Finance chiefs from hospitals and health systems have shared the following advice with Becker's Hospital Review since April 25:
1. Steven Mohr, senior vice president and CFO of Pasadena, Calif.-based Huntington Hospital, on how executives view themselves: "A piece of advice I would give is to not to take yourself too seriously and stay grounded. Hospital CFOs have an important function, but it doesn’t outweigh the hard work and dedication of our employees, nurses, physicians and volunteers."
2. Robin Damschroder, executive vice president and CFO of Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System, on encouraging others: "What has made me successful at Henry Ford as well as other organizations is engaging my colleagues in achieving our performance goals. That means you have to get out of your office. It means you take the time to offer some creative or innovative solutions. And bringing that to bear with your colleagues means your organizations can usually rise to those challenges — not just rise to them but succeed. Get out there every day and engage with your colleagues and be able to listen to the challenges they have."
3. Daniel Smith, vice president of finance and CFO of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and senior vice president of finance for the Johns Hopkins Health System, on accountability: "You have to hold each other accountable for goals and outcomes and help the organization monitor those outcomes so we can hold ourselves accountable. If you fail, don’t place blame. Figure out what went wrong. Work together to fix it and then monitor it again. But we have to start with accountability, and if we’ve moved forward with an initiative, monitor those outcomes and make sure we achieve what we set out to do."
4. Ron Christenson, CFO of Morris County Hospital in Council Grove, Kan., on sharpening customer service skills: "Customer service skills will continue to become more important exponentially as the healthcare industry evolves."
5. Jeff Froisland, CFO of Mayo Clinic's Phoenix campus, on getting back to the basics: "I think it's the basics — building a very strong team around you. You can't do everything yourself, and you've got to be able to rely on your revenue cycle leader, your financial reporting leader, supply chain and even help influence people outside of finance."
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