Put Patients Before Profits: Protect Our Safety Net Hospitals

For decades, the most vulnerable Floridians have depended on the state’s safety net hospitals to save their lives and care for their health. Each year, these hospitals care for large numbers of low-income children, sick babies, senior citizens and pregnant women. Safety net hospitals provide a critical public service that the state has historically supported with vital funding.

Now, Florida’s for-profit hospitals want to raid $318 million in state tax dollars that goes to help these safety net hospitals care for those who need help the most. Hospitals owned by out-of-state corporations want to pad their profits with tax dollars that have long been used to safeguard Floridians’ health. These hospitals are asking the state Senate to risk the lives of our vulnerable residents in order to pump up their stock prices.

We respectfully ask our senators to consider our perspective that this is bad policy: If the for-profits get their way, the impact on the safety net hospitals would be devastating. For Tampa General Hospital, the largest hospital in the region serving those most in need, it would mean additional cuts of $14.4 million.

To continue reading the full column in the Tampa Bay Times, please click here.

Balancing Act

As I approach my three-month anniversary at Tampa General Hospital, I have barely had any time to take a breath and reflect on my new role. In many ways, it feels like I have been here for years, but in others, it seems like I am just in my first week.  You see, I have divided my time between immersing myself in the organization—listening and learning—and diving in to solve problems, facing the challenges head on.

You might recall, back when I first announced my move toTampa,  I discussed my first priority on arrival was to spend a significant amount of time listening. My goal was to listen to team members, to physicians, to patients and community members and to learn from them. I wanted to immerse myself in all levels of the organization and in its culture in order to truly understand all aspects of the hospital from its successes to its challenges. As I stated back then, I believe wholeheartedly that in order to lead effectively you must listen and learn.

To a large extent, I have been able to spend my time as planned. I have been rounding, spending time with transport, in ICU, in the main operating suite, on the oncology floor and more, working alongside our nurses, techs and entire team. I have been focused on working my way through the hospital, listening, observing and learning. I have learned so much in the short amount of time I have been part of the TGH team and am more impressed than ever with the dedication and talent of my team, our physicians, our board members and our community as they come together to deliver world-class health care to the region.

But like many things in life, this job is a balancing act—developing a team and helping to shape an organization while bobbing and weaving through the challenges and day to day issues that arise. I have come to realize that it is not only through listening but also managing the new issues and challenges that come up each day, that I learn just as much about the organization—the intricacies and nuances of a complex hospital system as well as about my team—their capabilities, their approach to their work and their colleagues. The last three months have taught me to see every moment as a learning experience, and appreciate the blend of working alongside the team and managing from the helm. This has allowed for a 360-degree view of the organization.

So when in your career and you find yourself taking on a new role, it is good to listen and soak up as much as you can from day one. Get insight and perspective from your colleagues and sit back, when appropriate, and hear what they have to say.  But I have learned it is also just as valuable to get in the thick of things as soon as you can and work with your team on moving the ball forward. In other words, some days you will need to wade into the water and splash around and other days you will need to dive in and swim as fast as you can.

You Say Goodbye and You Say Hello

As I prepare to leave my position as Jupiter Medical Center and transition into my new role at Tampa General Hospital, I have been thinking about best practices when it comes to exiting one organization and moving to another.

I think the true testament of any leader is if they can look around on their last day and know that they have left the organization in a better and stronger place than when they found it. And as a leader, your primary responsibility is to do your best to ensure that your organization is on solid ground with things running as smoothly as possible.

First, you need to put together a strong transition team. You want to assign key strategic efforts that you have been leading to specific members of the team. Armed with your initial input and the institutional knowledge you pass along, they will be responsible for championing and ensuring these programs continue to run smoothly and achieve the objectives that had been set.

You also need to encourage your team to stay the course, remain focused on the goals and strategies that you have all put in place and not do anything radically different in the short term. A calm and steady operation will help soothe the potential concerns of stakeholders and team members that naturally come with a change in leadership.

Finally, you need to work as hard as you possibly can every moment until your walk out the door for the last time. There is no room for short-timer syndrome and you must remain dedicated and focused until the end.

When entering a new organization, as corny as it sounds, you need to spend a majority of your time on a listening tour. By that I mean meeting with all those associated with the organization, from team members to stakeholders, and hear (not only listen but really hear) their concerns, thoughts and ideas. This will allow you to begin to form connections with your fellow team members as well as begin to understand and get a feel for the organizational culture.

Immersing yourself in the organizational culture is the most critical thing you can do when assuming a new role. You never want to walk into a new organization and announce all of your immediate plans and ideas for changes to the place. You want to jump in to the “organizational pond” and swim with the team. You need to work from within and in a collaborative way in order to learn and become part of the fabric of the organization. This will allow you to demonstrate your value—what you will add to an already strong team—to build trust, to begin to make a positive impact and help to initiate transformation and create success.

Leaving one role and moving to another is a time of mixed emotions and can understandably be overwhelming. By helping to ensure a smooth transition and thoughtfully preparing for the future, you can look forward to all the good things to come.

The Future is Bright

On June 5th, I accepted the position of President and CEO of Tampa General Hospital (TGH), a role I will assume on September 1st. Over the last seven years, the team at Jupiter Medical Center has been able to transform a great hospital into a world-class system of care. We have done this through innovation, collaboration, the proliferation of technologies and programs, and the embracing of common goals and organizational culture. And so I leave not only proud of the work that has been done by the entire team, but excited for the future of Jupiter Medical Center going forward. There is great momentum at Jupiter and I look forward to witnessing all the amazing things to come.

While leaving Jupiter will be bittersweet, I am honored and truly humbled to accept this new role at TGH. Moving to TGH represents a return to what I love most—academic medicine. I got my start in academic medicine with Massachusetts General Hospital and working within that model is where my passion lies and what gets me the most excited and motivated.

TGH is an incredible institution run by an amazing team with an illustrious history and deep, deep roots in the community. I feel privileged that I am able to work with this group of people. Everyone from those in senior leadership to the trustees, to the team members and physicians.

For those of you not familiar with the hospital, it is truly world-class and one of the leading medical institutions in Florida and the southeastt. It is home of one of the leading organ transplant centers in the United States. It contains one of only four burn units in Florida and is the only level one trauma center on the West Coast of Florida—transporting patients from all over the region via medical helicopter to receive life-saving care. Finally, it is the primary teaching affiliate of the University of South Florida’s Health Morsani college (USF).

My first task after joining the organization will be to listen—to team members, to physicians, to patients and community members and to learn from them. I plan to immerse myself in all levels of the organization and in its culture in order to truly understand all aspects of the hospital from its successes to its challenges. I also want to understand both quality and patient satisfaction metrics. I believe wholeheartedly that in order to lead effectively you must learn and listen first.

There are also countless people in Tampa who rely on the hospital for their care and well-being. In order to best serve the community, I will spend time getting to know everyone involved—reaching out to its business leaders, its civic leaders, its government officials and its citizens.

In addition, one of the hallmarks of TGH is its relationship and collaboration with USF. This relationship is critical to the current and future success of the hospital and I plan on spending significant time working with our USF partners and physicians to not only understand the great things that they are doing, but also to understand where they want to go in the years to come. We can’t lose sight of the rich history TGH has with its local community physicians so we need to continue engaging and supporting them as well.

Once I have spent time learning and listening, I will begin to work with the trustees and the entire team to develop a strategic plan for the future. Together we will map out the vision and objectives for the next three, five and ten years of TGH. At the end of the day, my goal is to help TGH deliver the highest possible quality care that is met with the highest satisfaction ratings from its patients.

Since I first stepped into TGH, I was blown away by the quality and level of care they provide as well as the world-class programs it offers. I cannot wait to get started and to help drive that tradition of excellence further. I know the best days of the hospital are ahead of us as we lead not only the region but the state of Florida in medical excellence.