The Exec: Sarah Chavarria's First Day as Delta Dental CEO

Chavarria is the company's first female chief executive but being ahead of the curve is just how she operates.

HealthLeaders caught up with Sarah Chavarria on her first day as CEO of Delta Dental. This is what she had to say.

"As I step into my role as CEO of Delta Dental, I'm energized about the bright future ahead. We are a purpose-driven organization focused on bringing together oral health with total well-being. The next several years are going to bring opportunities that will enable us to deliver on our purpose to provide access to quality care for our 45 million members. Together, we will ensure our customers, providers and employees remain at the forefront of our business to improve health outcomes."

When Chavarria says together, she means it. As a former chief people officer—her first role at Delta Dental six years ago—she has facilitated collaboration and built organizational designs as a part of the company's transformation: "I can stand in a room and bring all the right conversations to bear to shape the right vision, the right roadmap, and my connection to employees."

"One of the most critical things for leadership is the ability to listen, to discern, and then to lay out a vision. To learn each of my functions as CEO and really do that deep dive, I didn't want to bring any biases or assumptions that I couldn't validate. I have already moved some things around because I learned that some of our capabilities probably sit better together."

Chavarria began learning those functions three months ago, while Mike Castro was still CEO of Delta Dental. He will continue as chairman of the Board.

"I gave myself that First 100 Days early in the process, while Mike was still here. It's a really important thing that I would recommend no leader ever shortcut," says Chavarria.

"Anytime you have a new CEO, there's this period of bracing for incredible change. Our board and senior leadership team really saw an opportunity to do this as a transition—to deliver on the strategic priorities that Mike has laid an incredible foundation for and to minimize disruption as much as possible."

Chavarria's top three priorities as CEO

Priority 1: Provider partnerships. "First and foremost, I'm really excited that we have made the commitment to partner with our providers—to support them in the incredible work that they do and work with them in new ways. That doesn't always happen between the payer and the provider community, but the providers are the individuals who deliver quality care for patients. What does quality look like? How do we create more access? That's all really critical."

Priority 2: Employee engagement. "I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about all of the work we've done to engage our employees, to rally them around a sense of purpose to deliver access to quality care. That's the business that we're in as much as healthcare."

Priority 3: Patient focus. "We have really put the patient at the center of how we think about our products, how we spend our time, how we think about where we prioritize our technology investments."

Again, Chavarria looks forward and back.

"We had an incredible leader in Mike, who did a fantastic job of strengthening the foundation . . . I am beyond excited to have those pieces connected. Now, I get to help the organization think about those things in a slightly different way," she adds. "To bring some new conversations to the table that we haven't had."

One of those conversations is patient engagement and in a significant but untapped area.

Taking menopause from a whisper to a shout

A couple of years ago, Chavarria notes, Delta Dental was thinking about its strategic priorities and identified caring for aging Americans as one way to put the patient at the center.

But there was more.

"We also conducted a study on menopause and oral health and said, 'Hey, there's some interesting information here.'" That study included startling statistics:

• 84% of women are not aware that menopause can impact oral health
   
• Few have discussed their menopause concerns with their dentist (2%) or dental hygienist (1%)
   
• 77% plan to visit their dentist after learning of the link

(Learn more by reading the study and HealthLeaders' feature on it.)

Chavarria is open about her own experience with menopause and wants people to feel more comfortable talking about it and the related oral health symptoms (e.g., cavities, gum disease). Chavarria and her team have identified multiple opportunities to help deliver better health outcomes:

1. Support women, providers, and the groups that convene them
    
2. Use dental visits to first identify menopause symptoms
    
3. Promote integrated care between dentists and primary care providers
    
4. Create innovative products
    
5. Build engagement between women and all of their healthcare providers
    

For Chavarria, opportunities in menopause and oral health link can lead to broader healthcare transformation.

Transformation based on nuance and partnership

The ways healthcare puts patients at the center has changed, notes Chavarria.

"The transformation of healthcare at large is in its 20th-plus year. With the Affordable Care Act, we started shifting toward a patient focus and electronic health records to help manage information."

"It takes a long time," she adds. "But now we're nuancing that conversation to better define who the patient is and where are they in life."

Partnership will be key.

"We're now at this beautiful place as a payer, sitting on the other side of healthcare and creating the plans that help patients navigate and get access to the care they need. It's such a great time to partner with other healthcare leaders."

"That's our future," she asserts. "That's our next five years."