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Warner Thomas

President and CEO of Sutter Health, the Northern California not-for-profit health system; previously led Ochsner Health for a decade.

Sep 23, 2026

17:57
What did you learn about what it takes not just to lead an organization, but to lead an organization that is growing and changing constantly?
18:07
So a couple of things.
18:08
One, I would say we did it because it was a team that did that.
18:11
We had an amazing team at Ochsner.
18:15
And then we had new folks that came in, people that just so good at what they did and what they do.
18:22
We did it together.
18:23
And we had a great teacher in Pat Quinlan who helped set us up for this success.

7 MINS LATER

25:30
What did you do first? What did you know you had to do differently as an outsider?
6:00
When you're thinking through, um, the ambulatory strategy, what does that do to challenge the assumptions that your team had about the healthcare environment in the past, and what did it change about how you approach decision-making a- as well as organizational readi- readiness?
6:13
readiness?So I think one of the things we try to do is, you know, we have a very clear communication strategy.
6:21
We, we operate with the principle of transparency.
6:24
We're very clear within our organization about what we're doing and why we're doing it.
6:29
You know, we have one incentive plan that covers our whole entire leadership team.
6:33
We have one set of, you know, AIP metrics that covers our whole organization.
6:38
We really align around all those things.
10:41
Um, and how are you ensuring some of the digital investments that you're making are actually supporting rather than straining the workforce?

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