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For Nabil El Sanadi, M.D., one of the greatest advantages to being a clinical physician who also runs one of the largest public health systems in the country is to witness the consequences of your administrative clinical decisions firsthand.
“I see the direct impact of my decisions from the frontline – at the bedside with patients and when I am working clinically side by side with my medical staff,” says Dr. El Sanadi, a board certified emergency medicine physician who was appointed president and CEO of Broward Health in December 2014. “It gives me a bird’s eye perspective as an administrator making physical and personal decisions.”
Prior to his appointment as president and CEO, Dr. El Sanadi was chief of emergency medicine for Broward Health and has practiced medicine for more than 20 years. He’s been with Broward Health since 1994. In January of 2014, he was elected chairman of the Florida Board of Medicine and continues to serve as emergency medical services medical director for several municipalities.
Dr. El Sanadi describes himself as someone who can articulate a clear vision and someone who can empower a team to perform at its best by leading by example.
“On top of that, I try to provide as much financial support as we can afford to every venue, and at the same time, allowing people to think out of the box intellectually,” he says. “Your staff needs to be creative and not afraid to take risks. We have brilliant people in leadership positions in the system and we allow them to strut their stuff to help us build a better system with a patient-centered focus.”
From his vantage point, Dr. El Sanadi is pleased as he looks back on his first year.
“We are in the midst of change and exciting times as far as the healthcare industry goes,” he says. “There are still several issues that needs to be managed and, at the same time, we are facing pressures to be more efficient and more lean operationally.”
As a teaching hospital, Dr. El Sanadi hopes to increase the number of slots in the program over the next several years so it can replenish the physician workforce.
“We want to grow our own surgeons, internists, family practitioners, orthopedists, emergency physicians, and OB-GYNs so we can add them into the system and into the community,” he says. “We are working very closely with Florida International University and have a working agreement to partner with them and help grow the Graduate Medical Education program.”
Research will also be important in the years ahead, he notes. As a healthcare system that sees over a million patients a year, Dr. El Sanadi says it has plenty of opportunities to provide excellent prospective Level I research to examine new technology, new science, and even new medication to benefit its patients.
“We brought onboard several Six Sigma black belt executives to help us apply lean methodology so we can look at being fiscally responsible but optimizing the work environment for all the practitioners and clinicians at the bedside,” says Dr. El Sanadi. “We have also been looking at how we can optimize our revenue cycle and capitalize the time-value of money.”
While he didn’t lose any night’s sleep over any of the challenges that a large healthcare system faces, Dr. El Sanadi admits that there are some substantial and significant challenges. As a safety net system and a tax-assisted system, Broward is always mindful of the tax revenue it receives. Not only does Broward want to continually give back to the community by providing outstanding healthcare but it also wants to give some money back to the taxpayers and continue to lower the millage rate.
“This year we were very successful at lowering the millage rate to its lowest in the last 30 years,” says Dr. El Sanadi. “We also decreased our monies coming from taxpayers by about $5 million. That’s a significant, substantial achievement and we hope to do that every year for the foreseeable future.”
Another significant challenge for Broward is to optimize operations so it can maximize its “stickiness” with the patients and ensure they return to Broward if they need care again.
“The third challenge, as far as the patient population goes, is to emphasize wellness rather than illness,” says Dr. El Sanadi. “We want to create virtual connections to the patients to make sure they know we exist and can provide safe, quality healthcare at an affordable price. As an example, we’re working on creating a BMI calculator. Anyone who is an employee in our health system or health plan would be able to use the BMI calculator to focus on wellness and weight loss and to avoid falling into the trap of becoming a victim of metabolic syndrome, which is high cholesterol, high sugar, and high blood pressure.”
Looking ahead, Dr. El Sanadi says Broward is building toward being a premier destination for healthcare locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, with an academic halo in partnership with Florida International University.
“Our focus will be on teaching, research and providing superb clinical care,” he says. “That’s the classic three-legged stool at an academic medical center where you perform all three parameters at the highest level possible. That’s where I see us going in the years ahead.”
