Retiring RWJBarnabas CEO Discusses Future of NJ Healthcare
- Barry Ostrowski retires to make Mark Manigan run RWJBarnabas Health.
- RWJBarnabas runs 12 acute care hospitals, employs 38,000 workers and generates $6.6 billion in annual revenue.
- He spoke to USA TODAY Network New Jersey about what he sees coming in the field of health care.
Since announcing his retirement plans 10 months ago, Barry Ostrowsky, CEO of RWJBarnabas Health, has spent his days trying to prepare the board of directors, new executive team and core employees for the change that is about to happen. . come.
Ostrowsky said he is confident the incoming team is up to the task. But after leading New Jersey’s largest health care system for the past decade, he has learned a simple truth.
“You don’t know the job until you’re sitting at the job,” he said.
Ostrowsky will retire at the end of the year, ending an 11-year tenure that coincided with a historic moment for the health care industry.
He oversaw a health care network with: 12 acute care hospitals, including Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, and Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch; 38,000 employees; and $6.6 billion in annual revenue.
And he led the company through the new lawsuits brought by the Affordable Care Act; mergers and consolidations; and the deadliest pandemic to hit the US in 100 years.
Colleagues say Ostrowsky’s legacy is a vision of a health care system that could do more than treat patients in doctors’ offices and hospitals. It could also help with social services like food insecurity or affordable housing, public health issues that are traditionally left to others or ignored.
The vision itself “could have been the easy part,” said Mark Manigan, 50, who was selected last March to succeed Ostrowsky. “The hardest part is being the kind of leader and the kind of person who, over a sustained period of time, brings disparate organizations and different cultures and different boards together. All of that through building one-on-one relationships to build the confidence you need to put together something like this.”
Ostrowsky, 72, lives in South Orange with his wife, Bobbi. They have two children, David and Allison, and three grandchildren. Before leaving, Ostrowsky spoke with the USA TODAY Network New Jersey.
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Q: What are some of the changes in the last decade that stand out to you?
Ostrowsky: “In New Jersey and across the country (we’re) building health care systems instead of just relying on independent hospitals and technology that hospitals have had to include to ensure state-of-the-art health care service. In New Jersey, we’re not many years ago we didn’t have a medical school. And now we have several medical schools, and we’re training fabulous future generations of doctors about whom I have no doubts. … They are young. They are eloquent. And they care. And they don’t know they’re becoming doctors for the money because, frankly, those days are over… It’s not like you’re necessarily going to starve yourself, to make a decent income. But it’s not Wall Street and things of that nature. So when I I meet with medical students at Rutgers Medical School, which we are affiliated with, I meet people who are motivated to be doctors or nurses or technicians by a motivation that other than financial performance. It’s really nice to see.”
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Q: How well prepared was RWJBarnabas for the pandemic?
Ostrowsky: “One of the facets of this was living through an evolutionary education with an actual live virus. It wasn’t a benign event that you could study while it was happening. We kept changing some of our positions scientifically as we learned more, and that was frustrating for everyone.” …
“There was a special committee appointed by the governor to look at various policies related to COVID. One of the policies was about removing a ventilator from one patient in favor of hooking up another patient because there were not enough ventilators. How do you decide to remove it? a ventilator from patient A and make it available to patient B, knowing that the patient is going to die when the ventilator is taken off? And we spent many nights trying to get to this policy. It was amazing to me that we’re talking about the United States, that we’re going to have to make that life-or-death decision because there aren’t enough ventilators and, I’m telling you honestly, we’re within a couple of days of having to make those decisions.”
Q: If a pandemic happens again, is the industry better prepared?
Ostrowsky: “I don’t think anyone can predict how we’ll react until it actually happens. I don’t quote Mike Tyson much, but I think he said everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face.” That’s true. We have many plans. And then it turns out that what we’re trying to combat didn’t read those plans, and we’re going to have to revise those plans. But I guess the point of his question is, yes we have learned, yes we are better prepared. But I wouldn’t want anyone to think that we’re going to flip a switch and be in operational mode to get an optimal result. Next time something like this happens, we’ll be better, but not perfect.”
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Q: The US Federal Trade Commission recently blocked a proposed merger between RWJBarnabas and Saint Peter’s Health System in New Brunswick. Are hospitals getting too big?
Ostrowsky: “I think there’s an advantage to consolidation. I think there’s an advantage to these mergers, all of which have to be proven, because nothing we do is done for anything other than trying to be more effective and helping the community. I spoke to every single commissioner at the FTC and that was my point. That’s why we’re doing it, not because we need to. It wasn’t about growing, adding revenue numbers to our balance sheet and all that.
“We think, and I remain convinced, that if these mergers and consolidations are properly planned and properly executed and have as their simple objective the best service of the communities that depend on the participants in the transaction, if you put together that package, these mergers and “Consolidations make sense. If they’re ego-driven just to grow or say you have more institutions than the person and system on the street, then they might not make as much sense.”
Q: Let’s say I give you a magic wand and tell you to fix health care once and for all so that it provides quality, affordable care. Where do you start?
Ostrowsky: “If I really wanted to change health care, I would create a public utility out of it. It has nothing to do with government ownership. I would recapitalize it all in a public-private way, I would make sure that a regulatory body appropriate oversees how all these assets are streamlined, it would require this now utility to take on not only healthcare but social service as well.
“Now this is a company that is probably fantastic. But the truth is, it’s very difficult to have competitive health care systems that ensure the highest level of access to coverage and all of that while still competing with each other. There’s a practical aspect of that which cannot be changed. So that would be for me something that would radically change and improve, without a doubt, the health care industry as I see it. …
“Something that is doable and more practical than what I just said, (beyond) this move to outpatient care, digital care, is the fact that we have a Medicare program that won’t pay (make homes safer for older people to) live, but would still be willing to pay for pelvic fractures because people fall into a ‘non-seniorized’ living environment. (That) just doesn’t make any sense. Also, it’s very expensive. So I think there should be policy made as to what and how we finance the things that are in health care.”
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Q: We have overcome a pandemic that shed light on the public’s growing distrust of institutions. What impact does that have on health systems?
Ostrowsky: “Remember when the pandemic was in its early stages, people would organize almost spontaneous acts of respect for all the doctors. They would send food, they would have parades, and these doctors would become heroes. And then, in a real twist of fate, the The same doctors who were being praised for their heroics were suddenly complaining for a variety of reasons. The policies that institutions had to adopt to limit visitation and a host of other things provoked a public response. So I think that’s the way it is. It was a time of mixed emotions, depending on the period you look at, during the worst of the pandemic.
“But I think the word ‘trust’ is the key. You can’t help the community unless you have the trust of the community. You can’t help a person unless the person trusts you. And I think… one of the challenges of institutional healthcare in particular is gaining and maintaining the trust of the people they serve. Without trust, there is no progress. And without trust, there is no ability to truly have the optimal impact for good.” .
Q: What do you think makes a good leader? What do you look for when you are hiring leaders?
Ostrowsky: “I don’t think you can learn leadership on Zoom. I don’t think that’s how you develop leadership skill. I think leadership skill is about having a real interest and making a real investment in the lives of the people you’re going to to lead… You have to build trust You have to advocate for the people you want to lead You have to know what is important to them both inside and outside the office You don’t have to be intrusive or nosy, but something has to be done more than just considering them as one of the people you lead.”
Q: How do you feel about retirement? Are you going to lose your job?
Ostrowsky: “Well, people complain about this permanent smile. I will miss people at all levels of the organization. And that is what I will miss the most. But I think I am very excited about this retirement opportunity. I have no plans to do something else. I’ll keep my seat on several boards, which will surely keep me intellectually stimulated. But right now, I look forward to waking up in the morning and knowing that I don’t have anything on my schedule. And I don’t have to give a speech on time lunch. That sounds good to me.”
Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter who has written about the New Jersey economy and health care industry for more than 20 years. You can reach him at mdiamond@gannettnj.com.