Jason Barrett began serving as CEO of The George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 18, and he brings more than 25 years of healthcare experience to the role.
Prior to joining GW Hospital, Mr. Barrett, who also serves as group vice president of the District of Columbia market, overseeing the recently opened Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health, served as CEO of Northwest Texas Healthcare System in Amarillo. Northwest Texas Healthcare System and GW Hospital are both part of King of Prussia, Pa.-based Universal Health Services.
Mr. Barrett told Becker’s in his new role, he’s focused on accessibility, system coherence and equitable care across the nation’s capital. He shared his top priorities in shaping a connected, cohesive strategy in his market, discussed how his previous experience will play a role in his new position and offered his approach to workforce retention.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Q: You are stepping into this role at a pivotal time for GW Hospital, with the recent opening of Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center. What are your top priorities in shaping a connected, cohesive strategy for the D.C. market?
Jason Barrett: We have this aspiration of providing care, ensuring care is accessible, connected and equitable across the city, with us being in a position now where we extend from Foggy Bottom to Cedar Hill. And we’re very proud of the opening at Cedar Hill, serving some 160,000 residencies to the Anacostia River.
There’s a real opportunity to function as a deeper ecosystem. There are a number of constituents within Cedar Hill and George Washington. We have a series of assets deployed in the market. How do we deploy those in a way where it’s integrated?
Then we think about our academic partner, George Washington University. How do we better align with them in a way that we honor their mission of education, research and deep clinical practice, but do that in the way of partnering more deeply with the school of medicine, with the medical faculty associates.
How do we also then think about engaging downstream providers? For instance, our providers that deal in social impact — we’re in Wards 7 and 8, and those are wards that are both medically underserved and deal with health professional shortage. So how do we, understanding that healthcare is a team sport, better engage those people to help us downstream to ensure that we’re providing and elevating care?
And then lastly, we’re very thankful for our relationship with the district. That partnership gave rise to Cedar Hill, and we want to thank the mayor and the deputy mayor for their continuing support in providing that level of care.
So, our focus is again on accessibility, system coherence and equitable care across the city.
Q: Having led expansion efforts in Texas, what lessons from that experience do you think translate to the unique needs and challenges of Washington, D.C.?
JB: From the standpoint of the rationale for expansion, the impetus is largely the same. And if you think about what we were doing at Northwest Texas Healthcare System, we really were at the epicenter of rural healthcare delivery.
We understood, as part of creating greater access, we needed to create offerings that got closer to the patient. So we had a very robust offering as it relates to our ambulatory portfolio, where we expanded to creating a cardiac ASC. We deployed two more freestanding ERs in the market, taking us up to four. We expanded our primary care network there in Amarillo, but also north in Borger and south in Canyon. We understood that we had to have a deeper ecosystem, because access care was so difficult, and we had the same disparities in care.
How do we address maternal mortality among Latina women? How do we improve that in a way that care is provided equitably? A ZIP code should not determine one’s health. I think there are many analogies here as it translates to what we learned in Texas and how that applies here.
Different market — clearly a much more competitive market. But one of the things we would say here is it would be interesting to point out that Washington, D.C., has the greatest physician density per capita. That being said, there are distinct medically underserved areas and health professional shortage areas, and those are largely found east of the Anacostia. And what I’m so proud of in this organization is that we have provided care offerings there to meet the unmet need. And the CEO of Cedar Hill is deeply committed to serving the community and improving the health of that community.
Additionally, understanding the public–private partnerships are important. And our relationship with the district has been vital. I had this experience when I served as a CEO in Florida, working with the state, where we were able to create a social health organization that provided care to some 200,000 kids throughout Florida, providing meaningful access for mental health services.
So all of that broader experience certainly has application in this D.C. market.
Q: Financial and workforce pressures are reshaping hospitals nationwide. How are you approaching workforce planning and retention while also maintaining focus on patient care and community trust?
JB: What’s so vital about our relationship with George Washington University and the school of medicine is they are creating that future workforce. They are teaching our future physicians. And, with the strength of our residency and fellowships, we have every expectation to keep them in the market.
As it relates to the nursing workforce, we have some 12,000 open nursing positions in the district, and we have 5,000 nurses? So the nurses have optionality. And so how do we address that in a way that is certainly meaningful to making sure we’re providing care? But from the equity standpoint, and clearly in Cedar Hill, we want to have representative care. We want to have people and staff members — the district expects as much — that they’re representative of the community. So it’s threading a needle.
Part of the work we’re doing — working with our nursing leadership, working with our nursing councils — is to talk about how we develop a plan of care that’s contemporary, understanding that the workforce is becoming more scarce. How do we develop care models that understand that, that still allow our physicians and our nurses to work at the top of their license, but also in bringing other members of the care continuum? EMTs, as an example, who can provide value in the broader and more longitudinal care chain.
Q: Academic medical centers like GW play a dual role — providing care while advancing education and research. How do you see that mission evolving in the years ahead, and what role will GW Hospital play in it?
JB: We do believe in George Washington University’s mission of research, education and clinical practice. And part of the go-forward with GW is having the conversation about the work we’re going to do.
But where the medicine is necessary, we want to also do that with an equity lens. If we can’t close the disparities in care, have we really made progress? So we do believe, as an academic medical center, our relationship with George Washington is central to what we do, and central to our mission. We talk about being in a position where we help define medicine, and that relationship with George Washington is vital.
There are tough headwinds facing all of us. The question of grant availability and funding availability to continue the work. And certainly we’re all mindful of that. But how do we solve it together?
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