing an asset. It's already there.
00:14:53
Speaker
A lot of times the doctors like that location, they're already used to that location, but there's a whole nother set, that would be a whole nother podcast because there's a whole nother set of issues involved in when you're converting an HOPD to an ASC, but that's sort of a, that's kind of a hybrid between the acquisition of the de novo model. You know, it's there, but it was owned by the hospital and now we're going to flip it to this new partnership.
Partnerships and Financial Stability for Physicians
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, that seems kind of like the splitting the difference model.
00:15:22
Speaker
So it sounds like there's a lot there to unpack in terms of the HOPD side. So for your suggestion, we'll wait to the next episode for that one. But I am curious, tell me about some of the high level drivers. We talked about the high level drivers of hospitals adopting an ASC strategy. What are some of the high level drivers of HOPDs going all in to become ASCs? Well, like I said, the location usually is a really nice, good location for the doctors because it's
00:15:52
Speaker
by nature of CMS definition for that to be an HOPD. It can't be too long of a distance from the hospital.
00:16:02
Speaker
And like I said, the speed to market of getting that in place can be, for anybody who's ever renovated a house, they know that sometimes a new build is actually faster than a renovation. But if you don't have to do too much work to the physical plant, there's a quicker turnaround to get that ASC up and running. And now the physicians are part owners. And so now they're sharing the revenue in basically the same building they were in before.
00:16:32
Speaker
In general, what I've seen, physicians like partnering with hospitals, you know, for a few reasons. One is if the hospital, certain conditions are met, the hospital can help with the contracting for the ASC.
00:16:48
Speaker
Most of the time, I won't say always, but most of the time the hospital can leverage their position with the payers in this new ASC and get the physician partnership a higher reimbursement rate than the physicians would have gotten if they'd gone out and done an ASC on their own.
00:17:05
Speaker
Obviously, in COVID states, having a hospital partner will sometimes be the only way a group of physicians can have ownership in an ASC because a lot of physicians either can't afford or
00:17:23
Speaker
don't want to go through the rigmarole of getting a certificate of need from the state. And then the hospital, the big thing that I see when physicians are being very honest is that one thing that the hospital brings to the physicians, whether it's an HOPD conversion or an
00:17:41
Speaker
freestanding ASC that they build together, is the hospital can be the deep pockets when it's time for physicians to retire. Or just a group of physicians out in ASC and a doctor would like to cash out of some or all of his shares or her shares, there may not always be a willing buyer available.
00:18:04
Speaker
And what we've seen is the hospital is always a willing buyer. And so there's a really nice sort of guaranteed sale for the doctors if they have partnered with a hospital in their ASC. Got it. OK. So we touched on some of the benefits from a physician perspective. What about the rest of the staff in an ASC?
00:18:35
Speaker
Does partnering up with the hospital impact their day-to-day in any kind of key ways?
Employee Status in Joint Ventures
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question because there's not one set answer for that. Sometimes the staff can be a little concerned if
00:18:55
Speaker
because they're they're nervous about okay now is my whole job going to change from the standpoint that hospitals tend to you know have a lot of meetings have a lot of things that the staff might feel like oh now that now i'm going to be a hospital employee but they aren't usually they're remain of an employee of the joint venture not
00:19:17
Speaker
they are now an employee of the joint venture, not the hospital. So they typically, and I'm watching my words here, because sometimes we have seen some structures where the joint venture will lease staff from the hospital, but typically that's not the case. And so there's totally separate personnel policies, totally separate
00:19:44
Speaker
salary structure, benefit structure, everything is for the joint venture, it's not the hospital. And sometimes that's disappointing to the staff because maybe the hospital salary ranges are higher, maybe the hospital's benefit structure is much richer.
00:20:02
Speaker
And so sometimes they're disappointed to hear they're not going to be hospital employees. So that's why I'm saying it's not necessarily either all good or all bad. If a joint venture is formed and it becomes a freestanding HOPD from the, I'm sorry, freestanding ASC and it was an ASC, usually all of that HOPD staff resigns
00:20:28
Speaker
And then only the ones that would like to be rehired by the joint venture or that the joint venture wants to hire are brought back. So that the staff doesn't necessarily come with the location, if that makes sense. Because there are some people that don't want to work at ASE, it's a much faster environment.
00:20:48
Speaker
And there's a lot of staff that maybe wouldn't be appropriate in an ASC because the ASC is a lot faster environment. You know, much quicker turnarounds and much quicker discharges and things like that. So there's not a cookie cutter approach to this. That's one reason. That's the thing that keeps it interesting from our standpoint, is that however you do a joint venture, you know, there's certain things that are pretty the same all over the country.
00:21:17
Speaker
and regardless of what the deal is, but there are so many factors that are up for grabs, depending on the personality of the two partners. Got it. Okay. And we've talked about hospital and ASC partnerships and joint ventures. Tell me a little bit, Joan, about physician offices and physician groups. How are they thinking about their ASC strategies and are you seeing any trends there
00:21:46
Speaker
that are materially different from the hospital ASC partnership dynamics? Now, I don't know if you're talking about new physicians that are newly going into ASC space or physicians that have had most surgical specialties
00:22:04
Speaker
if they're a large group have probably either as a practice or the individual doctors have had some investment in an ASC. It's rare we find that we do have a couple actually right now that are large physician groups that for whatever reason in the in our the cases of the groups that they are in CON states and so it's that's sort of what's kept the physicians from being able to open their own ASC.
00:22:30
Speaker
What we're seeing with the physicians that own ASCs, that issue that I just talked about where the hospital can provide a liquidity event for some of the maybe more senior partners.
00:22:45
Speaker
Sometimes this is the time when you have a lot of senior, more senior partners that are winding down. It's a good time maybe for a physician owned ASC to start looking to their community hospital or the health system that covers there at that market as a potential buyer, because that can make for a really nice acquisition for the hospital.
Senior Physicians Selling Shares
00:23:09
Speaker
If they've got a mature surgery center that's been physician owned,
00:23:13
Speaker
And a few of the physicians want to be bought completely out. Maybe some of the other physicians would like a little bit of a liquidity event and the hospital can come in and buy a portion of the shares and now become an owner in that ASC. The physicians are the senior owners. They've been there longer. So a lot of times it's
00:23:35
Speaker
It's really just a financial buy-in by the hospital, but nothing changes at all in the operations or the ownership it remains exactly as it is. And those have been very successful in our experience, ways for hospitals to enter in, especially if the hospital is very clear not to want to go in there and start changing things.
00:23:58
Speaker
Even if it becomes, let's say the majority owner, which we've seen happen where the hospital will come in and buy the majority of shares from the physician partners. We always caution the hospital to remember, it's been operating great before you got there. Don't go in there and start making changes.
00:24:18
Speaker
you know, really think about things before you think things need to be changed there. Because if it's been, you know, if it's been not just financially operating well, but from a quality standpoint operating well and the community really likes that place for surgery, sometimes a hospital coming in trying to make changes can
00:24:38
Speaker
really make the deal, you know, really make the, it goes south. And I, we don't see that often, but maybe that's because we really prep the hospitals on those about not, you know, kind of slapping their hands about don't touch it. It's fine. Yeah. It seems like you've got some, you know, probably lessons learned and case studies on, on what not to do after acquisition. So that's super interesting.
00:25:04
Speaker
Okay, great.
Operational Efficiencies in Surgery Centers
00:25:05
Speaker
Well, Jen, one final question for you up here. We do this every week with our guests. What's one thing our listeners can do this week to improve their surgery centers? Um, you know, one thing, cause we do work with a lot of existing centers that are, like I said, maybe thinking about getting acquired in a joint venture is I would always say it's sort of like when you have somebody come into your house, um,
00:25:31
Speaker
And, you know, they see the dirt in the crevices or they see, Hey, if you move that chair to that other side of the room and this room would look a lot better. Um, we often say, you know, invite somebody in. And when I say somebody, somebody who knows healthcare, somebody who knows surgery centers.
00:25:47
Speaker
and have them sort of look at your operations from top to bottom and see if they have any suggestions. And because sometimes they pick stuff up that the people that are there day in and day out don't notice. And I'm not talking about just physical things, even just operations. You can watch and say, why are people, you know, looks like you're doing double work right there. So that's something that I would say is maybe find another administrator, ASE administrator in the area or
00:26:15
Speaker
Um, you know, somebody, maybe somebody from the hospital who maybe knows things and just say, we just walk through and just give us, you know, see if you see anything you think we would should change. Um, and don't be threatened by that is what I would say, because most of the time you can pick up at least one or two pretty easy to implement ideas from those activities. Yeah, that's, that's, that's good advice. I think.
00:26:41
Speaker
oftentimes we start doing things a certain way and running any kind of business or process, right? And that just becomes the way we do it. We don't necessarily go in from that mindset of, okay, let me understand this all with a fresh set of eyes and what could you tweak or improve. And so, right. I think there's, you know, I think people in the ASC industry in general need to remember that first ASC opened back in 1960, a lot of people working in ASCs weren't even born back then. And so, um,
00:27:09
Speaker
I think that the longer an ASC has been open, the more likely you're going to see that where people just, well, this is the way we've always done it. You know, I don't know why we do it this way, but this is the way they trained me to do it when I started 10 years ago and we've always done it this way. And most of those are probably great things and don't change them. But usually you can find one or two time saving or
00:27:34
Speaker
money-saving ideas when you have a fresh pair of eyes, look at operations for you. Great. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you. It was fun.
00:27:49
Speaker
As always, it has been a busy week in healthcare, so let's jump right in.
Trends in ASC Revenue and Independence
00:27:54
Speaker
Our first story is a quick one, but Becker's ASC published a snapshot of the ASC industry from a numbers perspective. And I thought a few of these were really interesting. So here are the five stats they shared along with the studies where they obtained these numbers from.
00:28:11
Speaker
So the first, hospitals are shifting one third of their revenue to surgery centers, office-based labs, and other outpatient sites, according to JLL's Healthcare and Medical Office Perspective Report. The average physician compensation declined by 2.4% in 2022, according to Doximity's 2023 physician compensation report.
00:28:38
Speaker
The average total cases performed at an ASC per day is 20.9 according to VMG Health's multi-specialty ASC benchmarking study. 70% of ASCs remain independent as of 2022 according to another report from VMG Health.
00:29:00
Speaker
And then lastly, the average net operating revenue for ASCs is $11.1 million, according to another report from VMG Health. So out of those five stats, I think the most interesting to me was the first one, that hospitals are shifting one third of their revenue to surgery centers and other outpatient sites. It shouldn't be...
00:29:24
Speaker
that shocking to a lot of people. If you've been keeping up with the news, we've been seeing this trend for a little while now, but always really exciting to see further proof of that.
Legislation Impacting Healthcare Budgets
00:29:35
Speaker
The state of Missouri is the latest to introduce legislation aimed at limiting the rates of travel nursing companies. Now this article comes from OR Manager and this legislation, known as the Missouri Healthcare Contract Provisions Act, would prohibit healthcare facilities from entering into contracts with staffing agencies
00:29:57
Speaker
that charge more than 20% above the standard rate for nurses. Supporters of the bill argue that travel nursing rates have skyrocketed during COVID, which everybody kind of knows by now, leading to higher healthcare costs for patients and straining budgets all around. They also claim that some staffing agencies engage in price gouging and take advantage of the demand for nurses in areas experiencing nursing shortages.
00:30:25
Speaker
Which is certainly true. Opponents of the bill, however, argue that it would limit the ability for hospitals and other healthcare facilities to recruit and retain qualified nurses, especially in rural areas where nursing shortages are particularly bad.
00:30:43
Speaker
And lastly, they also claim that staffing agencies are necessary to fill critical gaps in nursing staff, especially during emergencies such as the pandemic. But the Missouri legislation is not alone. There are similar efforts in other states, including California, where a law was passed last year.
00:31:03
Speaker
capping travel nursing rates at 60% above the standard rate. And other states, including New Jersey and Massachusetts, are considering similar measures. So I certainly don't know the perfect answer here, but I do feel like legislation like this would be a win for surgery centers. Most ASE budgets cannot compete with the incredibly high hourly wages that travel nurses are receiving and would be expected
00:31:31
Speaker
if they were to settle down in some place. And surgery centers are losing staff because of how enticing these wages are for travel nurses. So as always, this bill brings pros and cons with it, and we will keep a close eye on it. But those four states to recap are Missouri, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts that are all making strides here.
Staff Retention Strategies
00:31:55
Speaker
Our third story is from the news desk of Outpatient Surgery Magazine, and it is all about strategies and tips for staff retention. Now, I'm always on the lookout for good, meaningful staffing solutions and ideas because I know so many people are struggling with this right now. And as we know, there is no perfect solution. This needs to be a long-term strategy for the healthcare industry as a whole to get ahead of this and fix it. But I do promise you that none of these tips have anything to do with food or pizza parties.
00:32:25
Speaker
So here we go. Here are seven staff retention ideas. The first is correcting your salary scale. So long-term staff can become resentful of new hires who are receiving bonuses and even higher salaries than they are. So change your pay scale to be based on number of years as a nurse as just one idea
00:32:49
Speaker
And also, if you are bringing somebody brand new on, take a look at the staff that have been there the longest and make sure that everybody is being fairly compensated to the best of your ability. The second tip is to try going per diem instead of salaried. This allows for scheduled flexibility and also for them to control how much money they make.
00:33:12
Speaker
The third is to stay aware of work-life balance. This goes along the lines of flexibility again, but you might have some nurses who prefer to work 32 hours over four days versus the typical Monday through Friday schedule. The fourth is to keep it stimulated. Cross train anybody who is interested so they keep learning and don't get bored
00:33:36
Speaker
focus on workplace culture. And they're suggesting that this actually starts with leadership. So make sure you appreciate your employees and take genuine interest in their lives as human beings instead of just employees.
00:33:50
Speaker
And along the same lines, the next tip is to understand every employee's goals, preferences, and skills and to see them all as individuals. So get to know them. Where do they see their career in a year or five years? How can you help them get there? What is most important to them right now? Are they just looking to make as much money as humanly possible? Or is getting out at 4 p.m. every day in their best interest so that they can spend more time with their family?
00:34:18
Speaker
you know, trying to figure out what works best for them as individuals will go a long way. And lastly, mentorship is a proven retention tactic. This will encourage newer employees to stick around longer, will help prepare them for more leadership type roles and just keep overall morale high. So there you have it, seven retention strategies and reminders to make sure you keep your best staff.
New Cancer Treatment Developments
00:34:46
Speaker
And to end our new segment on a positive note, a cancer pill was approved in England and Wales. Hundreds of people with rare forms of inherited cancer
00:34:57
Speaker
could live longer after the UK's National Health Service approves the first drug targeting tumors that is caused by a faulty gene. So patients in England and Wales who are carrying a mutated version of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes will now be eligible for this new pill. And the new pill kills cancer cells by stopping them from repairing themselves.
00:35:23
Speaker
and has been shown to cut the risk of dying from inherited breast cancer by one third and to extend the lives of patients with incurable prostate cancer. And that news story officially wraps up this week's podcast. Thank you as always for spending a few minutes of your week with us. Make sure to subscribe or leave a review on whichever platform you're listening from. I hope you have a great day and we will see you again next week.