Follow The Brand Podcast with Host Grant McGaugh

Leading with Heart with Kenneth Jones CEO of HCA Florida Northwest Hospital

• Grant McGaugh CEO 5 STAR BDM • Season 6 • Episode 30

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Have you ever wondered what propels a man from the heart of Atlanta to the pinnacle of healthcare leadership? Sit tight as we embark on a narrative with Kenneth Jones, CEO of HCA for Northwest Hospital, whose journey under his grandmother's watchful eye has led him to revolutionize patient care through technology and leadership. This episode, steeped in the wisdom of experience, offers a treasure trove of insights on not just leading, but inspiring change within the healthcare sector. Kenneth unravels the tapestry of his leadership philosophy, invites us to the NAHSE National Conference in 2024, and underscores the undeniably powerful impact of personal branding in healthcare's corridors.

But that's only part of the story. We also zero in on the evolution of community hospitals, emphasizing the need for training top-tier physicians and nurses to address growing healthcare demands. Kenneth gives us a tour of the expansion of services at Northwest Hospital, from the budding graduate medical education program to the comprehensive women's health program, all underpinned by trust-building leadership. Then, we transition to dissecting the art of business development, the essence of transparent people skills, and how aligning your team with your vision is non-negotiable. And let's not forget the role of technology—it's not just a tool but a catalyst reshaping the healthcare landscape. Join us as we navigate the complex yet rewarding terrain of healthcare management and leadership with one of the industry's vanguards.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest marketing trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates from us, be sure to follow us at 5starbdm.com. See you next time on Follow The Brand!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of Follow the Brand.

Speaker 1:

I am your host, grant McGaw, ceo of 5-Star BDM, a 5-Star Personal Branding and Business Development Company. I want to take you on a journey that takes another deep dive into the world of personal branding and business development, using compelling personal story, business conversations and tips to improve your personal brand. By listening to the Follow the Brand podcast series, you will be able to differentiate yourself from the competition and allow you to build trust with prospective clients and employers. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Make it one that will set you apart, build trust and reflect who you are Developing. Your 5-Star Personal Brand is a great way to demonstrate your skills and knowledge. If you have any questions for me or my guests, please email me at grantmcgauth at 5-Star BDM. Be for brand, be for development and for masterscom. Now let's begin with our next 5-Star episode on Follow the Brand. Welcome to the Follow the Brand podcast. I am your host, grant McCullough, ceo of 5-Star BDM, where we help you to build a 5-Star brand that people will follow.

Speaker 1:

In today's episode, we are venturing into the dynamic part of healthcare leadership, illuminated by the exceptional Kenneth Jones, ceo of HCA for Northwest Hospital. Kenneth's narrative begins in Atlanta, where his grandmother's devoted career nursing ignited his passion. Kenneth is a beacon of innovative leadership, blending profound clinical insights with strategic business wisdom. Our conversation welds into a core leadership skill that are vital yet often overlooked Masterful relationship building, the craft of clear communication and the strategic orchestration of team talents to enhance healthcare delivery, pairing into the future. Kenneth highlights the revolutionary impact of technology in healthcare, showcasing its capacity to significantly uplift patient care within the HCA network. Additionally, he extends a special invitation to our listeners to participate in the NAHSE National Conference in 2024, a pivotal gathering for healthcare professionals eager to network and immerse themselves in cutting-edge healthcare leadership and innovation that will be aired in Fort Lionel, florida. This episode charts Kenneth's remarkable journey and serves as a fountain of invaluable lessons applicable across various sectors. For more stimulating discussions on personal branding, business and career development, financial empowerment, technology innovation and executive presence, follow us at 5starbedmcom.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning in to the Follow Brand, where we are building a 5-star brand that you can follow. Welcome everybody to the Follow Brand Podcast. We're going to keep it right here, in local, right here in Broward County. We're going to talk to a health care executive that I admire. First of all, I admire him because he went to Pam U. I mean, anybody that goes to Pam U already gets a leg up on my podcast. I have to talk to them. I've been after Kenneth Jones for a while and then you see what I'm doing. You see the kind of people that are on the show. You have got to come and share some of your knowledge, some of your wisdom, some of your insights and what you're doing. Please introduce yourself.

Speaker 2:

Hey Grant, thanks for having me. Great introduction. You're right, Pam, you can't go wrong with the routlers. It's definitely a part of my story, a part of my upbringing. My heart is definitely bleeds, orange and green. I graduated from Fort A&M in 2000 and remain very connected with the organization. As you mentioned, I've been here in Broward County as the CEO of HCA Forward Northwest Hospital since March of 2021. I've had a very exciting journey along the way, from my days at University of Minnesota after I graduated from Pam U to my fellowship at Duke. It's an exciting leadership journey. I'm really looking forward to sharing that with the broader community.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's talk about that man. You just went around the country with us, right you know, out there in Minnesota, florida, I think you had a couple of steps in the Illinois and hospital systems. Let's talk about the Kenneth Jones story. You told me earlier from Atlanta, georgia. What were you doing in Atlanta that led you on this path to help you?

Speaker 2:

You know, one of my early inspirations was my grandmother. She was a nurse by training and early in my life I had the opportunity to have exposure to the healthcare system Really more as a patient advocate, just learning about her experiences and going in and out of hospitals. She gave me the opportunity to be exposed to her cardiologist I did. My first job was working in the cardiology practice. I thought I was going to be going to the cath lab and hanging out with the physician all day and I was doing medical records filing, but it really gave me that foundation to really understanding this is what healthcare is about. This is what physicians do, what nurses do, what offices run.

Speaker 2:

As I went to college I really was not exposed to hospital management. Up until after I graduated. I had some colleagues that went to the University of Minnesota from Florida A&M and I felt, like you know, I always wanted to be in healthcare leadership. My ideal job growing up was to be a dean of the cardiology section at a large academic medical center, and so I always had an interest in business and did some investments in college and was always in leadership positions and so really matching the clinical aspect. My grandmother's, you know, helping to kind of grow from her perspective and the business side of things. Bringing those together in healthcare leadership was kind of a match made in heaven for me.

Speaker 1:

Man, this is the beginning of a great story. I see it all ready. Your grandmother gives you that leg up. Like point you in the right direction. I like your passion around cardiovascular. I mean, that's heart. You know we're talking about the heart, so let's talk about the heart. Just a little bit around leadership philosophy. How did that guide you? Now, when you think about what you're doing today, you are the CEO of the hospital system there, I think. Is that located at Margate? Is that the location?

Speaker 2:

We're located at Margate and actually this is our 40th year in existence, so this is our big birthday. When we started, we were founded here in 1984 and located in a growing part of the northern Broward community.

Speaker 1:

Wow, man, see, that's what I'm talking about. We want to make sure everyone understands the services that are available, so, so important. Talk to me just a little bit about your leadership philosophy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, leadership has to come from the heart. It has to come from those that really have a passion and a connection back to their why. And oftentimes, as I do orientations or interview staff, I ask them what is your connection? You ask about my why and how I got interested. Because that really breeds the passion and breeds energy that can help to foster great leadership. And so, once you have identified why, the why behind our leaders, it's really our responsibility to create the structure and the purpose to be able to create the results which really ties back to outcomes for our patients. And so, at the end of the day, I look for passion, I look for energy, I look for interest. We can teach the skill set related to the operations elements, the negotiation skills, all the fundamentals.

Speaker 2:

But that's the core of what we do from a culture standpoint. It begins at the end. It's the heart that begins at the end, with the passion and connection back to the purpose. And sometimes you see leaders who are in their various journeys where they may be a burnout in one particular role. It's really our responsibility as leaders to connect it back to their purpose, to be able to help them fulfill the ultimate mission, which is truly improving the care for those that are vulnerable, improving the care for those that don't have a voice and creating the results to generate overall improvements in overall health care status, that's so, so important, Because what you do day in and day out, you're affecting lot.

Speaker 1:

You are affecting lot as a people are at their most vulnerable and when I look at a hospital system and I see it, I have a lot of respect Because you're dealing with some things that I don't know how you get prepared for. You go to school. Yes, you get some theoretical knowledge. Yes, you go to business school. You understand the finance, but when it comes to like something is thrown at you like COVID-19, that just embolaged the entire hospital, or you start to have any other kind of breakout or crisis management, Did your schooling help you with crisis management? Or that was some OJT that you had to learn yourself?

Speaker 2:

I think during the very challenges, taint Tom, you relate back to your personal experiences, whether it be how you were raised or personal challenges that you had growing up or I was in the band growing up and so a lot of my frame of reference around the team, around the organization, was around my band experiences and dealing with things like failure or dealing with things like you have a troop that's being interrupted based on a natural disaster or a circumstance that really is out of your control, and that's really what leadership is about.

Speaker 2:

You come to work and you don't know what you're going to necessarily experience based on things come to your doorstep that are new, that may not be something that you woke up thinking that this is going to happen. I think really making sure that you have a solid team. At the end of the day, I think our team charades the environment and creates the capacity for us to be successful, because I'm one person and we have over 1,000 colleagues that work in this organization on a daily basis and it's really dependent on the team and the individual folks who work together and it's shaping the culture, that sort of. The teams really see themselves as being part of a cohesive system, so building the eyes and ears that are out in about 24-7, when we're sleeping or we're not here, we're on vacation, we're doing it with other things. How do we really create the eyes and ears to be able to leverage and to create the environment that we're all looking for and we want? As a patient, Like that man.

Speaker 1:

What I'm hearing from you is culture. You create the culture. You manage through experience and tie people through the heart, the head, the work that has to be done and the greater importance. And you've adapted to all these industry changes. There's a lot of industry changes in health care. You've got people that are retired. You've got people that have other options. They're like, hey, you know what? Health care is not always in the hospital now, Sometimes it's in other areas, outside of the traditional path. How are you adapting to all these changes in health care?

Speaker 2:

I think it's going back to the core If you think about who we are.

Speaker 2:

We are people to care people and if you look at health care 200 years ago, it was a doctor going to making house calls and touching the patient and making sure that they feel comforted and empathetic and creating that experience and creating that environment that they can be healed.

Speaker 2:

And oftentimes where we fail our patience is when we don't focus on the things that are empathetic. And so, whether it's a telemedicine visit or whether it is an in-person visit or something in between, health care is about creating those compassion experiences, and so personal connections tremendously matter. But when I go out and around it's been a lot of time in the field I asked our staff no question necessarily about the condition the patients in the hospital for, but I asked about their story, I asked about their journey, I asked about their career, their family, because that's really what connects our patients back to our staff, back to a common purpose. And so health care will continue to change. It's delivered differently than what it was 100 years ago, but one common thread is having people take care of people and it's really our responsibility to create that environment where our staff feel that they have the most potential to take care of others.

Speaker 1:

I love that. That's what it's about People taking care of people. That's the end of the day. That's exactly what it is. Now you've got a number of different services that you're rolling out there at your facility. Some programs that you've got that I think are going to be impacting. Show the audience what's going on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, we've been very focused on growth, and really the growth revolves around what our community needs, and one service that we're very proud about is our graduate medical education programs. We're actually the largest, the largest producer of residents across the United States. Here in in in Broward County, our consortium was with ACA Weston Hospital, over 150. Residents are trained daily here at Northwest and in West Side for future opportunities in our community. So not only are we a community, a growing community hospital, we're an academic community hospital and various service lines like medicine, surgery, pathology, anesthesia, obgyn, and looking to do fellowships in other areas like gastroenterology, cardiology, pulmonary medical oncology, and so we want to not only deliver health care services but we also want to train the next generation of physicians as well as our nursing staff. We have a we own Galen School of Nursing, which is a large nursing school across the United States, and so we strongly believe that we have to develop the talent pipeline in our various markets and other campuses. Not only does this help us recruit for future talent, it helps us bring out the best, because these residents and nursing interns participate in our clinical committees, that participate in our quality committees and help to really elevate the overall care in the organization.

Speaker 2:

As far as service lines goes, one of our core service lines is our women's service line, a large provider of obstetric and gynecology care, high risk NICU, maternal fetal medicine.

Speaker 2:

That ties back to our OBGYN residency services and, as other hospitals may consider to not have women's services, we're a big believer in women's health care and making sure that our moms have access to health care local to their home and local to their communities in which they live. We have OB hospitals that are in house 24 seven, but if a mom comes in with a highly complex case, they're able to be taken care of by OBGYN that's really dedicated to their overall care in house maternal fetal medicine, physicians that are able to handle high risk patient populations and this is our residents which are here. This is our second year of our residency programs. We have two more years to grow. We have four residents per year and so that core service line is a big part of who we are based on the population needs and we're really really well situated in an area where there's a tremendous amount of demand for those services.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I love that. I love the fact that you're growing and that you're meeting the demand and you're meeting the community where they are and allowing them to have an open door to be a part of your family, to be a part of your culture, absolutely. So go ahead. No, I was going to ask you this. This is important to me and because, at your level, what you're doing and what you're leveraging. You have to work with business operations. You've got to work with finance. You've got to work with, also, position relationship, clinical applications and all the other things are all facets that I see you have to deal with within an institution. Of all those things, the things that you've learned, especially if you are talking to someone that's coming out of their program getting on a print, what's leveraging the most, that's helped you the most? Is it your financial knowledge, your business acumen, your clinical experience? What would you say is helping the most?

Speaker 2:

I think that the day having inability to connect with others and to create relationships and to identify opportunities and build trust.

Speaker 2:

Hospitals have various components that may be similar or different to based on which facility you're in. What can be different is just the culture and that organization, and how can a leader really create connectivity to their teams to be able to identify opportunities so that everyone's kind of rolling in the same direction? I spend quite a bit of my time really trying to get to know our frontline staff, walking through the halls, creating that relationship, because sometimes when the CEO comes and starts asking questions, our staff may feel less compelled to communicate what some of the barriers are. But I want our teams to really communicate what their challenges are, because I think my responsibility is to make sure we're removing barriers and helping to allow our teams to grow and our frontline colleagues to do their job, and so I think that's one of the things that I'm really trying to focus on is creating an environment through a relationship, so that we can move to more of the complex challenges that may be more difficult to actually fix.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 1:

Man, I love it. It's the people skills. You cannot get around that. The people skills building relationships and acquiring trust. People have to trust you. They have to like you. You want them to trust and be able to work with you on a real, authentic basis.

Speaker 1:

So they're not talking to, let's say, the CEO. They're talking to Kenneth Jones, the human being, and we understand this is the mission that we're on. Here's the playbook I'm giving the playbook. Let's look at this playbook. Can we accomplish the mission with the play that we have? Because you need to call it artable. I need to be comfortable with being like hey, I hear what you're saying, I see your angle, but let's look at it from this aspect. I love the collaborative approach because this is a top business. When you're on the other side of the ball meeting the patient, you know first you're part of the community and doing your thing, and when you're on the other side of the ball meeting the patient, they've got to trust that you have the playbook to get them to the other side, which is to be healthy, to be well, to be back with their family and, very seriously, help us understand. When you're talking to your staff, how do you get that buy-in when they're at the lowest point, when things aren't going the way they expected?

Speaker 2:

I think transparency is tremendously important. Folks need to know where they stand and where we want to go. Vision is tremendously important. There's nothing worse than an organization that may be not understanding of what their starting point is and have no clue where they're going. I think really probably asking those proven questions around the history this history will shape and provide some context.

Speaker 2:

But education I spend as a part of the leader, the coaching element. It's just, like you mentioned, the various audibles. Sometimes the receivers or running backs may not necessarily know that they're breaking the route not timely enough or they don't necessarily know all the nuances, and so part of the responsibility of the other coaches is to coach and provide feedback and provide insight. To give examples, I've worked in various markets that have different experiences. That may be helpful and provide context versus someone that may have only been in one location and not have the context about how other places have done things.

Speaker 2:

It's not to say we're all going to be like that organization. It's just to provide feedback, inspiration, a hope, a plan for the future so that folks can consider at least our high performers and our solid performers can consider what the opportunity looks like. And I think talent development is a key component of what we do, and so, as you have these conversations, you can identify where our staff as far as their performance and if they're a local performer having an opportunity to really help develop them. But ultimately, if they're not at the fifth-throwing organization, they have to be managed out as well, and so those may be tough conversations, but it's ultimately our responsibility to make sure that we have the right talent in the organization that's connected and understands and helping them in a personal level along their journey.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. This is the things we need to hear. We're both part of the NAHSE, especially down here in Port, and the National Conference is going to be here in Port Lauderdale in October, and we've got a real lot to talk before. We've got a real lot to talk before. This is a national organization that helps to promote Black Health Care executives, and let's have a conversation. If I were a member of NAHSE, I've got my MHSA. I want to now become a part of the HCA family. Help me understand what is the best path forward for my situation.

Speaker 2:

One of the values in our company is the diversity of opportunities that we offer. Of course, our core is hospitals, but we have opportunities in the medical space as far as medical practices, clinical practices, et cetera. For physician offices. We're one of the larger operators of urgent cares. We have an amateur surgery center space and, just like any other large system, opportunities in information technology or clinical informatics or business development, performance improvement et cetera. And so I think it's just identified early on where you see your passion.

Speaker 2:

Some folks may be more interested in marketing, while others may be more interested in going out identifying new business sources. Others may be more interested in on the IT side, or some may want to be in operations, and so when I talk to prospective colleagues I try to probe on where is your passion, because your passion will help you identify what the best role for you is, and then, as a leader, I can help connect them to where those opportunities are. We're a large footprint here in South Florida. We have 14 facilities, 14 hospitals. We have 49 hospitals throughout the state, so very large presence in Florida. So geography also matters. Where do you want to live, where do you see yourself wanting to grow your career, and does that connect back to where those opportunities are? And so just trying to identify what that looks like Is it finance, is it a physician that wants to be a chief medical officer? And just helping them connect to those various roles, those various opportunities.

Speaker 1:

I'm curious. Now, that's good, I like that Because I have a technology I am information technology. Now we're going to end technology with our personal knowledge From your lens and how you're operating as the chief executive officer at your ACM facility. How do you view technology? Do you use it as an enabler? Is it determined? Is it something better, is it something more? I mean, what is your view point?

Speaker 2:

I think, from a technology standpoint, it won't solve our problems independently.

Speaker 2:

You have to have people that are able to take care of people, like I mentioned previously, but I think it can be an enabler to reduction in unnecessary steps to various processes. How do we create more value? The goal is creating more value so that our patients get the results and the outcomes that they need more successfully, and so, whether it's artificial intelligence that's helping to pull things together more rapidly, which is kind of like the virtual human calculator that's able to pull all these various forces together to drive an outcome and to do things that our brains physically can't do or it could be information systems to better understand our patient needs. I think it allows humans to create information more rapidly, but it can come at a cost. Sometimes folks feel like this is something that you can just sit at your desk and just look reports all day based on insights. You have to balance the feedback that you're getting from the technologist standpoint with talking to people and the human element and the human touch to be able to draw the best conclusion.

Speaker 1:

I like that answer Never take the human factor out of the equation, especially when we're talking technology. It's a big thing on the table now because AI is a game king as far as what it's used to be, but it's just like anything else, whether it was mobile computing, whether it was social media, whether it was cloud computing. All these things are great tools. It enables us to do a lot of things, but without the human factor it has no value. So it has to always create value. That's the thing I love to do anytime I'm looking at a technology problem or just a problem in general how can it be solved?

Speaker 1:

I tell people all the time what technology is really really good at and kind of alluded to it. It's very, very good at what I call collapsing the windows of time, making things quicker and faster and better. And it's also very, very good when it comes to communication. If you need to communicate more precisely or you need to communicate things in different media, it's very, very good. I don't think it's meant to replace the human to human interaction, but if you have the human to IT to human, it can make it better. And if it's not doing that, then I go back to a lot of people had EMR experience. Man, this is horrible. I now had to code. I had to like wow, sucking up all my time because I got to now all this information as data back into the system and it's just taking a lot of my time. We're changing that environment. I'm sure you lived through that back a couple of years back.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, you see the evolution of things that were meant to be helpful and did not provide the value. So we learned from these experiences. We learned from other industries, but, to your point, it still has to be the human element to be able to prioritize and be able to keep the tools relevant.

Speaker 1:

So, before I leave you we're getting to the end I want you to be able to talk directly to my audience. We have an audience of about 20,000 different health professionals throughout the nation. A lot of them are part of the HCA family and there's a lot of people that are students that are looking into the health care industry is like what's happening now From your lens. What key words or phrases or inspiration would you like to leave us with?

Speaker 2:

And I think, you know, for folks who are interested in having a bright future as far as leadership, you know, being able to grow in their careers, you know it's my career has been, has been a very positive growth journey, and all the jobs have been very different and it's a very dynamic field, and so, and I feel like I can really make a difference, you know, in my capacity and in that, but I always felt like I've been able to make a difference, whether I was a administrator, fellow or manager, director, vp or CEO.

Speaker 2:

So I would encourage those individuals who want to make a difference in the human elements of life and in clinical care, and health care remains to be a significant part of our economy, and so there will always be jobs, which is something that I was always interested in. I want to be gainfully employed and be able to be successful from a leadership standpoint, and so I think having folks who are passionate, folks who are interested in growth and personally, professionally, new ideas, but also coming into various challenges you know this is not easy work, and so if you want to be mentally challenged, critically challenged as far as critical thinking, as far as you know, pushing yourself to the limit, this is a great career and a great opportunity to really expand your horizon and to really you know lead in a different type of way, and sometimes our students pick other fields outside of health care. I think you know this has been a great career for me. It will be a great career for others as well.

Speaker 1:

Wow, I can't say that. Better Look at that. So this is wonderful. I want you to tell us again, because you are one of 49 hospitals, I think, for HCA down here. Tell us what is the number one facility for HCA here in Florida and what's the best way to reach you on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2:

HCA Northwest. Hca for Northwest Hospital is our number one. Of course. Our culture is the culture that attracts our patients, our physicians and our colleagues, and that's really what it comes down to. And you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm active in LinkedIn. You know Kenneth Jones, you know under CEO HCA Florida Northwest Hospital, so I encourage anyone to connect. We would love to continue to share my leadership journey. If folks have any questions or follow-ups, if they can connect with me on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

I said we would like to hear from you.

Speaker 2:

And we look forward to bringing the world to South Florida for our educational conference. It would be a great experience for the hosting, hosting those who are interested in that experience as well.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's going to be wonderful. That'll be the second week of October, so mark your calendars early. For those that are local, wow, you've got to come out and be over at the Marriott-Purberry Beach Resort. It's going to be beautiful. We're really looking forward to it. This has been wonderful.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to encourage the entire HCA family and all of you continue to tune in to follow brand and tune in at Firestore Medium. That is B for Brand, d for Development, inframasterscom. Kenneth, this has been wonderful. Thank you for joining me on this. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Thanks for joining us on the follow brand podcast. Big thanks to Full Effect Productions for their incredible support on each and every episode. Now the journey continues on our YouTube channel Follow Brand TV series. Dive into exclusive interviews, extended content and bonus insights that will fuel your success. Subscribe now and be a part of our growing community, sharing and learning together. Explore, engage and elevate at Follow Brand TV series on YouTube. Stay connected, stay inspired. Until next time, we will continue building a five star brand that you can follow.