From Columbus Business First, Women of Influence is an interview series showcasing some of the most powerful women in the Central Ohio business community. Hosted by Eleanor Kennedy, Assistant Managing Editor.
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episode 29: Crisis Management: Hal Paz on steering Wexner Medical Center through the pandemic (and more)
When Dr. Hal Paz stepped into a newly created role at Ohio State University last June, he told Columbus Business First, “I want to be at the place that defines the next century of what healthcare looks like.”
No one could have imagined this century.
"What has happened in the past year is incredible, unbelievable, remarkable," Paz said, in the latest episode of Columbus Business First's Crisis Management podcast. "In part we got there because of this (coronavirus) pandemic, but a lot of it already was going through a process of change and, and the key ingredient in all this is innovation."
For 13 months Paz has been the university's executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs, as well as CEO of its Wexner Medical Center. In that role, he has oversight of the $4 billion hospital system and faculty physician practice, plus the university health plan and all seven colleges in the health sciences – not just the medical school but nursing, pharmacy and other professions.
The university's vision is to better integrate the training of those professionals, and the research by those disciplines, Paz said.
"We have this new framework, this new vision for the future that I really am passionate about," he said. "This becomes the defining characteristic of what an academic health center is in the future.
"How do you train a nurse and a doctor and a pharmacist and a public health worker and everyone involved in this process together at the same time – teaching them the same language, teaching them the same process of care from day one – as opposed to dropping them into a healthcare are setting and then retraining them or trying to understand why things are not lining up the way they should?"
A physician and engineer, Paz came to Columbus after five years as chief medical officer for Aetna Inc. Before that he’d led a fellow Big Ten academic medical center and med school, Penn State.
Our wide-ranging interview covers the response to the pandemic, the future of telemedicine, OSU’s reinvigorated anti-racism agenda and much more.