After merger of Wisconsin hospital systems, CEO sees ‘best of all worlds’

It’s now been a little over seven months since the formation of Froedtert ThedaCare Health in Wisconsin, and Imran Andrabi is encouraged by the success of the integration of the two hospital systems.

Imran Andrabi, MD, is president and CEO of Froedtert ThedaCare Health, a Wisconsin system with 18 hospitals and more than 360 other healthcare locations. Froedtert and ThedaCare merged at the beginning of the year.

Andrabi, MD, the president and CEO of Froedtert ThedaCare, tells Chief Healthcare Executive® that the merger of the systems “has gone better than I ever expected.”

“When you bring two organizations together, there are always going to be some bumps in the road, but what I find to a fault is every single person that I have come across, whether it's in the community or within our organizations, is super excited about the possibilities, about the opportunities, and what we can do together as an organization,” he says.

Froedtert and ThedaCare agreed to merge last year and formally came together Jan. 1. The two systems now jointly operate 18 hospitals and more than 360 other healthcare locations. Froedtert, based in Milwaukee, operates 10 hospitals and partners with the Medical College of Wisconsin to provide healthcare services. ThedaCare, based in Neenah, runs eight hospitals and serves northeast and central Wisconsin.

Andrabi has also taken on an expanded role. He initially served as president of Froedtert ThedaCare and Cathy Jacobson, president and CEO of Froedtert, served as CEO of the merged organization. Jacobson retired in July, following plans she announced last year, and Andrabi now serves as both president and CEO of the merged system.

In an interview with Chief Healthcare Executive, Andrabi discusses the integration of the systems, his plans for the future to expand access to care and why he’s relentlessly focused on innovation and making care more seamless. He’s also embracing his expanded leadership role.

“It's a great responsibility, and I take that very seriously and am very excited about the opportunities that are ahead of us,” Andrabi says.

• Read more: Froedtert, ThedaCare leaders say health equity is top priority

‘A dream come true’

Andrabi says he’s excited to offer more options for care across Wisconsin. With the merger, Froedtert ThedaCare’s reach extends across a broad swath of the state and down to the Illinois-Wisconsin border.

Both systems have built credibility with their community by delivering on their promises in the past, he says.

“It's the best of all worlds, and best of all worlds for our community members,” he says. “As a physician who's been taking care of underserved populations for a long period of time, and who's been involved with academic medicine for a long period of time, this is like a dream come true,” he says.

Andrabi says he’s focused on “staying true to our mission and vision and values, and ensuring that these two organizations from the state of Wisconsin that have come together, are staying close to our roots in Wisconsin, leadership in Wisconsin, governance in Wisconsin, for the people of Wisconsin.”

While acknowledging some of the complexities involved in the merger, Andrabi says that team members are enthusiastic and he hasn’t seen resistance to the integration. He says that enthusiasm “has been a really, really positive thing.”

The newly merged system has been working to integrate the finances of the organizations. Froedtert ThedaCare is now working on a new budget year, which started in July.

“It sounds like a little thing, but as you can imagine, there's a lot of work that has gone behind the scenes to be able to put that together,” he says.

Focus on safety and quality

When asked what success looks like in the future, Andrabi mentions a number of goals and plans, but he starts with patient safety and high quality care. “That’s focus number one,” he says.

Both organizations were in the top 10% nationwide in a variety of performance measures, and he says the goal is to remain in that high echelon as a merged system.

“Staying at the top decile is actually more difficult than reaching the top decile, because you have to continuously improve and work and make sure that you're doing what we need to do. So as a philosophy, our organization is sort of set at top decile performance,” Andrabi says.

He also makes a point of saying that the organization wants that high-quality care beyond Wisconsin’s larger cities.

“I'm not just talking about Milwaukee,” he says. “If you're in Shawano, you should expect top decile. If you're in Berlin, you should expect top decile.”

The system is also looking to expand the breadth of its care, from primary care to specialties such as oncology and transplants, more widely across Wisconsin. Andrabi says he’s happy to be able to offer more options to provide care to patients within the merged system, meaning patients and families will be able to get what they need closer to home.

Froedtert ThedaCare is also working on expanding access to care and services in Wisconsin’s rural areas.

“Our farming communities, they are so involved in the farming day to day, that they don't even have time to come to a clinic or come to a hospital,” Andrabi says. “So as our folks were taking care of that particular group of people, they said, ‘This is not going to work in the traditional way. We have to have some non-traditional ways of taking care of people.’ And so we actually send nurses out to the farms.”

The system is also developing “significant virtual health and digital health capabilities” to make it easier for people to reach a clinician, he says.

Looking to the future

The system is also looking toward the future of healthcare, and trying to give patients more convenience, Andrabi explains.

“We have some phenomenal clinical leaders that have come together over the last six months,” he says. “They've been working together from ThedaCare, Froedtert Health, and MCW, trying to imagine what a future state would look like, where you come at it from the perspective of a patient in our communities, and that's been really, really exciting.”

Andrabi says there’s going to be “a tremendous amount of emphasis on the reinvention of what healthcare looks like, innovation at its best.”

He says he wants to ensure that the health system, including the Medical College of Wisconsin, are evolving faster than the competition.

“Healthcare is changing very, very rapidly,” he says. “I've seen more change in the last five years than I've seen in 20 years, and that's going to continue. And so to be at that pace is going to be extremely important.”

The partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin is a critical component of the organization’s goals. He says the system is looking to expand its medical education footprint farther north, including the Neenah market. He also says the merged system should have more success in recruiting and retaining top talent.

“We also have a great opportunity to train the next generation of people in our communities, for our communities,” Andrabi says.

Andrabi says he’s thrilled to see the way the system’s leaders are thinking creatively and trying to solve problems to offer better care.

“I'm very proud of our leaders in terms of how they are approaching the work, and how they are tackling the work and ultimately making the right decisions, not only for today, but also to set us up for the future,” he says.

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