Q&A with David Krajewski, EVP and CFO of LifeBridge Health

October 08, 2020 | Blogs

For this week's interview, David Nevins, President and CEO of Nevins and Associates, spoke with David Krajewski, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of LifeBridge Health. LifeBridge Health is one of the largest health systems in Maryland and includes Sinai Hospital, Northwest Hospital and Carroll Hospital. Below is a condensed version of their conversation:

David Nevins: It is hard to believe it has only been 6 months since COVID-19 began to impact daily life in Maryland and around the world. Tell us about LifeBridge Health's initial response to the pandemic and how you are continuing to evolve to meet COVID-19 related needs as well as the other healthcare needs of the communities you serve.

David Krajewski: 2020 certainly has been a long, interesting year so far. The onset of COVID-19 was a massive challenge for all hospitals and health systems, but I couldn't be prouder of how our team at LifeBridge Health stepped up. We quickly accessed the situation with our leadership teams from both a medical and operational standpoint and immediately made the decision to get people out of our hospitals and facilities who were not patients or direct caregivers. We deployed all non-clinical teams to work from home, including our accounting, procurement, billing, marketing and other administrative functions. That helped us de-risk the situation from an internal standpoint and allowed us to focus on strategically responding to the pandemic and other healthcare needs of our patients and community.

Simultaneously, we realized that access to quality PPE would be an issue and we needed to safeguard our employees. We stockpiled what PPE we could, procured what we could, but realized that still may not be enough. Our LifeBridge Health Innovation Team sprang into action and pulled together a PPE manufacturing facility in a vacant office space on our Northwest Hospital campus. They manufactured a tremendous number of gowns and over 100,000 face masks, including many with donated textile material from Under Armour. We are also stocking up in case more PPE is needed this fall and winter. We have face shields to last a year and continue to fine-tune PPE conservation methods so our supplies are maximized.

We also retrofit facilities to increase our capacity but also control the spread of COVID-19. We had 200 patient rooms that we converted into negative pressure rooms by reworking the HVAC system.

In terms of our response on the healthcare front, we were the first health system in all of Maryland to offer drive up COVID-19 testing and we leveraged our recently launched virtual hospital to create a tele-triage system that reduced the chance of exposure for our staff and patients. It has been amazing to see the massive uptick in use and utility of telemedicine during this time, and I think it will be one of the positives that comes out of this experience.

DN: During spring and early summer, can you talk about how things changed so dramatically at LifeBridge Health when shifting gears to address the needs of the community during the pandemic?

DK: Our Intensive Care Units were very busy but thankfully never overwhelmed. However, the "normal" operations of our health system did change dramatically. Elective surgeries stopped for several weeks. Most ER visits stopped along with regular doctor appointments. That was a major change for us, but thankfully we have been able to start back all of those operations at a safe level at some capacity now.

A major concern for our team was reaching the underserved populations we care for in our communities. We knew we had to get creative to sustain all the Population Health programs people count on us for, including programs for new mothers, people suffering from diabetes, people with food insecurities and other challenges. We also had to get out into the community to test for COVID-19 and make certain resources were getting to those who needed them most. Again, I offer praise to our team for their tenacity and creativity in creating two mobile Community Health Clinics to take services into the neighborhoods where they were needed. We outfitted two unused patient shuttle vans with the equipment and technology we needed to provide testing and treatment in the home. We targeted those resources using a data-driven approach that identified down to a city block area where people were most at risk for negative impacts from COVID-19 and other health issues.

One of the biggest unanticipated challenges at the beginning of the pandemic was how many people would put off much-needed healthcare treatment and check-ups for chronic conditions and serious health problems because they were fearful of going to a healthcare facility due to the perceived risk of COVID-19 spreading. So many people deferred care that they truly needed. I know our teams in the mobile Community Health Clinics saved several people's lives with the visits they made, but this continues to be an area of concern for us.

DN: LifeBridge Health stands out in a crowded healthcare landscape in central Maryland for your commitment to the communities you serve. Can you share what drives that commitment and any recent examples of how your team is making a difference?

DK: I grew up here. Baltimore and Maryland are home for me. For our executive team and top leaders at LifeBridge Health, central Maryland is home and we want to make it the best it can be. LifeBridge Health is a nonprofit organization and we are committed to the communities we serve. I think the best most recent example is bringing Grace Medical Center (formerly Bons Secours Hospital) into the LifeBridge Health family. We are able to bring a state-of-the-art medical facility into a neighborhood in southwest Baltimore that truly needs those resources, including OB-GYN and pediatrics. It goes beyond the traditional healthcare aspect of it and includes rejuvenation of the community through job training, job placement and creating opportunities that makes people invested in those communities and wanting to stay and call it home. It is something that speaks to the core of our mission and we are very excited and charged up about it!