Class of 2026 Finance Fellowship Action Project Highlight
At our recent Academy Fellows Program forums, we celebrated the Class of 2026 across two distinct leadership tracks — graduating 22 Administrative Executive Fellows, and 13 Physician Fellows from health systems across our community.
Together, these 35 leaders spent the past two years driving strategic action projects within their organizations, addressing the priorities most pressing to health systems today. Their work spanned redesigning care access and operational delivery models, transforming workforce and enterprise HR functions, advancing physician alignment strategies, accelerating technology and digital health innovation, reducing provider burnout through scalable solutions, and improving population health reach through innovative community partnerships. This month we are thrilled to feature a strategic action project from, Erin Inman, PharmD, a recent fellowship graduate from Corewell Health, and Alisha Lacour, MD, MMM, a recent graduate from Ochsner Health, who drove meaningful impact within their organization and the broader healthcare landscape.
Applications for THMA’s Fellowship Programming are now open. If you are interested in learning more or nominating a healthcare leader, please reach out to LDPrograms@hmacademy.com.
2026 Academy Fellows Program – Supported by an Educational Grant from GE Healthcare
Fellow: Erin Inman, PharmD, VP Operations, Primary Health & Regional Specialties, Corewell Health
Leading Health System Mentor: Andrea Leslie, MSN, RN, SVP of Hospital Operations, Corewell Health
Action Project Title: Impact of an "Inboxologist": A novel approach to inbasket management in primary care
Opportunity & Problem Statement:
Primary care teams were facing an unsustainable and growing volume of in basket work driven by patient messages, medication refills, results, and digital care requests. This work increasingly consumed clinician time, contributing to provider burnout, delayed patient responses, and inefficient use of highly trained providers. At the same time, digital access was expanding faster than traditional care models could absorb. The core problem was not demand alone, but a mismatch between the type of work being generated and the skill set used to manage it.
The opportunity was to redesign in basket management as a system level function, shifting appropriate work away from individual providers to standardized, team-based workflows, thereby improving access, timeliness, and care continuity while protecting clinician capacity and experience.
Methods:
The Inboxology program was implemented as a centralized, dedicated workforce model trained to triage, resolve, and route in basket messages using standardized decision pathways, clinical protocols, and role-based scope of practice. Inboxologists manage medication refills, results communication, patient questions, and digital care coordination, resolving work independently whenever appropriate and escalating to clinicians only when clinical judgment or provider action is required. The program was designed to integrate directly into existing Epic workflows, ensuring continuity with clinic operations and refill teams. Governance was established through a multidisciplinary oversight council, shared performance metrics, and ongoing workflow refinement in partnership with operational, clinical, pharmacy, and information technology leaders. This approach enabled consistent, reliable message handling at scale while preserving local clinic relationships, accountability, and patient safety.
Results & Conclusions:
The Inboxologist Program delivered measurable results across provider experience, efficiency, and financial performance:
52% reduction in total inbasket message volume reaching the PCP
35% reduction in time spent in inbasket per day (business hours and after-hours combined)
41% reduction in minutes spent on patient advice requests, patient calls, and Rx authorizations
Since go live, the implementation of the Inboxology program has touched hundreds of thousands of in basket work items and supported primary care clinicians across dozens of clinics, resulting in a 41% overall reduction in in basket messaging volume and demonstrating meaningful relief of administrative burden and improved message turnaround. In the most recent reporting, over 600,000 pieces of work were managed in the prior 12 months, with thousands of additional eVisits completed through the program, representing measurable access expansion beyond scheduled clinic capacity. Physician and advanced practice provider well-being scores also improved, as reflected in survey results following implementation.
These outcomes demonstrate that Inboxology is not only operationally effective, but clinically and culturally impactful in improving access, reducing burnout risk, and enabling a more sustainable model of care delivery.
2026 CPE Fellows Program
Fellow: Alisha Lacour, MD, MMM — CEO, Ochsner Northshore & Mississippi Gulf Coast Region, Ochsner Health
Leading Health System Mentor: Robert I. Hart, MD, Chief Physician Executive, Ochsner Health
Action Project Title: Empowering Leadership Through Mentorship: Ochsner Physician Mentoring Program
Opportunity & Problem Statement:
Physician leaders play a critical role in driving organizational performance, culture, and patient outcomes, yet leadership development for physicians is often informal, inconsistent, and lacks structure. As Ochsner continues to grow, there is a need to intentionally build a strong leadership pipeline and support physicians transitioning into or advancing within leadership roles.
A structured physician mentorship program was identified as an opportunity to accelerate leadership development, strengthen engagement, and foster cross-regional collaboration. Key challenges included limited time for development, variability in leadership skill acquisition, and lack of consistent support systems for emerging leaders.
The goal of this initiative was to create a scalable, high-impact development model that enhances leadership capabilities, supports career progression, and strengthens organizational alignment.
Methods:
A structured physician mentorship program was implemented, pairing mentors and mentees based on leadership level, reporting structure, and alignment of experience. Mentors completed formal training on coaching principles and ethical considerations, and all participants attended a program kickoff with executive leadership.
Mentees completed baseline self-assessments and were also evaluated by their direct leaders across key leadership competencies. Mentor-mentee pairs participated in approximately 10 sessions over six months, conducted in person or virtually, focusing on real-time leadership challenges and development goals.
At program completion, self-assessments and leader assessments were repeated to evaluate growth. Qualitative feedback was collected from both mentors and mentees to assess program effectiveness, identify strengths, and inform opportunities for improvement and future program design.
Results & Conclusions:
The program demonstrated meaningful improvement across leadership competencies, with greater gains observed in self-assessments compared to leader assessments. Mentees reported the most growth in business judgment, talent development, influence, and collaboration, while leaders observed the greatest improvement in inspirational leadership, influence, collaboration, and direction setting.
Notably, promotion outcomes were strongly associated with program impact: all participants with the highest self-assessed improvement (4/4) and leader-assessed improvement (3/3) were promoted within 12 months of program initiation.
Qualitative feedback highlighted the value of cross-regional pairing, trusted relationships, and enhanced leadership and communication skills. Opportunities for improvement included the need for clearer structure, fewer sessions, and more consistent engagement. Overall, the program proved to be a high-value, scalable approach to developing physician leadership capacity.