Becker's Hospital Review

Register Today! Becker's Hospital Review CEO Strategy Roundtable - Nov. 5, 2014 - Chicago 60 S tephen Mansfield, PhD, has led Dallas-based Methodist Health Sys- tem as president and CEO since 2006. Dr. Mansfield's healthcare career technically began in the late 1960s, as he explains below, and he's spent a number of years in executive positions. Be- fore taking on his current role with Methodist, he spent seven years as president and CEO of the five-hospital St. Vincent Health System, based in Little Rock, Ark. Before then, he held a range of administrative positions with Memphis, Tenn.-based Baptist Memorial Health Care System for 23 years. In addition to his work with Methodist, Dr. Mansfield is an active member of the Dallas community. He is the current chairman of the Dallas Regional Chamber and serves on boards for the Dallas County Community College District Foundation, Dallas Citizens Council and North Texas Commission. He is also a board member for his alma mater, University of Tennessee at Martin. Dr. Mansfield, a native of Tennessee, earned his bachelor's degree in health- care administration from Ottawa (Kan.) University, his MBA from the Uni- versity of Tennessee at Martin and his PhD in organizational leadership from Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. Here, Dr. Mansfield took the time to answer Becker's Hospital Review's seven questions. What's one thing that really piqued your interest in healthcare? I kind of meandered into healthcare. I didn't really pick it per se. My mother worked in the business office in the little hospital in the community I grew up in. She got me to mow the grass in high school, I think because she paid me less than the person they paid before. When I went to college, I worked at that same hospi- tal as a combination admissions clerk/information desk/private branch exchange operator. It was really just a way to make a living. And then I met a very good friend in what was a new profession in the early 1970s called respiratory therapy. In my hometown, there was not a university for that, so I left and went to community college and got a degree in RT. That I did choose, and I loved being a respiratory therapist. I worked in RT for about 10 years or so, and it was such a new field that right out of college I was able to become director of a department. Then I met a young hospital CEO, not much older than myself, who got me interested in the business side of healthcare. My focus had always been on the clinical side; I loved taking care of patients. But he really made the business side attractive and talked me into going back and getting my MBA. He helped me get first job as a hospital CEO in 1986. There's nothing I rather do than what I do in healthcare. What do you enjoy most about Dallas? Dallas just has an amazing swagger about it. The people here just don't run into an obstacle they don't think they can overcome. Dallas is very welcoming to new people who come into the area. I've only been here eight years and was recently selected chairman of the chamber of commerce. That's unusual in such a large city, but they put you to work right away. In most communities, you need to be there for years for it to feel like home...Dallas felt like home to me and my family immediately. The other thing: Philanthropically, I can't imagine any community being more giving than Dallas. It's amazing how this community supports very dif- ferent charitable events and causes, including Methodist. We just completed a $20 million campaign for an emergency critical care tower. It just blows me away — the number of people who gave and size of gifts given. If you could eliminate one of the healthcare industry's problems overnight, which would it be? About two years ago, the National Research Council issued a report funded by the Institutes of Medicine and Health. It was a 16-nation longitudinal study to answer this question: Why do Americans spend more money per capita than the rest of the industrial world on healthcare, but our health metrics lag those of other countries? The answer was not anything to do with what we reformed in healthcare, if you will. The fundamental answer was about the health status of Americans. Shockingly, what they discovered was that the U.S. is either the worst or very near the bottom for most public health measures. The U.S. health disadvan- tage spans many types of illness and injury. When compared with the average of peer countries, Americans, as a group, fare worse in at least nine health areas: 1. Infant mortality and low birth weight 2. Injuries and homicides 3. Adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections 4. HIV and AIDS 5. Drug-related deaths 6. Obesity and diabetes 7. Heart disease 8. Chronic lung disease 9. Disability The Corner Office: Dr. Stephen Mansfield of Methodist Health System on the Swagger and Generosity of Dallas By Molly Gamble

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