Q&A

How an Entrepreneurial Mindset Set One Physician on a Path to Leadership

Having an impact on people comes with being a clinician, but at Vituity you get to decide the kind of impact you want to make. We were founded by emergency physicians who wanted more control over providing the best care possible for their community. And that legacy continues today through a culture that empowers innovation, entrepreneurship, and ownership. As an emergency physician Dr. Adnan Hussain noticed a common need among his patients – getting the correct follow-up care after their discharge. With the support of leadership and his colleagues, he developed an innovative solution to answer that need, the Patient Navigator program, that is now being implemented across the country.

In conversation with

Imamu Tomlinson, MD, MBA

CEO of Vituity and President of Vituity Cares

We sat down with Dr. Hussain to learn about the impact he has had and what motivates him to do more.

In only four short years as a Vituity emergency physician, Adnan Hussain, MD, has established himself as an emerging leader. He was on the front lines of the COVID-19 response, serving as Emergency Department Medical Director and Chair and as Interim Chief Medical Officer for COVID-19 at Amita Health Saint Joseph Medical Center Joliet (IL). He now serves as a Regional Director.

In 2020, Dr. Hussain was awarded the Community Emergency Medicine Excellence Award by the American College of Emergency Physicians and received a Letter of Commendation from the American Board of Emergency Medicine.

Q: Where do you think your drive to create change and to challenge yourself comes from?

Dr. Hussain: My parents immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan, and as most kids of immigrant parents can tell you, there is this natural drive instilled in you to “make it”. My parents viewed this as dedicating one’s life to doing good for others while growing roots in the U.S. and integrating into our local community. This has driven me to pursue opportunities and challenges that others might not have. From an early age, I was interested in leadership.

Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s with the last name Hussain was an experience unto itself. As a kid, I was asked if Saddam Hussein was my relative almost every day. I found myself constantly explaining that it’s quite a common name like Johnson or Smith. I still get comments from patients, and sometimes these are discriminatory and racist in nature.

These types of challenging situations certainly can cause one to question their identity, but I’ve never wavered in my pride for my heritage and culture. Integrity was very important to my parents and learning to reconcile a variety of cultural identities was an important part of growing up for me. This what drives me to take on new challenges, to keep developing new ideas and solutions, and to impact real change to the way healthcare is delivered.

Vituity has a culture that not only supports innovation but encourages it, and I was really drawn to that.

Q: You mentioned a motivation for you is the goal of transforming healthcare delivery for the better. What does this mean to you?

Dr. Hussain: It goes back to the idea of seeing a problem and being empowered to create solutions. Vituity has a culture that not only supports innovation but encourages it, and I was really drawn to that.

Let me give you an example. My colleagues and I noticed that many of the patients we discharged from the ED were struggling to find follow-up care. For instance, we discharge patients from the ED after an evaluation for chest pain, and their instructions are to see a cardiologist in 2-3 days. The patient will call the cardiologist, and maybe they can’t be seen for six weeks, or that practice won’t take their insurance. That’s where the current system falls short.

To close this gap, we worked with Vituity leadership to design a patient care navigation program. By implementing a program of care navigators to assist patients with arranging their follow-up care, we were able to demonstrate $500K in savings in the first year, while also providing higher quality care, and doing the right thing for the patient. It was very exciting to see this local pilot developed into a national program through the work of Vituity’s Innovation and Operations Team. They have the know-how to take these gems at local practices and scale them effectively across multiple health systems.

I am particularly proud of this program not only because we piloted it in my department but also because of the countless patients we’ve now helped. We’ve made sure they continue to get the care they need even though they aren’t considered “ours” anymore. Patient navigation allows me to practice medicine in a way that feels good and gives back to both patients and colleagues. Being empowered to help design and implement solutions to every-day problems encountered in clinical practice helps me feel like I am really transforming healthcare and changing the world for the better.

Being empowered to design and implement solutions to every-day problems encountered in clinical practice helps me feel like I am really transforming healthcare and changing the world for the better.

Q: You have made quite an impact in only four years at Vituity. What lies ahead for you?

Dr. Hussain: I am enjoying my role, as it affords an ability to impact positive change for individual patients and at systems levels. As a Regional Director, I am able to build organizations andlook forward to continuing to have opportunities to do this in the context of my health system, region, and Vituity. In particular, the creative component of entrepreneurship has a strong appeal, and I have appreciated that Vituity has embraced the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation in many ways. Vituity is an organization that celebrates differences and empowers everyone to identify and solve problems. In my leadership role, I am able to coach and mentor leaders with an interest in innovation to solve problems that face our practice everyday.

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