Annual Report 2023-2024

Professional home for physicians The medical group vision calls for Shriners Children’s to be the place for preeminent physicians who practice in the scope of our services. “We want the best clinicians to desire to be at our locations practicing medicine,” said Ryan VanderWerff, administrator of the medical group. “The medical group intends to be highly interactive with physicians and APPs at the local level to build that foundation. We will provide the playbook for efficient practices and enhance the physician and APP experience while also optimizing the efficiency and output of our practices. We will offer guidance and resources for our teams to improve clinical performance, and engage in research and education.” And how is the medical group building that home? With boots on the ground. By the end of this summer the team will have visited every Shriners Children’s location in the U.S. and Mexico. They are meeting with local physicians, APPs and leadership, visiting clinics and inpatient units, and getting a feel for what makes each site unique. “Our site visits are about relationship building,” said Chip Iwinski, M.D., the group’s chief quality officer. “We want to learn what’s the ‘special sauce’ at each location. Seeing the providers in action gives us significant insights to what they do really well and what challenges they face.” Not only are they building trust and rapport, but they are gathering valuable information from each location that will benefit other sites as well. Provider utilization and growth Another facet of building a professional home is to provide growth opportunities for advanced practice providers, in addition to physicians. These visits to

Shriners Children’s Medical Group SETS STAGE FOR THE FUTURE The Shriners Children’s Medical Group is the natural evolution for our healthcare system. A standard structure in the healthcare industry, used by most systems, it positions us to better pursue our mission of giving children access to specialty medical care. It promotes our Vision 2035 goals of helping more kids in more places and more efficiently delivering ever-higher quality care. Last fall, Executive Vice President John McCabe and Chief Medical Officer Frances A. Farley, M.D., announced the appointment of several key leaders who set the strategic direction, operating model, quality standards, and research targets for the medical group with the goal to reimagine access to healthcare and leverage opportunities to improve patient care. The medical group serves as the professional home for the nearly 700 physicians and advanced practice providers (APPs) on the medical and consulting staff. It sets the framework and standards for physician offices and provides direction for the recruitment, retention and growth of physicians and APPs, providing better access to care, building clinic capacity and efficiency, and setting the standards for quality and safety.

35