Oct. 18, 2021

It’s Friday afternoon, and Bill Gassen has just left a meeting that is making it hard to anticipate a weekend ahead.

It has become acutely apparent how many of his Sanford Health colleagues won’t be taking any days off.

“Unfortunately, we still have over 200 patients in the hospital with COVID, over 90 percent of which are unvaccinated,” he said.

“We have staff that are going to be running into the weekend. These are really, really high numbers for them.”

Just prior to this interview, Gassen had received an update on the health system’s census – the number of occupied beds – and it’s a big number.

“We’re extremely busy right now,” he said, adding caregivers “are tired. They’re very, very tired right now.”

Sanford acted early to require COVID-19 vaccination among its more than 47,000 employees – despite ongoing protests outside its hospitals – and “if I had 10 more times to do it, I’d do it the exact same way again,” Gassen said. “Everything else we talk about is irrelevant if we don’t provide a safe environment for patients.”

But mandates don’t apply to all in the public, so he continues to ask himself about messaging.

Is there any other way to say it, he wonders.

Is there a different way to communicate that vaccination will keep you out of the hospital?

He asks the questions without being able to answer them, but repeats the number. Ninety percent.

“Those are individuals who shouldn’t have to be in the hospital, and they’re taking up beds for inpatients who can’t control it,” he said. “There are stroke patients. There are trauma patients.”

And at the moment, the number of people to care for them – there’s no other way to put this – is shrinking. In the Sioux Falls region, Sanford reports more than 800 open full-time positions, an unprecedented level.

The ones who are working occupy a lot of attention at the top of the organization, Gassen said.

“A challenging day here still isn’t as challenging as it is to be that nurse on the floor or that internist in the medical center right now,” said the CEO, who will mark his first year in the role next month. “It’s challenging physically and emotionally, and you layer on close to two years of a pandemic. It just doesn’t let up. Your heart breaks and goes out to them.”

From a people perspective, Gassen is dealing with his own share of current and upcoming vacancies. His team of direct reports looks different and smaller today than it did 10 months ago, and it will change again when executive vice president Micah Aberson departs next month.

Chief people officer Darren Walker, who at one point reported to Gassen, left for other opportunities in recent weeks.

Longtime Sanford leaders Bill Marlette, treasurer, and Randy Bury, president and CEO of The Good Samaritan Society who has held multiple other leadership roles, are planning to retire in December.

The newly reconfigured team reporting to Gassen is five people:

• Matt Hocks, executive vice president and chief operating officer.
• Michelle Bruhn, executive vice president, CFO and treasurer, who will assume Marlette’s duties.
• Jennifer Grennan, executive vice president and chief administrative officer, who will oversee the future head of human resources.
• Nathan Peterson, executive vice president and chief strategy officer.
• Dr. David Shulkin, executive vice president and strategic adviser.

Gassen does not plan to fill Aberson’s position, which is executive vice president and chief development and innovation officer.

“I like the idea of a smaller leadership team and would prefer to concentrate our efforts on those in the operational ranks and in the clinical portions of the organization as opposed to developing a really large executive team,” he said. “I’d rather stay lean at the top and allow our investments to be made where the care is provided.”

Of Aberson’s chief responsibilities, research and the World Clinic operations will fall under Hocks, as well as Sanford Sports; public policy will fall under Grennan; business development will be under Bruhn; and marketing and the Sanford Health Foundation will be under Peterson.

Chief physician Dr. Jeremy Cauwels, chief nursing officer Erica DeBoer and president of Sanford Clinic Dr. Luis Garcia will report up through Hocks.

A search is underway for a new president and CEO of Good Samaritan.

As for the other 800-plus jobs to fill and the approximately 47,000 people Sanford needs to retain, Gassen and his team are stepping up efforts even further to define the organization as an employer of choice.

Late last week, he announced employees will receive a double bonus this year, which is an additional $20 million investment, in addition to the net new investment of $105 million in salaries made this year.

“And that’s not in any way shape or form that it’s all about money,” he said. “But we know that’s important, and our people work really, really hard, so it’s one example we can show we care and demonstrate we understand and appreciate what they do every single day.”

There have been additional investments in expanding awareness and support for employees’ mental and emotional well-being, he added, while pointing out staffing is a challenge in just about every industry.

And there are bright spots, as “we do better than most of our competitors right now,” he said.

But again, the questions come without easy or obvious answers.

“What else can we do to relieve the burden?” he asks.

“What can we do in the community to get to the right point and make the right decisions and allow the staff a break?”

How do you continue to encourage 47,000 people to come into work every day “because they believe they stand in the gap between people getting the best possible care they can and the absence of that?”

“I think that what matters most is culture,” he continued. “It’s always been this way, and we’ve benefited for generations at Sanford Health that people come here because it’s a calling. They believe serving at this organization means something and it’s not just a job. You can get a job anywhere, which is probably more true today than it’s ever been, but you can’t go everywhere and be part of a mission and family like we have at Sanford Health.”