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GRAVITAS Magazine Fall 2015

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58 | GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com I took co-op classes, whereby I was placed in the field of my study to earn credit. Most of my colleagues in my class were interested in the oil industry and they were going to Houston and all these different places and I didn't want to move. I got assigned to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola in their accounting department.I was on the finance side but I enjoyed the work and the people. I really did enjoy being in a hospital. It is a small city, it goes 24/7, and there's always a lot going on. I stayed on the finance side of healthcare until actually through my time in Tampa in General Hospital, when I left as the Senior Vice President of Finance of the Chief Financial Officer. What that was like for you working in a male dominated accounting field in the late 1970s? I was not discouraged, nor was I encouraged. At the time in the accounting profession it was still largely a male-dominated profession. I also made a conscious decision not to go into the accounting part. I knew that I didn't want to be at a desk doing work papers. I knew that I didn't want to do audits. In a hospital though, the larger majority of the work force has been, and continues to be women. I think there was a natural relationship that might have occurred by being a woman in the finance department in a largely male- driven professional path, but in a setting that very much encouraged women. In fact, as part of the Catholic system, Sacred Heart Hospital was led by a nun and there were women in leadership positions. You had an opportunity to open a new hospital but then came some struggles as a manager. What happened? I opened up a 114-bed psychiatric hospital that was also a teaching and research facility. I stayed there until the hospital was sold to Tampa General in 1993. As it came to be, the hospital hired me, reporting to the CFO. e CEO and the CFO both left after a very tumultuous board meeting and I was put in as acting CFO. e rest is history. I stayed there through the privatization of Tampa General from a government hospital to a not-for-profit. ere were a lot of management changes that took place and during that time. It was an agreed upon departure, shall we say? I love how you talked about opportunities to speak up, use your voice, and say this is what I want. Is that part of the career plan that you carved out for yourself ? Encouraging women not to be afraid, or letting their wishes be known. I think that some women, and I've seen it happen enough times now to know, will still take a back seat. I also think it's really, really important for you to know the audience, know your place in that room. If you're in a meeting, if you're able to participate in it, and know when you should and are expected to speak up versus when to defer to others. at's a lesson that sometimes you can't learn except through hands-on experience. What is one of the biggest lessons you learned in your career? My boss taught me that I had great speaking skills but not great facial expressions. He taught me how to control those, especially in front of the media. You have a particular love with Bayfront Health and its long legacy, but also for the human side interacting with patients. Tell me about that. ere must be a side of me that allowed me to show that compassion and help solve problems. Not every patient is a happy patient, and not every family is a happy family. I am not opposed at all to stay with a family and hearing what their worries or why they are upset. Many times that does happen in many of these jobs but I also love hearing their positive stories. I like the human nature side of this work. I know that the reason that I'm here is because of the patients and the doctors. I have a particular love and appreciation, and believe with my heart that the great medical care across this country specifically happens at teaching and trauma hospitals. I would always read about Bayfront in the newspaper and I just felt this appreciation of what must be going on here as it related to patient care was because it's been in the community for over 100 years. How do you see your role to lead employees to achieve the common goal of an improved patient experience? I can tell you that is one thing that I've always said, and truly believe. I've been successful in my job because I managed to surround myself with very good people. I think I have a talent for hiring people. I have very dedicated employees throughout my career. Part of my management philosophy has been to make sure I hire the best and the brightest who work themselves to make sure that they succeed and therefore make my job a whole lot easier. How do you manage a hospital to improve the patient experience amid new government regulations? When Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services came out with their new payment plan, which ties payments to hospitals according to the outcomes of the patient experience and the number of readmissions. I think that is exactly the right thing to do. It's what we would want if we were buying a service. We buy for quality but we also buy for price. We buy for experience. e experience that you might have at Target is very, very different from Walmart and people

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