Dustin Lipson: I saw the iPhone 15 commercial and we decided, let's give this one a go.
April Young-Bennett: What's an accomplishment you're proud of from 2023?
Dustin Lipson: The most significant I think for us this year was our awarding of Magnet status. We were super excited to recognize our nursing colleagues and all of the teams that support our nursing colleagues.
April Young-Bennett: What does success look like to you in 2024?
Dustin Lipson: To me, the most important thing in 2024 is a continued focus on our caregivers. We talk a lot about caregiver engagement. We have now surveyed people what feels like every week of the year, but the truth is it's only four times a year. We care deeply about the voice of all of our caregivers.
This year in particular, I think financial results and stewardship is going to be more of a focus. We're heading into a period broadly in the economy where we're starting to see higher interest rates, more inflation. We haven't been able to pass those costs on to payers [insurance companies, Medicaid, etc.] and that is creating a significant strain on the system as a whole and obviously as a result on Primary Children's too. So we'll be doing a lot to try to make sure that we can be good stewards and that we can create a system that's sustainable for the future for our families and for our caregivers.
April Young-Bennett: So when you talk about how we need to be good stewards and try to make things sustainable for those of us who are just rank-and-file caregivers, what does that look like for us?
Dustin Lipson: Be thoughtful about what we're asking for.
I also think we've seen a lot of really great ideas come from caregivers. For example, in Audiology, they did an amazing job of what seems like a simple reorganization project, allowing them to understand what supplies they had and whether they were expired or not expired and what equipment and where it was, and that that simple project yielded I think like $250,000 a year in savings.
Or where we can use less expensive resources to accomplish the same goal? Things like top of license is big for us. And how are we getting rid of things that we really just don't need to be doing? Or getting people involved to reduce the amount of work it takes for us to accomplish certain things. So my ask would be to be on the lookout for things like this, things that feel like, “This feels not value-added,” or “If we could do this differently, we could probably do this a lot more efficiently.” Those kinds of ideas will be really important in 2024.
April Young-Bennett: What are you excited for in 2024?
Dustin Lipson: I think the most obvious one is the opening of Lehi. That will be an amazing milestone for us, hopefully coming in February.
April Young-Bennett: Are there any last words of wisdom you want to share with our caregivers before we close?
Dustin Lipson: Yeah, thanks. I just want to say thank you. I think that you'd all do such a tremendous job and I'm so proud to be associated with Primary Children's. Obviously, I don't work directly with children day-to-day, but I love working with people who work with children. It's a true passion to serve the people of Primary Children's and I just feel a tremendous amount of gratitude to have that opportunity.