Closing Healthcare’s Purpose Gap with Lauren Pasquale Bartlett | E. 70

Lauren Pasquale Bartlett is the first Chief Marketing Officer at Ingenovis Health, healthcare workforce solutions providers. Here, she shares how hospitals can benefit from a clear purpose, and how to achieve it. 

 

Episode Introduction 

Lauren discusses how purpose is every organization’s North Star, how it creates passion and reveals the survey that shows people prioritize purpose over profit She also shares Ingenovis’ ACT (Advocacy, Careers, Tools) program, discusses the rationale behind ‘’building a home for healthcare talent,’’ explains why support from the C-Suite is vital to achieve purpose, and outlines how leading by example can impact an entire organization. 

 

Show Topics

 

The purpose of Ingenovis Health

Highlighting the human element of healthcare

Bringing your purpose and mission statement together

The common challenges of achieving buy-in

How to bring purpose to life

Leading by example and leaning into purpose

 

01:54 The purpose of Ingenovis Health 

Lauren explained how Ingenovis Health became one of the largest healthcare staffing companies. 

‘’… I'll start with Ingenovis Health because it's kind of new to the market. Ingenovis Health was founded in early 2021 with the merger of four leading healthcare talent providers, and at the time, that was Fastaff and U.S. Nursing, Trustaff Travel Nursing and CardioSolution. So those four companies came together in the early of 2021, and we've since acquired three more. So now Ingenovis Health is one of the largest healthcare staffing companies in the industry. We're about a $2 billion company placing around 10,000 doctors, nurses and allied professionals in positions nationwide. They're mostly travel positions, Jim, temporary positions, some permanent, but really, really large reach in who we place in our clients nationwide. As Chief Marketing Officer, I'm responsible for the marketing, the brand, the communications, and as the first chief marketing officer of Ingenovis Health, I also had the unique opportunity to contribute to the development of the purpose and the mission for the new organization.‘’

 

04:04 Highlighting the human element of healthcare

Lauren said we need to be aware of the impact of ongoing trauma on frontline employees, especially after the pandemic. 

‘’…we have to just keep the human element at the core of it. And you know better than anybody, when you think about how much the nurses are dealing with from long shifts to understaffed units, lack of PPE during COVID, I think you could easily disassociate yourself from the idea that those are real people with their own lives and families, and they're dedicating so much of their energy and their attention to their patients. So it really is a very human industry, and you have to, again, keep them at the core of it. One of the things about our nurses, our doctors, our allies, is that they're just experiencing stuff that other people don't experience in their jobs. So they're seeing a lot of death, particularly during COVID. They're experiencing traumatic events along the way, and oftentimes they're called to come back in on days off, even though they haven't really had a sufficient break just because there's not enough help. So you really have to keep thinking of them as you define purpose in anything that impacts the healthcare industry.’’ 

 

10:34: Bringing your purpose and mission statement together

Lauren illustrated how Ingenovis Health linked their purpose and mission statement in a post-Covid context.  

‘’The mission statement for Ingenovis Health is that we create ecosystems where healthcare talent can grow, thrive, and deliver the best patient care. And so as I was mentioning before, another thing that was coming out of COVID was you'd find a nurse or a doctor who had just done 18 months of COVID assignments back-to-back and really needed a break. And so through the merger of our seven different companies, we provide those opportunities that they can choose based on where they are in their careers, their lives, or their psyche. So for example, someone who's really burned out on bedside can come to our company healthcare support and get a mental rest. Maybe take a one year or two year assignment as a case manager, someone who's working remotely, just not bedside, but still apply their clinical talents. On the flip side, you might have a nurse who's trying to quickly grow their experience and accelerate their earning potential, and they can take a one week strike assignment with U.S. Nursing, working a 60 hour week in a high stress situation where there's really very little orientation and training, and that grows their value and their experience. And we offer the same thing for doctors. Doctors within our locum tenens company, VISTA can take short or longer term assignments around the country and through our brand CardioSolution that places cardiac specialists in underserved communities, rural communities nationwide for one to three year assignments. So there's a lot of variety there. And depending on where you are in your career, we feel you've got the home, you can stay in this ecosystem and still have a lot of different experiences.’’

 

19:40 The common challenges of achieving buy-in

Lauren said the key to delivering purpose is the support of the C-Suite. 

‘’What I've seen is that you do need the support of the CEO or your executive leadership or your managing director, whoever it is, or people don't take it seriously. And not everybody is always going to be the optimistic, hopeful champion of your purpose that you are envisioning. But those folks can get on board if they see it in the leadership above them, and they can at least believe, well, this is where he thinks we should be going, where she thinks we should be going. So again, that top-down leadership is vitally important, and then you have to be serious about it. It has to remain a focus in your strategy as well as operations. So did you hire the proper people? Are they properly skilled? Did you devote resources? Did you give it attention? Are you talking about it? Because if you're not authentic in your commitment to the purpose, it becomes pretty clear, especially during tough times when you have to make difficult decisions about where to invest time and money.’’

 

22:08 How to bring purpose to life

Lauren said Ingenovis try to understand the voice of the clinician and recognize their teams to bring their purpose to life. 

‘’Some of the things we do, in addition to trying to understand the voice of the clinician, we also make sure that we take time to recognize the opportunities to reward them, recognize them, like Nurses Week, Doctor's Day, Mental Wellness Week, these are the things that we try not to miss, and we try to say, you're thinking about it, we're thinking about it. Let's make a big splash with the resources we have. We've also had a very successful PR campaign over the last few years where we've been able to secure placements for our nurses and our doctors on really large media outlets, including the Today Show multiple times. Good Morning America, CNBC, Fox News, really, really big news outlets who are giving our nurses and doctors a voice and a chance to be heard. And that's an authentic way for us to bring the purpose to life because going back to that research we did before developing the ACT program, how can you develop a program if you don't know what people are seeking, what they're dying for? One of the things we heard is that the nurses felt like they weren't listened to and they didn't feel like they were part of the conversation, and they got a lot of hero accolades in the beginning of COVID, and then it really died down and got quiet. But it's not because they stopped doing exactly the same thing. It's just our attention moved on to other things.’’ 

 

24:56 Leading by example and leaning into purpose

Lauren said the customer must be the focus in all areas of leadership. 

‘’…. like anything in marketing, just be thinking about your customer. And for me, again, I made such a big shift. I was working in sports for a long time. I made this shift into healthcare, and I've just learned so much and grown to respect and value the contributions of everyone in this industry. It's complicated and it's often challenging. There's many opinions about who's the villain and there isn't one. It's just a really complex market with financial pressures and these shortages that are happening. So just always be thinking about your customer. The other thing I would say is lead by example, because it's just amazing how much other people will mirror your attitude and your actions, and you want to be a force for good in your organization. That I think the last thing I'll say just based on our topic today is lean into purpose as part of driving clarity and focus for your teams. So you're not only creating alignment, but you're also inspiring passion for what you do and why you're doing it, and giving them a sense of pride in the mission. So that consistency in action and messaging is really important.’’

 

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You’ll also hear: 

 

Linking purpose and passion: ‘’I think different companies do it in different ways. For us, we look at the purpose as the North Star, the guiding light, your vision for what the company stands for today and in the future. And the mission statement for us is how you achieve that grand vision. So in other words, the mission statement is what you're creating along the way to fulfill on your purpose.’’ 

Creating a clinician focused clinician first purpose; the rationale behind ‘’A home for healthcare talent.’’ 

How purpose creates passion, and the study that found nearly three quarters of respondents believe purpose should ‘’have more weight than profits’’.

Creating the ACT program (Advocacy, Careers, Tools). How Ingenovis Healthcare committed to improving the careers and wellbeing of its clinicians. ‘’That was us bringing the purpose statement to life, and it's a program that we're investing in.’’

 

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