CEO Pete McCanna: My father’s list for change

Late in life, my father battled Parkinson’s disease hundreds of miles away from me. I watched him try to navigate a healthcare system that felt disjointed, impersonal and incomplete.

He was sent home with multiple prescriptions and no instructions. There was no coordination between providers, no continuity of care and no support at home.

He made lists of everything that didn’t work and would share them, along with a question that motivates me every day: What are you going to do about this?

Through decades of experience in the industry, I knew where the system fell short, but my father’s journey made it clear that incremental improvement projects would not be enough. We are called to do better. We must transform.

Listen to more of Pete’s story on the Intersections podcast.

Why transformation

For much of my career, I focused on strengthening healthcare organizations through operational discipline and financial rigor. I believed that if the system ran well, patients would benefit. I was an operator who knew how to build organizations that performed.

But my father’s experience revealed a blind spot—the systems we built were in many ways failing the people they were meant to serve.

That realization reframed how I think about healthcare today and in the future.

Americans spend nearly 20% of gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare, yet our outcomes lag other developed nations. Costs continue to rise. Systems remain fragmented. Transparency is elusive. And public trust is eroding.

Too often, people end up in emergency rooms because they do not know where else to go for help.

Delivering solutions

We need a new approach.

Healthcare should serve individuals, not institutions. We must solve people’s pain points, anticipate their needs and deliver solutions they never imagined possible.

When we address what matters most to patients and customers, better outcomes follow. People become healthier. And partnership builds.

For example, we know there is a need to simplify the challenge of navigating care options. Many of those who end up in our emergency rooms could have been treated in a more convenient and less costly setting, sometimes even from home—but there is little guidance on where to go for what.

That is why we created Help Me Decide, an online tool that provides customers with care options based on their symptoms. It gives clear, personalized guidance so they can make informed choices.

We are also zeroing in on ways to strengthen support in common care journeys where gaps exist today. Consider the experience of a new mother after childbirth. At Baylor Scott & White, we developed a Postpartum Care program that ensures support for new moms does not end with a single follow-up visit. Today, care teams use this tool to check in, connect families to resources, and deliver answers and reassurance when it matters most.

And one of the most pressing and difficult problems to solve in our communities is timely, affordable mental healthcare. We are working to change that, too.

Through our new partnership with Geode Health, we are increasing access to high-quality outpatient mental health services for Texans. Care should meet people where they are—in person or online—creating more ways for individuals and families to get the support they need.

This is just the beginning. We will not stop until we make care experiences more personalized, frictionless, and engaging for our customers, and I look forward to sharing more in the weeks and months to come.

Connecting to purpose

For me, the future of care is shaped by purpose, and that came into sharper focus as my siblings and I helped my father navigate a broken system. His experience reminded me why this work matters. And it gave me a new sense of urgency.

Across Baylor Scott & White, I see that same clarity reflected in the care and compassion of our people and their commitment to those we serve. When we connect to what drives us, we create experiences that earn trust, strengthen relationships and empower people to live well.

Pete McCanna recently sat down with Tom Leppert and Kyle Waldrep to share his perspective on healthcare for the Intersections podcast.

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