First Year MHA’s Trip to Northeast Iowa

By: Keaton Betterton (MHA '20)

The first year MHA class had the opportunity to visit two dynamic health care organizations in Iowa for our spring class trip. Our cohort traveled to Waterloo, Iowa to visit with leaders from UnityPoint Health-Allen Hospital. We heard from six leaders of the organization: Pam Delagardelle- President/CEO, Laura Woebbeking- Patient Experience Director, Sharese Van Sloten- Director of Operations Specialty Services-Waterloo Region, Alan Morris- Manager, Analytics & Performance Excellence, Luke Kroeger- Director of Clincal Operations, Retail & Access Services, and Sarah Brown- Regional Amulatory VP. All six leaders had a similar theme when they spoke with us: improving quality and physician engagement. More specifically, they detailed the steps the organization took in order to improve their clinical quality as well as their new organizational structure. All of the speakers spoke with passion and ideals that aligned with the physician dyad structure which establishes an administrator-physician team that works in tandem with one another to provide support to each service line. While Allen Hospital shies away from calling their organization a “physician-led” organization, they are certainly creating a strong partnership between administration and physicians as well as sending a strong message to their employees, patients, and surrounding communities that they are an organization that prioritizes clinical quality and improvement.

           

Two very unique characteristics of the leadership team from Allen Hospital is that most of the individuals who spoke with us are women leaders, and former clinicians. It is encouraging and empowering to see a successful group of women leading the improvements at the organization. Additionally, while Allen Hospital has made significant efforts in creating and sustaining a physician involved organizational structure, their focus on clinical quality and improvement is also seen outside of their physician leadership. It is clearly visible that a leadership team that has direct experience in health care enables the team up to be more accountable and successful in making significant improvements in clinical quality within the organization.

After spending the morning at Allen Hospital, our cohort traveled to Waverly, Iowa to visit the Waverly Health Center (WHS), a 25-bed critical access hospital (CAH) with Jim Atty- CEO and 2009 MHA Iowa alumnus. The afternoon was filled with an open discussion surrounding the unique issues that critical access hospitals face, some changes that need to be made to the requirements of critical access hospitals, and the importance of an organizational philanthropy program in a smaller community. One of the most intriguing obstacles that critical access hospitals will face in the next couple of decades is the transition from volume to value. Inherently, critical access hospitals are paid in a fee-for-service model. So the larger question becomes: How will critical access hospitals manage this shift when they seemingly will not have an opportunity to thrive in this new structure?  Mr. Atty was unable to answer this question and confirmed that healthcare leaders are also unsure of how critical access hospitals will navigate this shift. Emily Neuendorf, the WHC Foundation Director, spoke to our class about the role of a foundation in an organization and the challenges regularly encountered. Additionally, Ms. Neuendorf articulated the importance of fostering relationships with givers by truly making them a partner in the organization which is imperative in maintaining a positive community presence.

Thank you to Waverly Health Center and Unity Point Health-Allen Hospital for hosting our MHA First-Year class! We look forward to continuing to foster our relationship with your organizations and appreciate your willingness to share the challenges and successes of your organizations to give life to practical issues that Iowa hospitals regularly face.