With eyes and ears open, Sunny Eappen takes the helm at UVM Health Network

Dr. Sunil “Sunny” Eappen has spent the first few weeks on his job as the new leader of the UVM Health Network, traversing Lake Champlain from Vermont to New York and visiting all six hospitals in the network. . Eappen told VTDigger last month that he promised to visit hospitals “very regularly” and expects to travel frequently.

The visits aren’t as hands-on as the ones he made during his 14 years as a Boston hospital administrator. His Eappen, an obstetric anesthesiologist, scheduled one workday and his one on-call each month at the busy maternity center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. But the purpose is the same. A direct and immediate view of what his typical day looks like for staff and patients.

“It gave me a real sense of what it would be like to keep working.” New Role as President and CEO “I could really understand when people were complaining,” whether during a pandemic or implementing a new electronic medical record system.

According to longtime colleague and recent supervisor Ron Wells, chief operating officer of the parent organization of Brigham Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, meeting and listening to as many people as possible can help. It’s a core element of who Sunny Eppen is. He believes urges are part of what makes Eppen so effective.

“He’s a great listener. He’s a quick adaptor. He’s ready to take feedback and change course if necessary,” Wells said. “He’s one of the most selfless leaders I’ve ever worked with in academic medicine.”

As Chair of the Emergency Medicine Department, Wells worked with Eappen to streamline and codify how anesthesiologists attend the emergency room. In 2018, after being promoted to executive level, Wells returned his Eappen to Brigham and named him chief medical officer, where he was serving at the Eye and Ear Clinic in Massachusetts.

Moving from a small specialty hospital is a “big step,” Wells said, perhaps even bigger than moving from Brigham Hospital to large UVM Health. But according to Wells, Eppen took it in stride. “If I met Sunny three weeks later, I would have sworn that Sunny had been in the role for five years,” he said.

In fact, at that scale, Brigham is slightly larger than the UVM Health network. The former cost $4.5 billion in 2021, with about 21,000 employees and 1,000 licensed hospital beds, while UVM Health costs just under $2.4 billion, with a combined total of 15,000 employees and 1,000 hospital beds. There were 620 licensed inpatient beds. Boston Hospital trains doctors through its partnership with Harvard Medical School, as well as UVM Health’s relationship with Lerner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont.

Eappen’s achievements in the past four years at Brigham University, including ten months as interim president, included a complete restructuring of pharmacy operations, making them more patient-friendly and efficient, Wells said. says Mr. Eappen also confronted some “extremely challenging professionalism issues” with empathy and an equal hand.

“He was really good at that because he always put the patient first,” Wells said. “He always cared about his providers, and he cared a lot, but the trump card was the patient.”

Eappen says his model for patient service is his father. His father was a pediatrician in the Chicago area who rarely spent a night without waking up attending to a family with a sick child. Eppen’s caring and gentle demeanor was informed by a very public tragedy that rocked his young family many years ago.

In 1997, his eight-month-old son Matthew died from being violently shaken. Later that year, a jury convicted an English au pair, hired to care for an infant and older brother, of second-degree murder in his death, but a judge ruled against indictment and sentencing. The trial attracted international media attention at the time, with radio commentary and hate mail flying, mostly directed at his wife, Debbie, an ophthalmologist, Eppen said. Stated.

The loss changed them and shaped their approach to work and family, Eappen said. The couple changed their medical schedule to part-time to share the care of their three other children.

They also founded the Matty Eappen Foundation, named after their late son. All volunteer organizations his wife is still very active in, educate the public and medical professionals about abusive head injuries, also known as shaken baby syndrome, and help victims and their families. I am dedicated to helping you.

Eappen still feels the impact of the balance the two worked hard to achieve. “I’m not very stressed about what’s going on,” he said. “I think it brought a kind of peace and calmness to me and the people around me, a positivity that I’m happy with.”

These qualities will be an asset for Eappen as it tackles the financial and workforce challenges facing UVM Health and other hospitals across the state.

Health Network’s fiscal year ended as follows: Operating loss of $90 million, mainly because they cannot find enough local workers and have to pay high fees for traveling clinical staff. Most importantly for Eappen, hospital operating margins are currently very low. This has been going on for so long that it has become difficult to invest in the buildings and personnel needed to provide quality care to our patients.

One result: The Vermont Department of Social Services reported that it took most people almost three months or more to see a medical professional at a UVM medical center. longest waiting time in a state.

Eappen says there are at least two key areas where efforts could improve. First, the system needs more workers, so we must do what we can to make UVM Health a place where clinicians and others who support them want to work.This means you will have more projects like recently announced Build 120 new apartment units and a childcare center in South Burlington.

His participation in a group of adjunct physicians at Brigham Hospital in the late 1990s exposed him to issues relating to working parents, especially mothers.

“At the time, it was me and 28 women,” Eappen said. “The challenges they had shaped my thinking about diversity and equity in the workplace.”

Attracting long-term employees is also promoting a mission-oriented culture, he said. “When you clean rooms or serve meals, it’s not just that. You’re actually helping families and helping individual patients get better,” Eappen said. When you’re working, you’re not just doing[information technology]you’re making it easy for patients to see the information they need.”

Second, clinicians, such as doctors and nurses, should be committed to their training as they will receive broader support in providing care by community health staff, pharmacists and social workers. I can.

“Patients can be connected to the entire healthcare system or the office they go to[of various staff members]instead of feeling like it’s just me and the doctor,” he said.

That broader view of care is deeply rooted in the UVM Health staff he interacted with during his visits to the two states. That’s why he was most interested in taking the job because he sees it as his job to support.

“The idea that we are dedicated to providing and delivering care for everyone and that the quality of care is the same wherever you live and regardless of your skin color, that is the dream,” said Eppen. “It becomes a whole different company when we start thinking that the whole community is ours and we have to commit to looking after them.”

Mike Fisher, a state health advocate who works for Vermont legal aid, welcomes Yeepen to a very difficult task. , to meet the real needs of the state’s largest health care system without making it inaccessible.

Vermont hospitals often turn to Green Mountain Care Commission regulations for permission to increase rates on commercial insurance as a primary source of new revenue. The 2021 Annual Health Insurance Survey found that nearly 40% of insured people in Vermont are fully insured, while only 3% are uninsured. indicated that it is considered unenrolled. .

“They may really need a price increase from their perspective, and that price increase will cost more Vermonters out of their ability to get the care they need,” Fisher said. For someone who wants to do both, it’s difficult.”