Becker's Hospital Review

92 92 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP 'Sit at the next table up': Mount Carmel CEO Lorraine Lutton's advice for developing leaders By Alia Paavola L orraine Lutton joined Mount Carmel Health System as president and CEO in April 2020, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was tasked with leading the Colum- bus, Ohio-based system, which consists of four acute care hospitals, an inpa- tient rehabilitation facility and network of outpatient facilities, through the once-in-a-century pandemic. Before joining Mount Carmel, Ms. Lutton served as president and CEO of Roper St. Francis Healthcare in Charleston, S.C., where she led a financial turnaround, and spent more than 20 years in Tampa, Fla., in various healthcare leadership roles. Specifically, Ms. Lutton was president of St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, part of the Clear- water, Fla.-based BayCare Health System, and the regional leader of BayCare's Hillsboro County market. Here, Ms. Lutton shares what healthcare issues keep her up at night, the best way to develop leaders and the most challenging decision she had to make as CEO. Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for length and clarity. Question: What healthcare issues keep you up at night — and what issues make the job worthwhile? Lorraine Lutton: What keeps me up at night right now is ensuring employee resiliency and supporting our employees to support our mission. is year has been incredibly challenging for so many, and our front-line colleagues are bearing the brunt of taking care of pa- tients, taking care of each other and their communities. As a Catholic organization we have long supported holistic care for our colleagues — mind, body and spirit — and it has never been more important. What I really enjoy is working to improve our performance and see- ing measurable improvements that we can quantify. I am a numbers person. I grew up playing sports, and I like to improve our scores on patient experience, clinical outcomes and financial performance. I am also trying to help facilitate a transition from fee-for-service to value-based care and I like to measure everything and track improve- ment. When I see those measurable improvements, I get excited. Q: Can you describe the most challenging decision you've had to make as CEO. Why was it so challenging? LL: When I first came to Mount Carmel, all elective procedures stopped and we were in an unsustainable place financially. We ended up furloughing and right-sizing the organization based on the patient volumes we were seeing. is included changes to the composition of the team to be more streamlined and more efficient moving forward. It was very important, but it was very challenging because we empa- thize with and care about everyone on the team. Q: What is the best way to develop leaders? LL: My leadership style is that I am very transparent and inclusive. at applies to how I act and observe others. I am very open to lis- tening and learning from others, and I like to lead by example. My personal experience as a leader coming up was that it was a great ad- vantage to sit at the next table up. So when I was a quality director, I got to sit at the senior leadership table and understand how they think and process information and got greater context for my work. I would always encourage leaders, if possible, to sit at the next table up. I also think it's nice to have a role that can allow you to see how the departments come together. If you work in one department, volunteer for teams that work across departments so you are not in a silo. You are seeing how things flow together. Understanding the process of care across the organization is important for any healthcare leader. Q: What are a few of your top priorities as CEO in 2021? LL: ere are probably three: culture, getting back to quality basics and transforming the organization in terms of our service offerings. e first is instilling a culture of excellence in everything we do. For me, that starts with measuring how well we are doing today, setting goals about how we are going to do better and being transparent about them. Another goal is refocusing on the quality basics. For COVID, at least the last few months in the latest surge, we have all been focused on daily staffing, taking care of our teams, COVID testing and COVID vaccinations. We have to refocus back on traditional metrics of suc- cess. It's not that we haven't been concerned about these, but there is only so much bandwidth, and COVID has been top of mind. e third goal is transforming our organization to be better than nor- mal. is is moving from fee-for-service to value-based care, expand- ing telemedicine, growing our hospital-at-home program, and just being more effective at meeting patients where they are. Q: What accomplishment are you most proud of since joining Mount Carmel? LL: I think about two. One is putting in place an incredible leader- ship team. We have a lot of new leaders at Mount Carmel. When I first came, we rearranged who was in what positions and made a few changes in who was on the team. But I am so confident in the group we have now. ey are a great group, very aligned, very committed to serving our patients and colleagues. I would also say trying to develop new ways of communication. Be- cause of COVID, when I first came, I couldn't do town hall meetings, and I wasn't really out rounding with colleagues on the front line. We ended up committing to other methods of communication. Every two weeks we do a Webex and invite all colleagues. We have about 500-600 people who join the call for a half-hour. We call them 'here to listen' webinars. ey have been really successful in answering questions people have and responding to suggestions people have. ey have also helped us increase transparency and improve communication. We also have nursing forums and have started doing gemba walks, where we spend an hour doing rounds, talking to colleagues and engaging with them. n

• Cover