(bright music)
-: Well, gentlemen, as our time today draws to a close,
let me raise one sort of final question for your comments,
and that's growth, right?
A word that's not a minimal of a single definition,
but Rob, I wanna get your take
on where you see growth going for BCH
and how this partnership helps fuel that.
-: Well, one of the underlying requisites
for us to achieve our goals, remain independent,
have sustained financial stability
is we're gonna have to grow,
like every organization, every healthcare system.
But historically, when we set out
and looked at the year ahead,
we would sit down and roll the dice.
Maybe hopefully apply some principles and a lot of hope
and we'd come up with something like,
well, you know, ambulatory, maybe we'll grow 2%
and inpatient side wIll grow 1%
or 1 1/2 if and when we balance things out.
What we lacked was the precision
and the ability to, well, grow in a smart way.
And while we recognized the need to do that,
we just didn't have the capabilities.
Now, with our partner,
we not only have the data and the analytics,
we have the resources of their marketing team.
I listened to a presentation the end of last week
and it was around precision marketing.
And they had taken some of our data
and they came back with answers to questions
we didn't even know we had.
How many individuals within our secondary service area
are not even aware that they could benefit from,
for example, our structural heart program.
And so it's also around making sure
that we reach the right people and grow in the right way.
And of course, make sure we grow profitably.
We still have to sustain our mission.
We still have to have the resources
to make sure that we have equitable access
to everybody within our community,
which means outside our community,
we may have to be more strategic.
And the tools and the capabilities
that Optum brings to bear us significantly exceeds anything.
Not only that, I think we had,
but when I look at my local market,
I think we actually have a competitive edge
over systems much larger than us.
So I'm really excited about how we grow
in the next several years.
(bright music)