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'We have to create a culture of trust': Profiling University Hospitals CEO Dr. Cliff Megerian

3News Senior Medical Correspondent Monica Robins looks at how the pandemic altered Dr. Megerian's future vision for healthcare in Northeast Ohio.

CLEVELAND — Few hospital CEOs have run the gauntlet that Dr. Cliff Megerian experienced. 

The newest hospital leader in Northeast Ohio took over the University Hospitals (UH) system in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It re-shaped his system vision and forced him to rethink healthcare from the inside out to accommodate the future in a post COVID world.

One of those things is addressing the strain and burnout the pandemic put on personnel.

“We have to create a culture of trust that we do everything we can, beyond things we've ever done before, to create an environment where people want to work here. We always have been one of the leaders in science and discovery, but we can't lose the opportunity to have this very rare once-in-a-hundred-year pandemic and not be the leaders in discovering new drugs and treatments. So that revved up our clinical trial unit to a level that we've never had before, with more than 260 clinical trials,” Dr. Megerian said.

A week ago, UH announced it would close the emergency departments and inpatient care at both Richmond and Bedford Medical Centers. The reason -- they claim -- is an unprecedented shortage of caregivers, specifically nurses.

In order to attract and keep them, Dr. Megerian is now rethinking job descriptions that would add to care teams and alleviate some of the stresses on the job.

“To help take away some of the more, if you will, difficult parts of the job that other people can do so you have to revisit and recreate the workspace to be more flexible, we have to add in everything we can, as it relates to tools and for self-help,” he added.

Hospitals planned for pandemics, but quickly realized the need for flexibility when the real thing arrived.

Now Dr. Megerian is planning for the next one: A mental health crisis. How will patients access care when there's a shortage of mental health professionals nationwide?

“We have to embed behavioral health specialists into our primary care base. These are called behavioral health hubs, and we've already opened the first one on the west side of Cleveland. You'd have a behavioral health specialist, whether they be a therapist, a social worker, a psychologist right there to allow that visit to take place in real time. Because one of the biggest problems we have is the gap of time between when someone is seeking help,” Dr. Megerian explained.

Telehealth boomed thanks to the pandemic proving ground. 

“Before COVID, we had less than 1% of our behavioral health visits as telehealth, now we have at some point, depending upon the month, anywhere from 50 to 60%, some months, especially during the worst of COVID, close to 80% of our visits with behavioral health are telehealth and that has allowed increased access to our providers, much more efficiency of having that precious time of the provider and the precious time of the patient be connected. And we've gotten really, really good at that,” Dr. Megerian said.

Pandemic restrictions modified hospital at home programs, saving hospital beds for the sickest patients. It is the future of healthcare and why hospitals are cutting back on the need for beds.

“People are going to be demanding access to healthcare through digital means through their providers or a team of providers who are on the ready 24/7 to take care of them, so I think that you're going to see more and more care delivered at home, because the healthcare environment, it'll be something that is part of your life as opposed to something that you have to use when something goes wrong,” Dr. Megerian said.

Before being named UH's CEO, previously Dr. Megerian served as president of University Hospitals' Physician Network and System Institutes, where he was charged with managing the clinical integration strategies, policies and practice guidelines for more than 2,500 UH employed physicians as well as the operations and infrastructure for 14 UH system institutes.

Dr. Megerian is also a professor in the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine, where he was Chair from 2012-2018. 

As a surgeon, Dr. Megerian co-founded UH’s Cochlear implant program and he and his team have performed over 1,500 cochlear implant surgeries, making it one of the largest programs in the country. 

His leadership style is hands-on. He still performs rounds in various departments so he can observe and be accessible to physicians and staff. 

Meanwhile, after just two years on the job as the head of UH, Dr. Megerian is already collecting accolades. 

On Monday, the American Hospital Association (AHA), representing more than 5,000 hospitals and health systems, presented University Hospitals health system as the 2022 winner of its most prestigious honor: the Quest for Quality Prize.

The prize recognizes health care leadership and innovation in improving quality and advancing health in communities. AHA first awarded the Quest for Quality Prize in 2002.  

A multi-disciplinary committee of health care quality and patient safety experts gave UH the award based on the system’s exemplary achievements relating to quality, safety and equity.  

UH joins an elite group of 20 other health systems and hospitals who have earned this highest honor. UH first won this award 10 years ago for being a champion in transparency, accountability and quality innovation.

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