In this episode of the MGMA Insights Podcast, host Daniel Williams, Senior Editor at MGMA, interviews Sean Nguyen, MHA, the MGMA 2025 Harwick Innovation Award winner and System Director of the Interventional Pain Service Line at Ochsner Health. Nguyen developed Ochsner’s groundbreaking “One Reason for Visit” model to unify multidisciplinary care and simplify the patient journey.
From Houma to Healthcare
Nguyen’s passion for healthcare leadership is deeply rooted in his Louisiana upbringing and his family’s history. “I actually grew up down the bayou in Houma, Louisiana — about an hour south of New Orleans,” he said. “My parents immigrated over here from Vietnam after the war. Having grown up in Louisiana, [we were] very, very well rooted — crawfish boils on the weekends, or oysters, always big on seafood.”
When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, Nguyen was in college and soon began working with FEMA on disaster recovery and behavioral health support. “When Katrina hit, FEMA came in and was looking for individuals that had community connections and knew how to leverage that to disseminate resources and help out,” he said. “I was able to work with FEMA to help with recovery efforts and help from a mental [and] behavioral health perspective — connecting resources and helping communities in some of these FEMA trailer parks.”
“That was my first true introduction into healthcare and public health,” Nguyen said. “And I’ve been in healthcare, in some form, ever since.”
A Health System Rooted in Innovation
Ochsner Health, based in New Orleans, spans more than 45 hospitals and 65 clinics across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Nguyen described his role as “the internal glue everywhere that we have interventional pain services.”
“Our health system really focuses on innovation, teamwork, [and] excellence,” Nguyen said. “We have cancer care, primary care, women’s and children’s, and all the different specialties as well.”
He has been with Ochsner for nearly eight years. “It’s been a wild ride being here, going from something so recovery and disaster and traumatic to now being in such a large health system, making systematic impacts and policy changes and working with amazing individuals day in and day out,” he said.
Building the “One Reason for Visit” Model
Ochsner’s “One Reason for Visit” initiative emerged from the challenge of ensuring patients receive consistent care no matter where they enter the system. Nguyen asked a simple question: How can we align specialties so every patient gets the same level of care?
“We’ve always had this idea of having all the specialties sit together and see patients together, collaborate together — ideally, that’s the gold standard," he said. "But with so many patients coming in for back pain, we couldn’t replicate having every single specialty in one clinic across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.”
Nguyen’s solution was to create a single point of entry for all back-pain patients, connecting each specialty’s scheduling workflows using decision trees within Ochsner’s Epic electronic health record. “I worked with our Epic team, our analysts, and our access-to-care team,” Nguyen said. “I asked, ‘Is there a way we can connect all those dots to one uniform decision tree?’ They said, ‘Yeah, technically you can. It’s never been done before with us.’ So I said, ‘Let’s try it.’”
He also brought clinicians from multiple specialties together to create common ground for consistent patient evaluation. “Clinically speaking, we do operate differently,” he said. “We all have different modalities on how we treat back pain. Can we create some sort of common ground — at least for the initial visit?”
The result was a standardized, system-wide approach that ensures every patient receives consistent triage and care regardless of specialty or location.
Earning Buy-In and Building Trust
Implementing a system-wide initiative across multiple specialties and regions required time, empathy, and persistence. “It took over two years of just shaking hands, getting to know people,” Nguyen said. “That is my approach when it comes to making impactful change — to get in person, connect the dots, get to know people and understand the why behind everything.”
He emphasized that transparency and empathy were key to building trust. “Getting behind the why was easy because it’s for the betterment of our patients,” he said. “But building the trust that this is the right thing to do … that absolutely took a lot longer.”
Nguyen said he used a public health framework to ensure the change was sustainable. “My personal philosophy has always been using a public health perspective — that sociological model,” he said. “If I can change the clinicians but I can’t change the unit, or department, or clinic to get on board, then that change won’t be reinforced.”
Measurable Results and Culture Change
The impact of the “One Reason for Visit” model has been significant. “Because of this initiative, patient satisfaction increased, wait times have decreased, [and] same-day availability is more accessible,” Nguyen said.
Beyond metrics, he values the ongoing feedback from clinicians. “I still get calls from clinicians saying, ‘Hey, I called and the patient got an appointment tomorrow,’” he said. “To hear back about how this is working … means they’re still buying in. That, for me, is my own personal satisfaction.”
Nguyen also envisions expanding the model to other chronic conditions. “I can see this being applied for diabetic care, hypertension, women’s health — taking major chronic diseases and making slow impacts in those areas by having more of a concert of specialties and primary care teams working in unison,” he said.
Leadership Lessons
Nguyen encourages medical group leaders to start small, include trusted subject matter experts, and work from both the top down and bottom up. “Get your subject matter experts on board. Get some boots on the ground. Get the voice of the customers in on this and go straight to the top to get buy-in,” he said. “There has to be a concerted effort of both sides coming together … to scale this across other disease states.”
He credited the Ochsner team and leadership for their collective effort. “None of this would be possible without the full team support at Ochsner Health … our physicians, our APS, and so many others," Nguyen said. "This award is a testament to the collective effort.”
As the interview wraps up, Nguyen jokes a bit about the pin on his lapel — an accessory he considers a symbol of teamwork and shared success. “This particular project came with so many different amazing heroes coming together to make such a big impact,” he said. “I thought it was appropriate to wear the Avengers pin for this one!”
Resources from this episode:
