Dr. William Hazel, CEO of Claude Moore Opportunities: Building Virginia’s Workforce Highway

As a physician for many decades and former Secretary of Health and Human Resources in Virginia for eight years, Dr. Bill Hazel has come to believe there is one necessary ingredient to unraveling the very knotty problems the healthcare system faces: collaboration. As he explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, he used his power as Secretary to breakdown government silos to develop multi-agency solutions. Now as CEO of Claude Moore Opportunities -- a public charity focused on workforce development -- he’s pulling players in that space together in a regional and sector-based approach. “I’m a big fan of bringing folks into a room, agreeing on what the problem is, and then thinking about different ways we can contribute to solving it.” Dr. Hazel believes collaboration is also the basis for addressing the physician burnout crisis, arguing that moving to more of a team-based approach will yield a more efficient and supportive environment. “Physicians are overwhelmed and lousy jobs will not attract and keep people. We have to fundamentally look at how we're providing services going forward and make use of teams, which then can support each other and add expertise.” In this wide-ranging episode of WorkforceRx, Dr. Hazel also describes the role of philanthropy in providing flexible funding for innovation, advocates for starting career exploration earlier in the K-12 journey, and discusses why growing the behavioral health workforce is a top priority.