Editors’ Note

Joseph Moscola has held a series of positions throughout the health system, most recently as Senior Vice President and executive director of ambulatory operations. He began his career as a physician assistant in cardiothoracic surgery. He later transitioned to an administrative career in the hopes of making a bigger impact. Moscola received a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s University, an M.B.A. from Adelphi University, and a physician assistant certificate from Catholic Medical Centers–Bayley Seton Campus.

How do you define the role of chief people officer and what are your key areas of focus?

At Northwell, we are guided by a simple principle – our people are our most valuable asset. With just under 70 percent of our operating expenses going toward our people, it requires us in human resources to look at our talent as our customers. Our HR mission is to support our talent from hire to retire and everything in between. Ultimately our job is to maximize the potential of all of our team members who support and deliver care to the communities we serve.

What sets healthcare aside from other industries is the interaction which occurs with patients, at times in a life or death moment. Through careful selection and development of our talent, our people remain prepared for those very intimate moments when they are dealing with the happiest and saddest of what life has to offer.

If we are doing our job effectively, we are making the jobs of our managers easier so they can more effectively deliver high-quality care in an efficient manner.

Through a data-driven HR operational culture that is solution oriented, we look to deliver value added services to achieve the business outcomes that propel us forward.

How critical has it been to establish metrics to ensure your efforts are effective?

We started tracking employee engagement in 2012 and have seen it increase from the 28th to 85th percentile. We are establishing ourselves as a ‘best place to work,’ which is in part due to our data and metric driven culture. Of course, this requires talent development activities which we have been doing for years but, honestly, it’s all about the small stuff.

We’re now in the process of rolling out our value propositions, which were created by our own employees, not a consultant.

How important is it for the workforce to mirror the patient diversity?

Our most recent employee survey revealed that 92 percent of our employees believe we value employees of all backgrounds. This means that we value every culture and work hard to understand and celebrate the diversity of our customers and our employees.•