Podcast: Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith
Season 2 Episode 3 Title: Leadership and Healthcare Excellence: Insights from Madeline Bell, CEO of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia 

Episode Transcript:

Maxine Cuffe  00:06
You’re listening to Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith, a podcast by the Haverford Trust Company. On Speaking of Quality, Hank chats with authors, influencers and wealth management experts to bring a sense of clarity and calm to the complexity and stress of personal finance. And now here’s your host, Hank Smith.

Hank Smith 0:26
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights. I’m your host Hank Smith, Director and Head of Investment Strategy at The Haverford Trust Company. On this podcast, we explore topics ranging from quality investing, retirement resilience, stock market trends, estate planning, small business ownership, behavioral psychology, and more. On today’s episode, I’m interviewing Madeline Bell, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Madeline is a winner of numerous awards, but most recently, the very prestigious William Penn Award, awarded by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia. Madeline, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast, and let me start by congratulating you on this recent accomplishment. 

Madeline Bell 1:17  
Well, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.     

Hank Smith 1:22 
Terrific. You’ve had a very interesting career. First, working as a pediatric nurse and then rising through different leadership roles within CHOP. I love speaking with people that are loyal to their companies. I’ve been with The Haverford Trust Company for 34 years, almost as long, maybe even a little bit longer, than you with CHOP. Tell us about your journey and your path to leadership at Children’s Hospital. 

Madeline Bell 1:43 
When I started at CHOP as a new graduate nurse, I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be CEO of this organization one day. So, I always tell new employees that they should not limit their thinking and that they should see CHOP as a place of career possibilities. But for me, it wasn’t well planned out or well thought out – it was really a series of opportunities, sometimes serendipity. Right place, right time. But the theme was always that I said “yes”, even though there were things that were outside of my comfort zone. It was an opportunity that I took to learn; to learn from a new boss, to learn a new skill, never realizing that all of that culminated into the skill set that I needed to be CEO here.  

Hank Smith 2:42 
I know that you often say that your number one job is to help develop future leaders. How has that shaped your style? And I might also add that, as CEO, I would think one of your largest responsibilities is succession. How do you think about that?  

Madeline Bell 3:05 
I really see myself as here for a very short period of time, relatively speaking. CHOP has been around for almost 170 years – same organization with the same mission. Given that, I have a real responsibility to ensure that the future of CHOP is in good hands. And I find it to be very rewarding to find talent and help them realize their potential. When I see somebody succeed, it’s really rewarding to me. It’s really one of the best parts of my job. But I also think it is my number one job to ensure that we have the talent we need to lead us to better things in the future. So, for me, it’s about being on the front lines and listening, and being very deliberate about creating a culture and making sure that people are adhering to our values. I have a big shadow that I cast, and I have to use that for good and be very thoughtful and deliberate about how I use my role and my platform.  

Hank Smith 4:09  
Speaking of opportunity, there’s been so much growth at CHOP – you have a brand-new campus out in King of Prussia. I’m sure that has created many opportunities for leadership development and for people rising through the ranks. I know that wasn’t your original motivation, but talk a little bit about your outreach from Center/West Philadelphia, now to the greater suburbs.  

Madeline Bell 4:44
We were looking at this opportunity as a way to help families connect with a CHOP level of care, a little closer to where they might live. And it’s been wildly successful. I think we have very high engagement and satisfaction among the employees and the patients. And it’s really fulfilling a need in the community, and the Upper Merion community has been really welcoming to us, and the greater King of Prussia area has really partnered with us. But as you mentioned, it actually did create a great career opportunity for people who may have been in their roles and didn’t see a natural opportunity for them to grow. And so, for all of the leaders out there, these positions at King of Prussia were a step up. So, we’re pretty happy with it. It’s been a really successful venture. It’s been challenging, but it’s been overall very successful.  

Hank Smith 5:49  
I’m sure day to day, you have so much on your plate that keeps you in your office engaged through calls and Zooms and meetings. But that doesn’t stop you from getting out and getting to know the people that you help, such as visiting patients and their parents. And that that’s something that you’re very proud of. Is that something that you just naturally leaned into, because you enjoy doing it?   

Madeline Bell 6:25 
I think because of my background in nursing, I never really wanted to be too far away from patients and families. And also, because of my background in nursing, to be able to rub elbows with the staff that are on the front lines is really informative for me.  I learned the best information that helps me make good decisions from doing that. But it’s also a lot of fun. There’s a lot of fun that happens here. Over the holidays I volunteered in our Snowflake Station, which is where parents could order toys, because their children were hospitalized and they couldn’t go out and do shopping, so they could order toys for the children. And we were fulfilling them. So, my job was picking the toys from the shelves. We had a whole toy store set up in the conference rooms. And it was just so fun. I met this one mom whose child had a lung transplant. And she was just talking about how grateful she was. Those kinds of things are extra activities that we get to do here at CHOP that are also very fulfilling.   

Hank Smith 7:23
I bet that type of engagement and personal connection doesn’t hurt in the philanthropy department, which is critically important to all nonprofits. So, talk a little bit about philanthropy as CHOP approaches that, and how do you go about engaging and raising money?   

Madeline Bell 7:49
One thing is that we really do rely on are parents and grandparents, because usually, when they become grandparents, maybe they will accumulate more wealth, and the things that we do, like the Snowflake Station, giving children toys at holiday time, or pet therapy, art therapy, music therapy, play therapy, all of these things are funded through philanthropy. A lot of our research is funded through philanthropy too. So, we really rely on patients and their families who make a connection, they’re really interested in curing a disease, or they’re really interested in normalizing the hospital experience for other families. And those connections really help us make CHOP who we are and make it a better experience for our patients and families and certainly for our employees as well. It’s also a really rewarding part of my job, to say that I can make a connection to somebody who wants to make an impact in the world and connect them to a place in need here at CHOP and make that sometimes a lifelong connection between a scientist or a therapy that we do here.  

Hank Smith 9:15
That leads me to how I don’t think people realize just how engaged CHOP has been in so many breakthroughs and dramatic firsts in pediatric medicine. It isn’t just treating patients like you do very, very well. You’re also on the research front, kind of a dual mandate, if you will. Talk a little bit about that and the future of development from a research standpoint.  

Madeline Bell 9:40
A lot of people just see us as a hospital or an outpatient clinic where they bring their children, but we also have one of the largest pediatric research institutes in the world, and most successful in terms of the number of breakthroughs. We’re in the in the process of building our fourth research building and many of our physicians are scientists, and they come here to do research and to see patients and to see their research applied directly at the bedside. It’s also a really inspiring part of my job to see these breakthroughs come to fruition. And it’s something that the general public maybe doesn’t understand is a big part of what we do.  

Hank Smith 10:29 
As a nonprofit hospital, you’re in a unique position to help communities in need. What’s that look like for a system like CHOP – to reach beyond medicine?  

Madeline Bell 10:41 
I think the other thing that many people don’t understand is that your zip code is more important than your genetic code in terms of your health outcomes. And in Philadelphia, where we are, we have some of the poorest children in the country, in our backyard. And so, I feel an enormous obligation to those children to be sure that I improve their outcomes. And improving their outcomes really means improving their living conditions. Some of the things that we’re doing on that front is, for example, we have renovated over 150 homes in West Philadelphia. These are children living in homes who have asthma, they are our patients, and we’re there trying to remediate the asthma triggers: the leaky roofs, the leaky pipes that are causing mold in the home. And it’s very gratifying to see the before and after pictures to see what we’ve done. And we’ve used only minority contractors to do this work. And so, you know, I remember our previous CFO and I, and I went to him and said I want to have money to spend on renovating homes, I think he thought I was crazy. But what we’ve shown is that we’ve decreased the number of times that the children come to the emergency department and the hospital with asthma, because we’ve given them a better living environment. The other thing that we do, which might be interesting to you and some of your listeners, is that we do tax returns for people in our primary care locations. A lot of our families go to some of these tax return places that don’t really help them get the benefit of all the tax credits that they’re due. And so, we created something here, one of our doctors, one of our pediatricians, George Dalembert, he created a program called The Medical Financial Partnership. And so, when they come to a primary care practice in the inner city, they can get their tax returns done for free. And we’ve returned so much more money than they would have gotten. We also have lawyers on staff that help families with housing and domestic abuse issues. So, the list goes on, in terms of the things that we’re doing in the community, really, we are focused on violence and poverty, all those things that are really challenging and impacting the health of children.  

Hank Smith 13:17 
So, not only do you treat patients, and not only do you do great research, but you’re helping the community in so many ways that I didn’t know about, and I’m certain our listeners didn’t really know about, but that creates health in a different measurement of it for sure.  You know, the pandemic has affected us in so many ways, particularly in behavioral health and mental health among young children. And maybe this was still a problem pre-pandemic, but the pandemic has only enhanced that. As anxiety and depression continue to rise and young people, how is CHOP going about beyond medicine to combat this crisis?  

Madeline Bell 14:11 
Yeah, well, it really is a crisis and the suicide rate, the number of children that come to our emergency department or hospital, has gone up 30% to 40% since the pandemic. So, the isolation that children experienced during lockdowns and schools being closed, daycares, activities, we are now, just understanding the level of that impact. We are investing in lots of different ways; one way was that we opened a very comprehensive outpatient and day hospital center at 46th and Market in July of ‘22 to help meet those needs, and then we’re in the process this month of opening an inpatient psychiatric unit at 54th and Seeder in West Philadelphia for children. And we are doing that because there’s such a tremendous need now for hospitalization and care, but we’re also embedding psychologists and counselors, therapists in primary care practices. So, when parents bring their child to the pediatrician, if the pediatrician assesses that the child’s got anxiety or depression, or suicidal ideation, they can refer them right down the hall to somebody who can help them make sure they can get counseling and get the right level of care. So, there are many things that we’re doing, unfortunately, I think, we’re just going to be meeting some of the needs, but it’s a good start and we’re going to keep focusing on it.   

Hank Smith 15:49 
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has been consistently ranked either number one, or number two, in the nation for children’s hospitals. Is that something you think about? Or do you just do your job, inspire other people to do their jobs, and let the ratings fall where they are?   

Madeline Bell 16:08 
Well, I think that these rankings are things that people in the outside world use as the blunt instrument that they use to evaluate us and the community it is important to. But we really try to say, “let’s stay focused on creating the best outcomes for children. Let’s make sure that we are focused on incredible breakthroughs for children. And if we’re recognized by people, that’s great”. But it is a topic of conversation here all the time. And again, it’s what the outside world has, these rankings, ratings, Top Doctors, Top Hospitals, US News, you name it. And that’s a reality that we have to face. And all I can say is if we improve on our own record, hopefully it will be recognized.     

Hank Smith 17:06 
I’m very familiar with that – being a former trustee for 10 years at Franklin and Marshall College, the amount of time we spent discussing US News and World Report on college and university rankings was, in my opinion, time that would have been better spent in other areas. But that’s the life we’re presented with.

I heard that, beyond CHOP, you have an ambition to be a US ambassador. Is there truth to that? It’s quite an interesting goal.   

Madeline Bell 17:38 
Yes, there is truth to that I have mentioned that. And I always think it’s important for you to have an idea of what you want to do next in your life and to set your sights high. And maybe it will never work out. I’ve met with a number of US ambassadors to other countries and other countries’ ambassadors to the US. I just think it’s a really interesting way to serve your country and would be a way to use some of the skills that I’ve learned as a CEO. You know, it may never happen, but it’s always good to have a goal.  

Hank Smith 18:23 
Well, I think you would be a terrific US ambassador, regardless of which country you were placed in, I love to ask all my guests about some of their favorite recent books, or maybe a book that’s an all-time favorite.  

Madeline Bell 18:41 
Well, right now, on my nightstand, I’m reading something called Horse by Geraldine Brooks. It’s a really nice historic novel that starts in 1853 and goes back and forth between then and 2019 – lots of lessons in it. So that is, I think, a nice way to escape sometimes from work is to read a novel. And that’s a good one.   

Hank Smith 19:04
Yeah, and probably more engaging for your mind than just some of the mindless TV that we’re exposed to day in and day out.   

Madeline Bell 19:09
And I have all kinds of business and leadership books on my nightstand too. And I pick them up and look at them and read chapters here and there. But sometimes it’s good to disconnect and get away from your job and let your mind wander on to something else.  

Hank Smith 19:47
That’s what I use exercise for. I walk typically 60 minutes a day and I let my mind go wherever. And sometimes it’s work but often it’s a lot of other things. Finally, we both share a love for podcasting. Have there been any stories that resonate with you on your podcast?   

Madeline Bell 19:50
Oh, there’s so many stories. I interviewed Emily Whitehead, a patient – I think my favorites are my patient stories that when I interview patients and their families, and she’s the little girl that was the first that was cured of leukemia using CAR T cells, so, cancer immunotherapy, and she was a CHOP patient. And you know, to see her at that time she was applying to colleges and to see her 10 years later being cancer free, and for her to have the knowledge that she helped so many other children. And then another family I interviewed who actually got the first FDA approved gene therapy, which was developed here at CHOP, and their child was cured of blindness from this therapy, and to hear their story about how they discovered her blindness as a baby and how they were waiting for this research and when it was FDA approved what was it like. These stories are really incredibly inspiring, and it motivates me to get up every day and try to do a better job than I did the day before.   

Hank Smith 21:05
That’s fantastic. Madeline, thank you so much for taking time to join us on Speaking of Quality. It has been a pleasure chatting with you today. To our listeners – if you’re interested in learning more about Madeline and the incredible work being done at CHOP, you can head to CHOP.edu you can also tune into Madeline’s podcast, Breaking Through with Madeline Bell, wherever you listen to your podcast.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality Wealth Management Insights. Our next episode will be released shortly. In the meantime, please send suggestions or questions for me or the Haverford Trust team to marketing@haverfordquality.com. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review and share this podcast. Until the next time. I’m Hank Smith, Stay Bullish. 

Maxine Cuffe 20:28
Thanks for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality, Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith. To hear future episodes of Speaking of Quality, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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