CEO FORUM | Executive Attendees

On creating organizational change:

“Innovation and change are the only way to grow. We have around 1,700 initiatives we are working on at any one time, and I have a small A-team assigned to each one of them. I tell them, ‘Don’t stop until you bring me the head of the problem we are talking about.’”

On transitioning organizational focus:

“Even if tomorrow we run off to work on well care instead of sick care, payment reform will still be against us. No matter what we want to do or try to do, we’re going to be in the sick business, not the well business, for some time to come.”

On the next generation workforce:

“The younger generation doesn’t know about the mess we have. So they’re the ones that are going to come and fix it. We recently gave $3 million to a community college that is graduating a lot of our healthcare staff. If we’re going to say we want to change healthcare, we have to incent our way to getting a new kind of workforce. If you’re employing people with a two-year degree program, within eight years you can have a cultural revolution. We are trying to buy our way into changing the way providers provide care. We can help break the cycle.”
 

About William K. Atkinson:

William (Bill) K. Atkinson, PhD, MPH, MPA is president and chief executive officer of WakeMed Health & Hospitals in Raleigh, North Carolina. Dr. Atkinson is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and holds adjunct faculty positions in the School of Global Public Health and the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of the North Carolina State University’s Kenan Fellows Board of Advisors. He is recognized nationally for his leadership in disaster preparedness and response, emergency medical services, workforce development, and for his work in reducing gang activity. He lectures frequently on innovation diffusion in healthcare, science, education, and public policy.