BAYADA Home Health Care provides nursing, rehabilitative, therapeutic, hospice, and assistive care services for over 150,000 clients each year in 22 states and 8 countries. The organization’s 30,000 employees are guided by The BAYADA Way, a philosophy and values system that unifies the culture around a commitment to help people have a safe home life with comfort, independence, and dignity. Pulse writer Alex Yoo connected with CEO David Baiada to learn more about his experience working at and eventually leading the company.

David Baiada, CEO of BAYADA

The Pulse: Could you give us an overview of your career path and your personal and professional journey with BAYADA?

David Baiada (DB): I went to Cornell University to study economics and then went to work in Chicago for a management consulting firm primarily focused on technology and strategy. After about three years, I decided to join BAYADA, a company founded by my father, who was the CEO for the first 45 years. So I was sort of coming back to join the family business with a little bit of nerves. I wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted to do or if it was a good fit for me, but I moved to New York and started out in an entry level job as a coordinator in a home care office. Little by little, I ended up taking on responsibility as a branch director on Long Island, New York. I went to Wharton in 2004, and afterwards I returned to BAYADA, and from there I just continued to get involved in different opportunities and areas of responsibility to learn, grow, and support the business’ success. In 2017, I stepped into the CEO job and my father stepped became Chairman.

The Pulse: Was there anything in particular that spurred your decision to join the family business? 

DB: Yes, definitely. Most importantly, what I saw in BAYADA at the time, and what I continue to see and what energizes me every day, was a really unique opportunity to be part of an organization that is growing and has an entrepreneurial spirit that is focused on getting good results in the form of great patient outcomes, great service, growth, and financial performance. But it’s also done in a way that is deeply committed to making real impact and creating a sense of common purpose, so that intersection of purpose and performance was what really attracted me at the outset and continues to be an important part of who I am and what the organization is all about.

The Pulse: The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted more care to virtual and home settings and we’re seeing more companies entering and building new offerings in the space. How do you see the home healthcare industry evolving in the next few years in response to these dynamics?

DB: There’s no question that because of both population statistics and demographics that the need for BAYADA services is and always has been expected to grow. The trends you described, some of which are COVID-induced around virtual care and preferences for home-based care, have been accelerated depending on the segment of home-based services. I think it’s safe to assume that over the next couple of years, and couple of decades, the need for home-based care is going to continue to grow in a meaningful way. 

Clearly COVID created a catalyst for immediate innovation and behavioral change. As people’s lives return to some relative sense of normalcy, those behaviors may shift back a little bit, but in the long run I think it’s hard to imagine that people won’t continue to accelerate their use of technology and other ways of simplifying, accentuating, and complementing in-person care delivery.

The Pulse: Given BAYADA’s storied history within home health, how well is BAYADA positioned to stand out versus the new entrants in the home care industry? 

DB: I think the places where we really think about standing out are being anchored to a sense of long-term commitment to the community, along with a culture that unifies both purpose and performance. I do think that leading change and innovation in healthcare services requires a long-term view.

Another place to stand out would be, ultimately, the ability to think around leveraging that long-term thinking to help drive innovation in a talent-centric way. We see a lot of people think of innovation in terms like virtual care and technology-enabled care. All those are super powerful and important, but when you’re delivering an in-home service with a mobile workforce at scale, we think that the real leaders in the long run will be those that are people-centered and are thinking about how to build a movement and inspire a community of connected team members that are really trying to make a difference in the homes of our clients and their families. I think a lot of people don’t adequately spend time thinking about the talent implications of the growth of services in the home and the culture implications, so we see a really important opportunity to standout as it relates to talent and culture.

The Pulse: To pull on this thread even more, does talent innovation play an even bigger role in light of the shortages of primary care providers and nurses we’re seeing in the US?

DB: It’s definitely our number one challenge and it’s not going to get any easier. We’re in an era where demand for our services is expected to grow for the rest of our lifetimes at a pace that outstrips the supply of available leaders to provide the services. Differentiation and competition on the labor market is really our number one business focus. We feel that a combination of our attributes that make us a little different – long-term thinking, entrepreneurial, talent/culture centric, values-based with a common purpose – are the ways that we’re going to set ourselves apart and do our best to capture market share on the labor market. 

The Pulse: BAYADA recently announced a joint venture with Jefferson Health in Philadelphia to form a new home health initiative. Can you tell us more about the goals for the joint venture?

DB: We have eight joint ventures with large health systems around the country, with Jefferson being our most recently announced. We see that as a growing opportunity to innovate in collaboration with similarly aligned values and long-term oriented, sophisticated, innovation-centric health systems. Places like Jefferson, based on all the things we’ve already talked about, are thinking strategically about how to deliver great services outside the four walls in the hospital. But they also realize that managing a mobile workforce and delivering a service in the home is very different from building and managing a hospital, so they look to us to collaboratively elevate the stature of home-based and community-based care delivery inside the system in a jointly-owned structure where we can bring all of our expertise in delivering those capabilities in partnership with a health system that is increasingly focused on and in need of those services.

The Pulse: This year’s Wharton Health Care Business Conference theme is “A Fair Shot at Health.” How important is providing equitable access to home care and what are some initiatives that BAYADA has done to address access? 

DB: One population that’s clearly at the center of this access and health equity conversation is the Medicaid and dual-eligible population. BAYADA has been providing services in the Medicaid program since 1976 and is one of the largest providers of home-based and community-based care delivery to Medicaid recipients in the country. And so we see that population as probably our primary channel for expanding access and ensuring underserved patients get the care that they need and deserve. This is an area of particular complexity because of the way it’s funded, in addition to trends like wage inflation and labor market complexity.

The Pulse: With BAYADA’s presence in multiple countries, how do you think about the idea of “serving the underserved” from both an international and domestic perspective? 

DB: The desire to be cared for at home and to stay safe and independent in the comfort of your own home is not unique to the United States. It’s a global, human preference, and the need for high-quality, reliable, home-based care is really something that exists everywhere. While there’s a cultural framework or a reimbursement / regulatory framework to support it in some places more than others, over time that will happen everywhere. We do feel that as a long-term oriented, value-centric growth company, one of the most important things we can do related to access and our core purpose is to take care of more people in more places. So our global growth is really a part of our broader philosophy that if we’re doing a good job and we feel like we’re delivering a high-quality service to help people stay safe and independent at home, then we feel a sense of responsibility to do more of it in more places and expand access to those great services. 

The Pulse: What were some of the biggest challenges you have faced while scaling BAYADA’s business during your career?

DB: I think growth puts culture to the test. Our growth geographically, both domestically and internationally, has put real emphasis on us creating a common value system and a common culture system that binds us all together. It’s a key part of how we think about running our business and organizing our BAYADA community. But our growth has also forced us to constantly re-evaluate and reinvent. How do we keep people connected to a common purpose and a common set of values that anchor the way we set strategy? The way we make decisions? And the way we treat each other and work together to deliver on our purpose?

The Pulse: One of the biggest changes in BAYADA’s 45+ year history was in 2017 when BAYADA announced that it would become a not-for-profit organization. What factors informed this decision to transition from a private, family-owned company to a not-for-profit? What was the thought process and what were some of the key considerations? 

DB: If you read our values document called “The BAYADA Way”, there are some important phrases in the vision statement that describe our long-term intent to build and maintain a lasting legacy and to serve millions of people worldwide with the most compassionate and trusted team of home health professionals. We wrote those words almost twenty years ago and when you break them down and pause and reflect on what they mean, it really sets the table for us to figure out how do you build a multi-generational, sustainable, 100-year company that continues to grow and adapt and innovate to ensure that we take care of more people in more places with great teams. So as a family and as a leadership team, we started to think about how you do that. How do you build a company that lasts one hundred years that continues to adapt, grow, and succeed? When you look around, there aren’t a lot of 100-year-old companies, so it took us over a decade to really think about all the different alternatives, whether it was family ownership, public ownership, partnership models like large banks and law firms, not-for-profit structure, or some hybrid of the above. In the end we decided, while not perfect, that converting to not-for-profit was the structure of ownership and governance that would maximize the likelihood of our organization lasting 100 years or more and making “The BAYADA Way” come true. And that was really the heart of the decision. 

The Pulse: As you reflect on your own career, what advice do you have to others who want to make an impact on the healthcare industry?

DB: Have patience. Healthcare moves slowly. I also feel strongly about the importance of the intersection between both purpose and performance. Some people may lose their way focusing too much on one or the other which is a natural tension we have to manage. I believe the most impact and success comes when you find an equilibrium between a sense of purpose and getting great results, in whatever way you define results. This equilibrium characterizes the people who I see as most successful in finding their paths in a healthcare career.

Interviewed by Alex Yoo, December 2021.

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On Feb 10-11, 2022, Wharton is excited to feature more expert perspectives at our annual Wharton Health Care Business Conference. This year’s conference is virtual and themed ‘A Fair Shot at Health’. Tickets available here