Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s new CEO aims for ‘more than possible’

It’s safe to say that Dr. Patrick Frias is enjoying his new role and his return to familiar surroundings.

Frias took over as president and CEO of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in August. He previously spent six years as president and CEO of Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. After Rady and Children’s Hospital of Orange County merged to form Rady Children’s Health, he served as co-president and CEO before taking on his new post at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

But Frias is now where he spent much of his career. He spent 18 years at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta before going to the west coast. A pediatric cardiologist, Frias previously served as chief physician officer and COO in Atlanta.

Frias tells Chief Healthcare Executive® that he is relishing the position and returning to Georgia.

"It's great to be back,” he says. “I certainly appreciate my eight years in San Diego and made so many wonderful connections. I'm so grateful for the time there. But to come back to the place where I started my career and was here as a clinician and then a leader, it does feel a little bit like coming home. It's evolved and so have I over the last eight years.”

“But certainly when I go in around and run into folks, it's probably a 50/50 shot I'm going to run into someone I worked with for a long time, which is really nice,” Frias says.

Frias succeeds Donna Hyland, who has retired after leading Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for 18 years and working for the organization for four decades.

Hyland told Chief Healthcare Executive in a May interview that she appreciates Frias’ medical and leadership credentials, but also calls him a warm and engaging leader.

“He's a fantastic human being, very personable,” Hyland said in May. “He really cares about people, and that comes across when you meet him. He's a brilliant physician.”

Touring the system

Frias is spending much of his time in the first few months in his new role traveling across the system. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta operates three hospitals and a host of other care sites.

He says he has embarked on what he calls the “People and Possibilities Tour.” Even though he has spent nearly two decades with the organization, he’s looking to build connections and support for his vision.

“For me to do all that we want to accomplish for the kids in Georgia, we need our team 100% behind that mission and vision,” Frias says. “And I’m spending time getting to know the people.”

Frias credits Hyland and the system’s leadership team for putting Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in a very strong position. Now, he has recently launched a new strategy that he calls “More Than Possible.”

“We're in a position to be able to deliver on our new strategy of ‘More Than Possible’ and make sure we're here for all of Georgia's children, and starting with metro Atlanta and then driving out into rural Georgia as well,” Frias says.

He says he wants to make sure that everyone in and around the city of Atlanta has easy access to the health system, saying, “How do we make sure that that care is within 30 minutes of each child in Metro Atlanta, so any child in our metro area can reach us within 30 minutes?”

Doing more across Georgia

Several times over the course of the conversation, Frias says he is looking to offer more care across the entire state of Georgia, including its rural communities. He notes that Georgia has 159 counties.

“We certainly don't have a pediatrician in every one of those,” Frias says. “So how do we make sure that we start with primary care for the children there, and then how do we then drive upstream to specialty care as needed> It's harder with the specialty workforce to be able to get specialty providers in all the areas, but we can certainly start with primary care and mental healthcare.”

“We are the only health system in the state of Georgia that cares solely for kids. We're the only pediatric level one trauma center in the state of Georgia, and when you take all of our hospitals together, we have the largest volume of pediatric emergency department visits in the country. So, we might have Atlanta in our name, but we're here for all of Georgia and beyond,” he says.

Frias says he wants to expand more mental health services as well, saying it’s sorely needed.

The system is partnering with schools in some rural counties to offer behavioral health services, and Frias says he’s looking to find other ways to help patients get more access. He says the system will be spending the next several months looking at ways to deliver more mental healthcare in the coming years.

‘One population at a time’

Frias also says that one of his top priorities is attracting - and keeping - top pediatric physicians and nurses.

“We have to retain and recruit the best and the brightest, from our graduate medical education to the frontline nursing staff and everyone across the organization,” Frias says.

Frias studied theology in college, but he knew he wanted to go into medicine. Still, he says his background in theology has helped him as a physician, particularly when he has been there “for a family sometimes in the middle of the night when science could do no more.”

Frias says he cherishes the opportunity to work in pediatrics.

“I love my job. No matter where I have been, whether it was at the bedside or now advancing into leadership, I've been able to wake up every day in my professional career and think about the life of children, and I think that's a pretty noble cause for any of us who work in this. So, very mission-driven teams that we get here, that's what drove me into it. That's what keeps me in it right now,” he says.

“I miss the bedside, but I love what I do because now, rather than maybe one patient at a time, I get to do this one population at a time, and it's very rewarding work that we do,” he adds.