While some leaders were drawn to healthcare because of its expansive nature, others were inspired by family members to join the industry.
Hospital and health system leaders shared their experiences from non-healthcare roles in recent conversations with Becker's.
Marty Boryszak held various finance and operations roles at UPS for 12 years. He is now senior vice president of acute care at Buffalo, N.Y.-based Catholic Health and president of Mercy Hospital of Buffalo.
His logistical experience prior to the transition to healthcare — determining the most efficient ways to transport packages to customers — was beneficial in understanding the most efficient ways to get patients to and from the hospital and between facilities, he said.
Mr. Boryszak was drawn to healthcare because he was interested in figuring out a better way to take care of people. The industry also interested him in how it affects political and economic issues.
"Healthcare is one of the more pervasive industries that, regardless of whether you're in the private or the public sector, it is going to impact everything that we do," Mr. Boryszak said.
The move was also inspired by his mother's 42-year nursing career, he said.
For Carol Campbell, chief experience officer at St. Louis-based Ascension, transitioning to healthcare was also inspired by family.
Ms. Campbell joined Ascension in 2022 after spending more than 20 years at the Walt Disney Co. and Delta Air Lines. She became interested in healthcare after taking care of two family members in 2020, she said.
"It just really opened my eyes, personally, to the degree of opportunity in the U.S. healthcare ecosystem in terms of how we could be more consumer centered," Ms. Campbell told Becker's. "Certainly the patient at the center of all of our thinking, but also the friends and family."
Her background in consumer experience helped launch Ascension's patient listening approach, which captures real-time patient feedback with surveys sent out two hours post-clinical visit or 24 hours after they are discharged.
If someone chooses a six or lower on the survey question, "How likely are you to recommend on a scale from 1 to 10?" the facility leader receives a notification and a team member calls the patient to understand what went wrong.
Jose Acevedo, MD, president and CEO of Geneva, N.Y.-based UR Medicine Finger Lakes Health, also took outside industry experience with him in his healthcare roles.
"My first job was serving as a lifeguard at the University of Puerto Rico when I was 18 years old," Dr. Acevedo said. "The biggest thing that I learned was reliability. I knew that people were depending on me to keep them safe while they were enjoying being in and around the water. Their safety was my responsibility."