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70 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Championing better care 8,000 miles from home: Meet Tamra Minton, UPMC International's new VP of nursing and quality By Molly Gamble I n September, UPMC named Tamra Minton, MBA, MSN, RN, vice presi- dent of nursing and quality for UPMC International, a role in which she will work with UPMC's public and private partners in Ireland, Italy, China and Kazakhstan. Most recently, Ms. Minton served as sys- tem senior director at Mon Health Med- ical Center in Morgantown, W.Va. Before that, she served as vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer of UPMC East in Monroeville, Pa., where she helped open the hospital in 2012 and develop the UPMC International Training Center. Becker's caught up with Ms. Minton to discuss the operational and cul- tural components of her work, the benefits of a Pittsburgh-based system establishing a global brand, and the most essential skills one needs to truly thrive in a multicultural leadership role. Question: UPMC has a footprint in Ireland, Italy, China and Kazakhstan. Leaders face challenges when managing teams and processes in disparate sites in the same market, so I imagine you face some unique hurdles in trying to do so across countries and time zones. What are your greatest tactical or operational challenges? Tamra Minton: Trying to find a time that works for everyone's team members. ere is a 12-hour difference between us and our partners in China, for instance. We try to split up time zones, so one day recently we had a call at 7 a.m., which was 7 p.m. for China. Later that day, I was on another call from 9:30 p.m. until about midnight with the same team in China. We must really work collegiately together to make sure we can communicate on a regular basis. at's one operational component that seems to happen well. e next piece is related to the takeaways for a partnership. What does our international hospital partner want from its relationship with UPMC? Every country and hospital can be somewhat different based on its needs. Upfront, it's good to establish why we are joining this re- lationship. Our conversations start from that understanding. Our international partnerships have to be a shared experience. Not only are we sharing our practices and best standards, but the partners are sharing with us — that's what makes the relationship so rich. Q: What are your greatest cultural challenges? TM: What we must realize very, very quickly is that we are not in this relationship to change another country's culture, by any means. We are there to support them. I can give an example. I went to China for 30 days to work with phy- sicians and nurses and talk about our partnership deliverables. I was rounding on one of the floors, and I can't speak Mandarin, unfortunate- ly, but I noticed a blackboard behind the nurses' station. I asked, "What does that say?" A colleague said, "at says Zhang Jing in room 520 and that she had a heart attack." My colleague continued to read patients' names, room numbers and conditions — diabetes, atrial fibrillation. I said to her, "Can you share with me — why do you put the diagnosis up there?" She explained the reasoning: Families who are at the hospital with their loved ones oen come down to the floor to see if any of their friends and neighbors are hospitalized and, if so, what is wrong. You are well aware of our confidentiality issues in the U.S. But in China, it's very common that patients want their friends to know they're in the hospital and their diagnosis. Very early on, I asked the nurse if that was something we could change — maybe remove the diagnosis but leave the patient's name and room number. I might not be able to do that. If it's something they feel strongly about, we need to work with that. But we can't have confidentiality issues risk what the deliverables of our partner- ship might be, like Joint Commission accreditation. Q: Having a global brand is a big help for attracting top talent, no? What other benefits does the global brand draw for UPMC here at home in the U.S.? TM: No. 1 — we have many employees across the system who want to learn more about other countries. When we have these relationships, we host a number of students and physicians who come to the U.S. to a UPMC hospital to shadow. is is also an opportunity to learn about our partners' medical care and their best practices. We aren't the only hospital with best practices. It's a sharing relationship. I also believe it's an opportunity to really look at the research done in these countries. at's probably one of the most important assets that we have in working [with] them. Our partner in Italy has a research center, for instance, and our physicians are working with theirs to learn about different aspects of research, including transplants and how they take care of their patients. Q: It takes specific strengths and skills to truly thrive in a multicultural leadership role. What are those, in your opin- ion? TM: First of all, any experience you've had in a leadership role is going to be a plus. Many of our hospital partners in other countries are looking for opportunities to learn about management styles and the best way to sometimes work with nursing in general. Flexibility is a must, I believe. ings are not always black and white; you need to be able to see some gray. I also think understanding your management style is key. I'm a transfor- mational leader, meaning I want to involve people. If I just wanted to tell people what to do, I would not succeed in working internationally. It's about working with them and making decisions together about what's best for their hospital. You have to like to travel. Time zones can't frighten you. You must like to fly.