Summa Health, the hospital system that was acquired last fall by General Catalyst’s Health Assurance Transformation Co., has named a New York healthcare leader as its next president and CEO.
Jennifer Eslinger will begin in the role Sept. 21. Most recently, she served as the president and chief operating officer of Rochester Regional Health, according to a statement from Summa. There, Eslinger helped lead the $4.2 billion system through strategic growth, transformation and performance improvement.
Eslinger said in an interview Monday that it was the acknowledgement that healthcare is broken, and needs to change, that drew her to Summa.
“The thought of being a part of that change is so exciting and appealing,” she said. “I want to be part of the 2 percent that are taking the stairs, not the 98 percent taking the elevator.”
It was Eslinger’s mindset as a leader that made her the right person for the job, said Daryl Tol, HATCo’s president and CEO and Summa’s interim leader. He took over following Cliff Deveny’s Jan. 1 transition from CEO to CEO Emeritus and strategic advisor.
Tol said Eslinger’s experience at for-profit and nonprofit hospitals, her agility and her interest in collaboration were among the draws for him.
“One of the most important things for us was mindset,” he said. “You create your own ceiling in life based on your beliefs, and we were looking for someone with a very high ceiling versus someone with a low ceiling.”
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Summa’s transformation has begun
Nearly a year after its $515 million purchase by the venture capital-backed HATCo closed, Summa has already begun its transition. Tol said everyone who visits the hospital now gets a phone call from an AI agent, Rachel, upon returning home. The agent asks about a patient’s access to pharmaceuticals and restrooms and can elevate patient issues at home that might not have gotten attention before.
Other changes include ambient listening technology that records patient interactions so medical professionals can make better eye contact, and can avoid typing while talking, and improvements to the medical supply chain that saves money around inventory.
“It’s really exciting to see the full breadth of our plan coming together,” Tol said.
Eslinger said she sees a lot of opportunity in the transformation. There are a lot of handcuffs in the healthcare field, she said, and she relishes the opportunity to try something that hasn’t been done with an organization that has the means to invest.
“To me, that is so exciting,” she said. “Just to know that the sky is the limit, and it really makes the art of the possible come to life.”
Eslinger, a Georgia native who has worked in leadership at healthcare systems for more than 20 years, said she didn’t think the issues Summa faces are different from any other healthcare system’s.
“The headwinds are real, the challenges are real, the workforce shortages — they may look a little different from one market to the next, but they’re real,” she said. “The aging population is real.”
The solution, she said, is to make sure everyone has easy access to the care they need in a timely fashion. In Rochester, she focused on expanding telemedicine, including to rural ICU settings. Doing so reduced the number of patients who needed to be transferred to larger hospitals, keeping more beds clear for those with the greatest need.
Building healthcare’s future
Eslinger said she’s still learning the tools, technology and AI that Summa has at its disposal, but she plans to look at the hospital’s strategic plan and roadmap to see what direction things are headed. She said, too, that she wants to listen to frontline workers about their pain points to ensure they’re heard and determine the best early and long-term strategies to move healthcare forward.
She said the “brave way” that HATCo stepped in to say it wanted to lead transformation in healthcare attracted her to the position. Eslinger said she thinks healthcare should be more accessible, more understandable and more focused on ensuring people are well.
Tol added that efforts to remove the friction from healthcare are among his highest priorities. For employees, he said, doing so helps change what it’s like to work in healthcare. For patients, the friction of navigating healthcare can be an additional burden.
As he steps back into his role as CEO of HATCo, Tol, who moved to Hudson, said he will focus on working with other hospital systems and technology companies to learn best practices and share what HATCo has learned from Summa.
“What’s being built and what’s being developed here, we can evangelize more effectively, and, we hope, help other health systems drive change,” he said.
The possibility of change, Eslinger said, is exciting, and she said she’s thrilled to take on the challenge.
“For me, that is just hands down, professionally, one of the most exhilarating things that we could be doing in healthcare right now, is saying healthcare has to look and feel different, and we’re going to do it,” she said.
