PNºB Episode 32
Summary
This podcast features John Kouris, CEO of Florida Health Sciences Center (Tampa General and its affiliates), a nationally recognized leader in healthcare innovation and organizational transformation. Kouris discusses his background, career path in healthcare, and leadership philosophy. He emphasizes the importance of family, community involvement, and a culture built on authenticity, transparency, kindness, and vulnerability. He also shares his insights on challenges and opportunities in the evolving healthcare industry, particularly the role of innovation and strategic partnerships. Kouris explains Tampa General's significant expansion in Palm Beach County, driven by the strong demographic and the aim to provide robust academic medicine in collaboration with local physicians and Mass General Brigham. Finally, he reflects on his legacy, focusing on leaving organizations and communities in a better state than he found them.
Key topics
Background and Career: John Kouris, CEO of Florida Health Sciences Center, grew up in Massachusetts, attended Boston University, and began his career at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was CEO of Jupiter Medical Center and a past chairman of the Palm Beach North Chamber board. He was drawn to healthcare by its mission to "do good for humanity" and the purposeful nature of the work.
Family Life: Kouris prioritizes family above all else. He has two children: a son in Miami who started an analytics company for event management, and a daughter finishing her senior year at the University of Florida. His wife, Diane, is an artist and behaviorist. He emphasizes creating experiences and memories with family, such as their recent two-week trip to Croatia, Montenegro, and London.
Leadership and Organizational Culture: Kouris attributes Tampa General's transformative success to its organizational culture, leadership style, and the environment created for employees. His four core principles are:
Authenticity: Encouraging genuine selves and fostering relatable connections, with a "no jerk policy" to ensure respectful interactions.
Transparency: Openly sharing information (good, bad, and ugly) to build trust across the 15,000-strong organization, which includes 150 locations and six hospitals.
Kindness: Leading with empathy, kindness, and understanding, especially given current societal challenges and personal struggles employees may face.
Vulnerability: Creating a safe environment where people can admit mistakes, apologize, and ask for help, which fosters psychological safety, innovation, and learning from failures.
Innovation and Technology: Tampa General is a leader in integrating AI and predictive analytics, notably through a partnership with Palantir Technologies. The biggest challenge in implementing new technologies is change management, as people often resist change. Kouris addresses this through teaching, development, empathy, and understanding rather than coercion. An Innovation Center is being built in Tampa's Ybor City to further these efforts.
Partnerships: Kouris emphasizes the importance of partnerships for organizational strength and resilience. Key criteria for successful partnerships include shared values and culture, as cultural misalignment is a primary reason for partnership failure. He focuses on understanding a potential partner's culture and values more than their technical capabilities, citing Gilbane Construction as an example.
Healthcare Industry Challenges and Opportunities: Kouris believes the healthcare industry is at an inflection point, with increasing costs and fragmented quality. He advocates for self-disruption and challenging the status quo to create value for consumers, warning that failure to do so could lead to external takeover (e.g., government control, as seen in the UK's NHS, which he views critically). He encourages celebrating failures as learning opportunities.
Community Involvement: Kouris believes individuals and organizations have a responsibility to give back to the community through time, talent, or treasure. He teaches his children the importance of volunteering and supporting those less fortunate, seeing it as a hallmark of a great society and a personally fulfilling endeavor.
Awards and Legacy: Kouris views awards not as personal accolades but as recognition for collective efforts. The presidential fellow medal from the University of South Florida was particularly meaningful because it acknowledged the seven-year effort to strengthen the relationship between USF and Tampa General to build a robust academic health system. His desired legacy is to leave organizations and communities better than he found them, contributing positively to the "Arc of History."
Political Aspirations: Kouris has no political aspirations but deeply respects political leaders and the democratic process. He enjoys working behind the scenes to support leaders and drive policy changes, such as his role on the 15-member Innovations Council for the State of Florida's Live Healthy Act. He is deeply committed to his long-term contract with Florida Health Sciences Center.
Tampa General's Presence in Palm Beach County: Tampa General is significantly expanding in Palm Beach County, with almost 400 team members and growing clinics. This expansion is driven by the county's strong demographic. Unlike some outside health systems, Tampa General aims to collaborate with local physicians and build an academic medical presence (including a partnership with Mass General Brigham) rather than competing. They seek to fill specialty gaps and ensure Floridians don't have to leave the county for world-class care, emphasizing a "Florida-grown" approach to academic medicine. Kouris is critical of systems that enter the market purely for financial gain without addressing underserved communities like Lake Okeechobee.