Health Leader Forge

Today’s guest is Chris Sloan, the Chief Operating Officer of Capital Medical Center in Olympia, Washington. Capital Medical Center is a 107-bed hospital with about 600 employees. It is part of LifePoint Health, a for-profit hospital system headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Chris joined Capital Medical Center after retiring from the Army Medical Service Corps in September of 2019, with 23 years of service as a military medical logistician and hospital administrator. During his service he deployed to Kosovo and Iraq, and ended his career as the Chief Operating Officer for Madigan Army Medical Center, one of the Army’s largest hospitals.

In this podcast we talk about Chris’s military career, transition to leadership in the civilian sector, his leadership philosophy, and, since this interview was originally recorded in October of 2020, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

for more information, please see our website: http://healthleaderforge.org

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

Earlier this fall, I was able to publish a paper with my colleagues Chris Mayhugh and Mark Mellott, based on the Health Leader Forge podcast interviews. The paper is called Learned the Hard Way: A Model of Executive Leadership Competencies. Using qualitative research methods, we analyzed the interviews and focused especially, though not exclusively, on answers executives gave to one of my favorite questions, what is a leadership lesson you learned the hard way? The paper was originally presented at the 2019 American College of Healthcare Executives annual congress. I recorded the presentation live, so the sound quality isn’t studio, but I think it still sounds pretty good. If you find the lecture interesting, I encourage you to check out the full paper here (free): https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume20/5-Learned-the-Hard-Way-A-Model.pdf

The YouTube link below includes the slides used during the presentation: https://youtu.be/B1EUDRPV4R8 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

Today’s guest is Art Mathisen, the President of Memorial Hospital in North Conway, New Hampshire. Memorial Hospital is part of the MaineHealth system, the largest integrated healthcare system in Maine. Memorial Hospital is the only member hospital not located in Maine. Art had a first career in the US Army as a Medical Service Corps officer, and retired after twenty years as a lieutenant colonel. In this podcast we talk about his military career, his transition to civilian leadership, and his experiences with Bon Secours Health System in Virginia, his time as CEO of Copley Hospital in Vermont, and his leadership at Memorial Hospital, and what it is like leading a critical access hospital that is part of a larger healthcare system.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

Today’s guest is Art Mathisen, the President of Memorial Hospital in North Conway, New Hampshire. Memorial Hospital is part of the MaineHealth system, the largest integrated healthcare system in Maine. Memorial Hospital is the only member hospital not located in Maine. Art had a first career in the US Army as a Medical Service Corps officer, and retired after twenty years as a lieutenant colonel. In this podcast we talk about his military career, his transition to civilian leadership, and his experiences with Bon Secours Health System in Virginia, his time as CEO of Copley Hospital in Vermont, and his leadership at Memorial Hospital, and what it is like leading a critical access hospital that is part of a larger healthcare system.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

Today’s guest is Richard Corder, a healthcare consultant and Managing Director at the management consulting firm TiER 1 Performance Solutions. In this podcast we discuss Richard’s journey from his start as an apprentice in the hotel industry in London, England, following his heart to Boston, Massachusetts, his decision to enter the healthcare industry after his own experience as an inpatient, how he applied lessons he learned from the hospitality industry to become an expert on patient experience, and ultimately his move into healthcare consulting. We conclude the podcast with a discussion about leadership and mentorship.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

Today’s guest is my colleague Dr. Vanessa Druskat, associate professor of Organizational Behavior and Management here at the University of New Hampshire. Vanessa studies and teaches about team emotional intelligence, helping organizations develop more effective norms and behaviors. In this podcast, we talk in detail about a few of her papers, particularly a Harvard Business Review paper she coauthored called Building the Emotional Intelligence of Teams, which I have included a link to in the show notes. This is the abridged version. In the full length version of the interview, we also go through Vanessa’s intellectual journey from an early interest in social work to a PhD in organizational psychology and research on transformational leadership, self-managing teams, and what led her to study the emotional intelligence of teams. If you would like to listen to the full length version of the interview, please see our web site, http://healthleaderforge.org for the link.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

Today’s guest is my colleague Dr. Vanessa Druskat, associate professor of Organizational Behavior and Management here at the University of New Hampshire. Vanessa studies and teaches about team emotional intelligence, helping organizations develop more effective norms and behaviors. In the full length version of the interview, we go through Vanessa’s intellectual journey from an early interest in social work to work on leadership, teams, and emotional intelligence. We talk in detail about a few of her papers, particularly a Harvard Business Review paper she coauthored called Building the Emotional Intelligence of Teams, which I have included a link to in the show notes (see http://healthleaderforge.org )

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

If you were paying attention to the news about the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City you will remember that two Army field hospitals deployed to provide support to the beleaguered health system. Today’s guest is LTC Jarrod McGee, commander of the 11th Field Hospital. In this podcast we discuss what a field hospital is, what its capabilities are, and what it’s like to move one from Ft. Hood, Texas to New York City with only a few days’ notice. This interview focuses mostly on the logistics of the movement to give listeners a sense of what it takes to accomplish something this complex and make it look easy.

In the full length version of the interview we follow the discussion of the 11th Field Hospital’s mission with a discussion of LTC McGee’s career – he started out in the Army as a combat engineer “running around the woods and blowing things up” to later getting a commission as an Army Medical Service Corps officer and becoming a health services comptroller, so he has had a varied and interesting career. He is also the Army Regent for the American College of Healthcare Executives, so we talk about the importance of professional organizations, and how his ACHE contacts actually helped provide intelligence as he brought his unit into New York. We conclude with a discussion about leadership.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

If you were paying attention to the news about the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City you will remember that two Army field hospitals deployed to provide support to the beleaguered health system. Today’s guest is LTC Jarrod McGee, commander of the 11th Field Hospital. In this podcast we discuss what a field hospital is, what its capabilities are, and what it’s like to move one from Ft. Hood, Texas to New York City with only a few days’ notice. This interview focuses mostly on the logistics of the movement to give listeners a sense of what it takes to accomplish something this complex and make it look easy.

In the full length version of the interview we follow the discussion of the 11th Field Hospital’s mission with a discussion of LTC McGee’s career – he started out in the Army as a combat engineer “running around the woods and blowing things up” to later getting a commission as an Army Medical Service Corps officer and becoming a health services comptroller, so he has had a varied and interesting career. He is also the Army Regent for the American College of Healthcare Executives, so we talk about the importance of professional organizations, and how his ACHE contacts actually helped provide intelligence as he brought his unit into New York. We conclude with a discussion about leadership.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com

A special edition of the Health Leader Forge dedicated to the University of New Hampshire Health Management and Policy Class of 2020 and all of the future health leaders who are graduating this spring. In this podcast, I go back through the archives and gather advice for early careerists from nine previous guests. I then share a little advice of my own, and close with a reading of a passage from Henry David Thoreau's Walden.

for more information, please see our web site, http://healthleaderforge.org

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com