Akron Children’s Hospital

Dr. Rob McGregor

Healthcare Transformation Catalyst

Dr. Rob McGregor serves as the chief medical officer of Akron Children’s Hospital and is a professor of pediatrics at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED). While at Akron Children’s Hospital, he has served as a voting member of the hospital board of directors andwas co-incident commander for COVID-19 operations for over two years. He co-founded the Akron Physician Wellness Initiative (APWI), which offers barrier-free mental health and wellness services to any member of the hospital’s medical staff. Dr. McGregor continues to practice medicine and teach residents and students as a pediatric hospitalist on the Akron Children’s Hospital Inpatient Unit. He earned his medical degree from The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.He served as a pediatric resident, followed by a fourth year as chief pediatric resident at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.He remained on the faculty as part of their prestigious Diagnostic Referral Group. He is also a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. McGregor has attended numerous programs at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and most recently completed the Advanced Management Program (AMP) from Harvard Business School.

As the chief medical officer at Akron Children’s Hospital, what are some of your key roles and responsibilities that you have on a daily basis?

As the CMO at Akron Children’s Hospital, my daily roles include monitoring the match of volumes and provider staffing daily (especially over the very busy behavioral health services) and keeping abreast of our quality initiatives with my direct reports in Quality, as well as attending our daily level 5 huddle. I remind myself daily to develop my team and help remove barriers. Recently, we have creatively reorganized our medical staff and clinical care design to create more agile, responsive, and empowered physician leaders over primary care, the department of child psychiatry, behavioral health, and the newly created department of neonatal/perinatal medicine, so onboarding and supporting new leaders is on my radar daily.   

CMOs must always look for new and innovative ways to stay ahead of the curve. Also, they must continue evaluating new technologies and platforms and experimenting with different marketing channels. What are your views on this topic?

I agree that challenging the status quo and exploring more innovative ways to provide better digital access and monitoring of patients as well as provider well-being and EMR efficiency is an important role for the CMO. I view this challenge as a team sport though, and I am fortunate to have excellent colleagues, including our CMIO and CIO, and my partner the CNO. Most recently, we are exploring digital app supplementation of cognitive and behavioral therapies for our adolescents in our primary care network and behavioral health practices, as well as potentially for our medical providers seeking services for anxiety and depression.

“Be mindful and purposeful to let your evolving leaders lead, and resist offering your solution to your teams before they have a chance to give you a novel, better answer that you may never had considered.”

Rapid digital evolution makes it hard to keep your head above the surface of the deep digital ocean. Is adaptability vital for staying afloat?

If co-leading our COVID-19 operation for two-plus years with our COO had any silver linings, then we learned that adapting and rapid cycle tests of change can lead to surviving and even thriving. Remaining afloat with the rapid digital evolution is challenging because I receive multiple emails/inquiries daily that expose me to new potential products, and that overload is why I emphasize the team approach as we all triage and share. I try to keep focused on what problem I am trying to solve by exploring innovation rather than responding to the barrage of sometimes shiny objects being presented.

What would be your piece of advice for your fellow peers and leaders? 

First, address your own well-being and take inventory of your self-care practices. Many of us got into our CMO roles because we are driven, results-oriented, data-hungry problem-solvers. Be mindful and purposeful to let your evolving leaders lead, and resist offering your solution to your teams before they have a chance to give you a novel, better answer that you may never had considered. Even more importantly – don’t take their monkey off their hands. Facilitate problem-solving at the lowest level possible, and nudge your leaders to empower their direct reports, reminding them about the old Oncken and Wass Harvard Business Review article “Who’s Got the Monkey?” that is so well captured in a short re-read of Ken Blanchard’s The One Minute Manager. As a senior executive, the CMO is well positioned to be a role model and develop others. Then you can have a stronger team to delegate to, work on your succession development, and find more time to devote to novel or creative activities, preserving your own resilience.