Becker's Hospital Review

30 CEO / STRATEGY Retirement regret (and how one hospital CEO beat it) By Molly Gamble N ew retirees who feel any loss of structure, identity or intellectual stimulation are hardly alone — about 15 percent of retirees have a difficult time adjusting to their new lifestyles, e Wall Street Journal reports. e statistic comes from Georg Henning, PhD, a researcher at the German Centre of Gerontology in Berlin. People may find the adjustment from working life to retirement especially challenging if they retire for health reasons, face financial difficulties or leave the workforce involuntarily. Samuel H. Turner Sr., former president and CEO of Shawnee Mission Medical Center in Merriam, Kan., didn't have a seamless ad- justment from sometimes working 14 to 16 hours a day to the abundance of free time that his first retirement in 2011 brought him. "I was just lost," Mr. Turner told e Journal. "Even though you think you're prepared for [retirement], you're not. You're just sitting there thinking, 'What am I going to do today?'" University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine asked Mr. Turner a few years into his retirement to serve as its associate dean for diversity and inclusion. Mr. Turner accepted the position, effectively unretiring and striking an agreement with his wife to work two years, stopping when they would both be 70. When Mr. Turner retired for the second time in 2017, he had a better idea of how he want- ed to spend his time. He exercises for two hours six days a week, volunteers at a food pantry, sings on his church's praise team and serves on its finance committee. He is on the board of a local bank and sits on nominating committees for the local judiciary and for candidates of the five U.S. service academies. He has time to read books for the first time in 30 years. He has enjoyed more time and travel with his wife. "When I retired this time, I was set up," Mr. Turner told e Journal. "I have a busy schedule and structure. I see now that there are good things about retirement. ere are contributions that I can make." Mr. Turner's experience is aligned with findings from a 2020 paper published in Aging & Mental Health, which found that retirees who were the most involved in activities and connected with friends and family were likely to "succeed" in retire- ment, and those who took these steps before retirement transitioned into their postwork lives more smoothly. Unretirements like Mr. Turner's are striking up a good amount of interest in 2022, too. Economists are curious as to whether baby boomers who accelerated their retirement during the pandemic will return to the work- force, and if so, at what rate. Pre-pandemic, "unretirement" was not un- common in the United States, due to finan- cial hardship or personal choice. It's still too soon to say whether the pandemic has chal- lenged this dynamic. Early retirements are one type of disruption to the healthcare labor force throughout the pandemic. Census microdata from the Current Population Survey provided by the University of Minnesota shows 14,500 nurs- es had recently retired as of March 2021, an increase of 140 percent over that figure in March 2019, according to a Pew report. e figure represents people who worked in the profession the past year but said they were now retired and not looking for work. n Walmart heir to help build new regional health system in Arkansas By Alia Paavola W almart heir Alice Walton's foundation has partnered with the Wash- ington Regional Medical System in Fayetteville, Ark., to build a new regional healthcare system. The new health system will serve northwest Arkansas. The Alice Walton Foun- dation and Washington Regional Medical Center plan to work with Cleveland Clinic to support growth of healthcare services in the region. The three organi- zations will work together to help residents in Arkansas access specialty care. "This partnership is all about access, ensuring that residents of our thriving re- gion have ready access to world-class health care services, including specialty care," Ms. Walton said in an April 25 news release. "We're bringing together three organizations with unique strengths — including Washington Regional's excellence in serving this community, Cleveland Clinic's innovative care, and my foundation's focus on enhancing access — to offer a broader scope and scale of services to our region and beyond." The organizations said the new partnership will help train the next generation of clinicians, build a regional health system that offers whole-person services and develop a partnership with Ms. Walton's soon-to-open Whole Health School of Medicine to establish an academic health system. The organization also said it plans to expand clinical services, increase specialty care services and strengthen the transformation to value-based care. "The creation of the regional health system will advance our mission and vi- sion, including expanding our clinical, academic, and operational capabilities, and continuing to invest in our facilities," said Larry Shackelford, president and CEO of Washington Regional Medical System. "This partnership provides the resources to take our health care services to the next level to best serve our growing community." Ms. Walton announced plans in 2021 to finance and build a medical school in northwest Arkansas, known as the Whole Health School of Medicine in Ben- tonville. The medical school is currently working to secure accreditation and authorization. It expects to admit its first class of students in fall of 2024. n

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