You read about the great resignation and a lot of it's been in the healthcare space. HL: What are some of the biggest challenges facing healthcare CFOs today, and what solutions to these problems exist? Time and time again, if you look at the business cycles, the facilities that are doing something right, the facilities that are working towards the future, they are finding ways to bridge that gap and bring those two concepts together. Healthcare, in general, is known as a loss leader-you can't make any money at healthcare. Vallejo: I'm focusing on quality and value and trying to align the financial aspects of healthcare with the delivery of care. HL: What are some of the innovative ideas you are bringing to the table? And, quite frankly, for me, it's making sure you're not setting anybody up for failure.

It is about setting proper expectations and making sure you communicate those expectations. An organization can say I want a standardized process, but a standardized process doesn't necessarily mean everything's identical for everyone. It's being able to figure out a strategy that works best for everyone. COVID-19 has brought about a lot of opportunities to see that the traditional means of doing things-the age of the five-day workweeks or having to commute every day-isn't necessary for every single job function. When CEO John Carlo hired me, he was looking for someone with innovative ideas. Because of the operational growth and because of the business lifecycle, Prism has lost a lot of legacy and institutional knowledge. Vallejo: It's not ever someone's intent to lose jobs or to outsource jobs, that's not my focus. What are your thoughts regarding balancing the organization's overall financial health with maintaining its workforce? HL: Someone might hear 'organizational restructuring' and think their job is in trouble. I'm trying to build a culture of high performance and success and that helps bring about that change I was thinking about. But if you want to come to work every day and you want to learn you're going to make those mistakes, but you're going to learn from them and you're going to improve. I am looking for people who want to do a good job and people who want to be here. I expect only two things from people that work under me or work with me.

I want to find out what processes aren't bringing any value and try to build an equitable experience. Vallejo: My 100-day plan is I want to make sure that I understand operations, understand the people, and then do some organizational restructuring to put aces in their places and find out where the value truly is. HL: What is your specific strategy coming into the role of CFO for Prism? Those are strengths that typically not a lot of people who have a finance and accounting background tend to have. But was my vision and knowing how processes should be, being able to work with people, being able to manage and lead and direct change.

My core competencies are in accounting, and my background is in finance. I tend to have a systems perspective in how I approached operations and healthcare.

And through that growth, I've noticed a lot of opportunities to come in and fine-tune some of my strengths and weaknesses, but also to help build Prism up into the next 10 years. Javier Vallejo: Prism has grown out from primarily a grant organization to getting into more general healthcare services. HealthLeaders: What drew you to the CFO role for Prism Health North Texas? Vallejo recently connected with HealthLeaders to discuss his plans to help Prism Health grow over the next decade and the way the healthcare CFO role has been evolving over the last few years.

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