Becker’s asked 14 healthcare leaders what steps they’re taking to align quality, Safety, and financial performance in 2026.
The leaders featured below are speaking at Becker’s Perioperative Summit, Sept. 14-Sep. 15, 2026, at the Hilton Chicago.
If you would like to join the event as a speaker, please contact Scott King at sking@beckershealthcare.com.
As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is connecting with healthcare leaders who will speak at the event to get their perspectives on key issues in the industry.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: How does your system plan on aligning quality, safety, and financial performance without slowing throughput in 2026?
Mamatha Kadiyala, MD. Medical Director, Utilization Management and Director, Thoracic and Vascular Anesthesia, University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Mn.) At the University of Minnesota, quality and safety are foundational to improving throughput and financial performance. We deliberately design our operating model so these priorities reinforce, rather than compete with, one another. Key examples include:
Standardized perioperative pathways to improve quality and throughput
We are standardizing high-volume perioperative care, including earlier and more reliable PACU discharge, by implementing tighter, evidence-based perioperative pathways. These pathways reduce length of stay, improve bed availability, enhance care quality, and drive stronger financial performance through more efficient capacity utilization.
System Quality Council: reducing harm to protect capacity
We invest robustly in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives to reduce preventable harm and preserve clinical capacity. Our proactive approach focuses on identifying near misses and implementing early intervention to prevent safety events. The System Quality Council meets monthly to track progress and ensure accountability. Each avoided adverse event improves capacity and financial performance.
Optimizing the care continuum through coordinated, value-based care
We focus on the full care continuum, including effective care coordination, addressing social determinants of health, and improving transitions of care, through our TEAMS model. These efforts reduce readmissions and length of stay within a value-based care framework. By minimizing rework and improving outcomes, we align incentives across multidisciplinary teams
The right care setting and the right documentation
We improve throughput and reduce financial leakage by determining outpatient versus inpatient/observation status earlier through utilization review, aligned clinical documentation prompts, proactive payer authorization workflows, and focused clinical documentation integrity (CDI) efforts. These measures reduce downstream denials and administrative rework.
Supply and implant standardization
We reduce costs and improve safety through surgical supply and implant standardization, reducing variability while maintaining high-quality outcomes.
Data transparency and accountability
We use shared dashboards that integrate quality, throughput, and financial metrics and are visible to all department leaders. This transparency enables rapid process improvement, shared accountability, and data-driven decision-making.
David. J. Kwak. Director, Surgical Services, Northwest Health (Valparaiso, In.): Our approach in 2026 is to continue and our successes from 2025, simplify workflows where we can, standardize where it matters, communicate and use real time data to manage throughput instead of reacting after the fact. Improvements we saw in reliability, cost per case, and OR utilization came from tighter alignment between clinical teams and operations not adding more processes. We’re continuing to hold ourselves accountable to a small set of shared metrics that surgeons, nursing, and leadership all own. That alignment allows us to protect patient outcomes, control costs, and keep cases moving without slowing the system down. For us, throughput improves when the work as teams that are engaged, and variables are reduced.
Alice M. Krumm, DNP. Faculty, Vanderbilt Health (Nashville, Tn.): Our system is aligning quality, safety, and financial performance by focusing on culture as a driver of operational excellence. Research shows that patients treated by clinicians who model disrespect are 20–30% more likely to experience avoidable complications, and these behaviors account for up to 70% of malpractice costs. By implementing professionalism programs that promote psychological safety, respect, and accountability, we reduce risk, improve team engagement, and lower turnover—without slowing throughput. These strategies create high-functioning teams that deliver safer care and better financial outcomes.
Courtney M. Pearson. Assistant Vice President, Operations, Perioperative Service Line, MedStar Health (Columbia, Md.): In 2026, our perioperative strategy will align quality, safety, and financial performance by hardwiring reliability into operations while removing non–value-added variation that slows throughput. Through system-wide clinical standardization, real-time OR performance management, and workforce models aligned to demand and case complexity, we will improve outcomes and efficiency simultaneously.
Financial stewardship will be embedded at the point of care through surgeon-led supply and implant standardization, reducing cost per case without introducing friction or delays. Safety will remain a throughput enabler by preventing avoidable harm that disrupts schedules and consumes capacity. Together, these actions allow us to increase access and case volume within existing resources while improving margins, staff engagement, and patient outcomes.
David Rivera, DNP. Assistant Vice President, Medical Surgical Service, The Valley Hospital (Paramus, Nj.): Valley Health System is committed to enhancing operational efficiencies though optimizing technology that reduces administrative burden on our clinical staff. Our healthcare team needs to be focused on clinical care, which in turn, improves quality and patient safety. Reducing the cognitive burden creates a safer environment without disrupting throughput. Virtual care and leveraging ambient AI technology are two ways in which technology is changing care delivery models.
Veronica Busso, MD. Vice Chief, Clinical Affairs and Operations Associate Perioperative Staff Chief, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (Cincinnati, Oh.): Our hospital footprint has expanded to include two new outpatient surgery centers. To ensure patients receive care in the most appropriate setting, we developed a dashboard that aligns patient acuity, procedure type, and geographic proximity to support best-fit, close-to-home scheduling while shifting appropriate cases to non-main campus sites. This approach creates surgical capacity at the main hospital for higher-complexity cases, increases appropriate inpatient and ICU utilization to support financial sustainability, and ensures our highest-acuity patients receive care where our specialized expertise is most needed.
Sunitha Abraham, DNP. Associate Vice President, Perioperative and Procedural services, Jackson Health System (Miami, Fl.): By standardizing clinical pathways such as ERAS protocols, unified trauma resuscitation workflows, standardized discharge processes, and consistent pre‑op anesthesia evaluations, we can significantly reduce variation and strengthen overall reliability. Coupled with enhanced pre‑procedure optimization and the use of real time operational analytics, we can improve safety and efficiency without compromising throughput.
Continued workforce development and cross‑training, along with stronger sterile processing and supply chain support, will further stabilize operations. Leveraging technology to reduce administrative burden and maintaining continuous feedback loops with frontline teams will ensure that improvements remain grounded in daily practice. Embedding quality and safety metrics into operational decision‑making will align performance across the system and drive sustainable results in 2026.
Stephen Estime, MD. Associate Chair, Anesthesiology and Critical Care, UChicago Medicine (Chicago, Il.): Much of our work leading into 2026 has focused on clearly articulating our institution’s mission, vision, and values. Quality, safety, throughput, and financial decisions are anchored to that shared mission, which has allowed us to be more intentional about how we invest in research, education, and clinical care. That clarity has helped us reduce friction by investing in areas that advance our goals and stepping away from work that adds unnecessary complexity or makes the mission harder to achieve.
Jesus Angulo. Director, Procedural Services, University of Chicago Ingalls Memorial Hospital (Chicago, Il.): At the University of Chicago Medicine, we align quality, safety, and financial performance by actively engaging frontline staff and clearly communicating that every operational decision is centered on the patient. When our teams are empowered and involved, complacency decreases and shortcuts are avoided, resulting in safer, more reliable care. This commitment to efficient and dependable care ensures patients are seen and treated as individuals, not just numbers, enhancing their overall experience. Our patient-centered approach not only drives higher satisfaction but also supports sustainable financial performance without compromising throughput
Joshua Bedwell, MD. Chief Surgical Quality Officer, Texas Children’s Hospital (Houston, Tx.): At Texas Children’s we believe that if we focus on the fundamentals of high quality and safe patient care, success in other key metrics will follow. We will continue to ensure our perioperative processes are clear, concise, and evidence-based and enhance efficiency by limiting unnecessary delays and cancelations. Finally, we will continue to use rigorous data analysis in searching for opportunities for improvement in operations and quality assurance.
Jared Bement, Vice President, Perioperative, Endoscopy and Women’s Health, St. Elizabeth Healthcare (Edgewood, Ky.): Our leadership team has firmly established that patient quality and safety are our top priorities. We are committed to meeting our financial performance goals without compromising throughput. The two are interdependent; therefore, prioritizing provider and patient access, along with initiatives aimed at reducing length-of-stay, is crucial. Despite the complexities and uncertainties in the current healthcare financial landscape, our ultimate goal is to excel in all aspects.
Jarrett A. Heard, MD. Medical Director, Ambulatory Perioperative Services, Director, Executive Leadership and Business, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (Columbus, Oh.): We plan to leverage predictive algorithms in the electronic medical record (EMR). At the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, we have developed a predictive tool in the EMR (EPIC) that uses discrete data selected by our group of perioperative medicine experts based on patient co-morbidities and surgical risk to triage patients to our virtual screening visit (RN staffed) or in-person assessment center (Physician and APP staffed).
We developed a virtual pharmacy clinic associated with the predictive tool that assists with medication management for certain patients that undergo virtual screening, reducing the need for an in-person visit solely for medication management. We use the data to assign a venue designation for OR pavilion scheduling based on patient co-morbidities (hospital vs. outpatient surgery with observation vs. ambulatory surgery center). Finally, we have a team working to integrate an additional algorithm based on OR utilization, surgical case volume, type of insurance and case costing (direct and indirect costs) with our existing tool to optimize case scheduling, ensuring we take advantage of differences in safety, quality, throughput and reimbursement across our surgical pavilions.
Donise Musheno, Vice President, Perioperative Services, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine (Lancaster, Pa.): Perioperative throughput is essential to driving quality, safety, financial performance, and staff well-being. Efficient operations create the time needed for teams to follow evidence-based best practices, complete key safety checks, and maintain high standards of care.
Our system will continue to focus on daily performance improvements, including:
Ensuring on-time case starts
Reducing room turnover times
Decreasing sterile instrumentation defects
Increasing compliance with timeout and debrief safety checks
Improving staffed room utilization
These collective efforts enhance patient outcomes, strengthen team culture, and improve end-of-day predictability—ultimately supporting staff well-being.
Daniel Elinskas. Associate Director, Surgical Services, St. Mary’s Health (Amsterdam, Ny.): With staffing shortages that are systemic in healthcare, profit margins shrinking and ever-increasing regulatory demands, small community hospitals such as mine need to rely on real time data driven solutions that are proven to be successful across national healthcare systems. Optimizing processes to trim back waste and cultural buy-in are the core tenants of a successful roll out in community hospitals. Sharing the data before and after change with team members further strengthens the buy in for the change and showcases the work the team members have done to make it happen.
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