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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast, and we are recording live at the
fifteenth annual meeting. I'm currently joined by Tiffany
Miller who serves as the CEO at Yocom
Community Hospital. Tiffany, thanks for being here. Would
love to have you start off by introducing
yourself and telling us a little bit more
about your background in health care and your
organization. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me
here. It's been a wonderful event. It's been
a fast and furious twenty four hours.
A little bit about myself.
I am a member of the executive leadership
team at Yoakum Community Hospital, which is in
Yoakum, Texas. I always give a point of
reference if you know where the Shiner Brewery
is. We're about 10 miles south of there.
We're a 23 bed critical access hospital,
so pretty small we're small but mighty.
We have been serving in the community since
1922,
so a very,
rich history in the community.
A little bit about myself, I have been
at Yoakum Community Hospital for
a little over two years now, and my
how time has flown. Prior to that,
I worked on in the acute care side,
then I moved over to
emergency medicine and hospitalist medicine,
and then I moved into population health, when
I was completing my dissertation.
And then I moved into post acute in
LTACH and inpatient rehab before
I found myself in a critical access hospital
back in the acute care side.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the time
to be here. And let's start off within
the last twelve months or so. What's an
initiative you've taken on that you are particularly
proud of, and how has this impacted your
organization?
So something that I am extremely proud of
that started about eight months ago and still
in progress is
we engaged with a leadership consulting
firm out of Arizona
Thunderbird Leadership Consulting.
A little bit about my team, we had
we've had a lot of train change and
transition since I onboarded a few years ago
and
really wanted to
provide support to my leadership team,
in terms of how do we create a
vibrant organization. Because as we all know, those
who work in health care,
it's constantly changing. It's
we're there's a lot on the horizon that
there are a lot of unknowns, and it
makes it scary. And
if there's one thing with
with your leaders and with your frontline staff
is employees wanna feel safe.
And especially when you're in a smaller community,
it has a very it feels like it's
very family oriented.
So
engaged with this organization about eight months ago,
and
the impact,
we're just seeing it. It's starting to pay
in dividends in terms of, like, I keep
referencing the creating that vibrant organization.
It doesn't just it's not just it doesn't
just start with me. It's with every single
leader across the spectrum because I I was
saying if if this was easy, none of
us would have a job. And
everybody plays a part in how that contributes
to the whole. And part of that downtrope
of what we're starting to see and the
point that we're in with this engagement is
is is going to start impacting the frontline
staff. So it's
the goal is to diffuse it all the
way from the top all the way down
to the frontline.
And on the flip side of that, what
do you see as the most significant challenge
currently facing health care, and how is your
organization working to address this?
So something specific to
rural and specifically critical access hospitals
is the,
transition
the conversion from traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage
populations.
That really since critical access hospitals were cost
based reporting,
so that the particular accounting method so it's
very different from a PPS type hospital.
So when we do see that conversion, when
the patients are converting from traditional Medicare
to, like, a Medicare Advantage replacement product,
it really impacts our bottom line, and we
already run with razor thin margins.
So part of what we are,
where we're arming
the community
and the common lay person is through
education around
just informing
about Medicare versus Medicare Advantage products,
advocating. I I serve on the, council on
policy development with Texas Hospital Association, so I'm
actively
advocating at that level, at the legislative level,
to
inform our representatives as well as our senators
who are making those policy decisions around how
that impacts us. Because it's easy for somebody
who's far removed
from the immediate frontline to not understand the
impact that that would make, if it could
jeopardize
our health care institution in terms of the
the payment mechanisms.
Absolutely.
And as a leader, I'd love to know
what your biggest leadership
lesson that you've either recently learned or are
currently learning, if you'd like to share that.
I would say
something that
I'm continuously
learning is that
it takes a village, it takes an army,
and it really does take it's
respecting each other's differences
and understanding
how
those individual differences can be leveraged
to
execute on strategies, to achieve
goals, to ensure that we're meeting our objectives.
And I think it's it's easy to
kinda get stuck in that mindset of doing
things a certain way versus if you consider
it from somebody's else somebody else's perspective,
but still maintain your own individual personality and
and how you see the world, but still
being willing to adapt.
And that's a a big part of what
we're doing in terms of the
the the leadership development with my team is
understanding who you are, understanding your individual team
members, your coworkers, and your colleagues, and figuring
out how do I dial up and dial
down in certain encounters and make sure that
we're meeting people where they are and vice
versa.
And then as we round our conversation out,
I'd love to touch on workforce since that
is a
ongoing priority for health care organizations. So
what do you hope or envision for the
health care workforce in the next five to
ten years, and how are you preparing for
this future?
I think part of the my hope and
what I envision for the future
of health care and the workforce is it's
health care is not an easy job to
function in. You're in the it's a service
industry and you're dealing with human lives. And
so it's you're dealing with people.
I've I'll tell new hires that, you know,
people who tend to come to us are
not at their best, so they're already operating
at a deficit. So it requires having
a level of kindness, being empathetic, being understanding,
and it's so you can always you can
craft the technical side of a trade, but
in terms of being able
to have that footprint of an individual who
is compassionate,
acts with integrity, has respect for others, and
and wants to exude excellence in what they
do,
That's what I envision for the future of
health care. It is very easy to get
burned out in the health care industry because
it is. It's that it's that focus on
continuous improvement
that versus, okay. Hey, we didn't do this
well. We need to do better in this
area versus could we press pause for a
moment and recognize
what did we do well and how did
my contribution impact the greater whole? So
creating a workforce that has that kind of
fire and that kind of drive and wants
to carry it forward, that's what I envision
for it.
Absolutely. Well, Tiffany, thanks so much for joining
me today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. Again,
we are recording live at the fifteenth annual
meeting.