2015 Women to Watch

Women 20 15 TO WAT C H

Congratulations

TO

THE

2015

HONOREES!

Christy Tosh Crider: Shareholder & Leader Long Term Care Group, Baker Donelson Lauren Hackett, MPA: Executive Director of Administration, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Chief Business Officer, Oncology, Imaging & Quantitative Sciences Christina Lohse, MD: Partner, Brentwood Children’s Clinic Lisa Nix: Partner & Transaction Advisory Services Practice Leader, Lattimore Black Morgan & Cain, PC Rosemary Plorin: President & CEO, Lovell Communications Heather Rohan: President & CEO, TriStar Centennial Medical Center Lynn Simon, MD: President, Clinical Services & Chief Quality Officer, Community Health Systems Cathy Taylor, DrPH, MSN, RN: Dean & Professor, Belmont University Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences and Nursing Ellyn Wilbur: Executive Director, Tennessee Association of Mental Health Organizations

The incredible women selected for the Class of 2015 fill many roles in our complex healthcare system … but to a woman, each was keenly aware that the decisions they make and the actions they take have an ultimate impact on patients. And each of them takes that responsibility very seriously.

The Class of 2015 represents the village required to deliver safe, effective, efficient care in today’s highly complex, highly regulated healthcare environment. The honorees include providers, administrators, educators and specialized consultants who showcase the type of innovative thinking that will be required to transform the way we deliver healthcare in America.

This class is particularly endearing to those of us at Nashville Medical News as it is the 10th anniversary of our annual Women to Watch feature, which has come to be one of our most highly anticipated issues each year. We couldn’t have asked for a more special group to help us celebrate the original vision we had when we launched this series a decade ago.

We tip our hats to the Class of 2015 and all those who have been honored in the past and will be honored in the future. Your passion and commitment to your craft truly makes a difference to our industry each and every day … and more importantly … to the patients the industry serves.

— CINDY SANDERS, NASHVILLE MEDICAL NEWS EDITOR

Women 20 15 T O W AT C H

We are proud to have these outstanding women as part of Nashville’s thriving health care community.

Thank you for making a difference.

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Shareholder

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Leader, Long Term Care Group

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Chair, Women’s Initiative

Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz

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Executive Director of Administration

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center –

Chief Business Officer

Oncology, Imaging & Quantitative Sciences

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MAY 2015

Women to Watch

Growing up, Christy Tosh Crider was interested in both medicine and the law. Eventually, her love for the legal system won out, and she graduated with honors from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1996.

The following year, Crider accepted an offer from Baker Donelson and quickly realized she could combine her passions by serving the legal interests of healthcare clients. “The intersection of science and compassion fascinates me,” she said. “Long term care for the elderly and others with chronic conditions is particularly rewarding and touches on many issues that test our science and humanity.”

Crider, who formally launched the firm’s Long Term Care Group in 2006, said this industry segment is faced with unique issues requiring a cohesive group of legal professionals to assist in everything from navigating regulatory terrain and conducting risk management assessments to defending litigation and facilitating corporate restructuring. She especially enjoys working with executive teams to craft strategic plans to improve healthcare delivery, building diverse teams to provide creative but practical solutions, and interacting with frontline caregivers in the field.

She noted it’s extremely important clients set realistic expectations with families. “When you see lawsuits, it’s often because expectations were not met,” she explained, adding advance directives play a critical role in outlining an individual’s wishes. Crider added, “I’m particularly passionate about allowing our elderly to maintain independence, which often is at odds with what is perceived to be the ‘safest’ choice.” Quality, she said, prevails when it comes to leading a fulfilling life. For many, risking a fall is preferable to never getting out of bed.

Crider doesn’t shy away from taking a different perspective.

“When you’ve heard all points of view, don’t be afraid to be the person in the room who offers an idea so different from the norm that it challenges basic assumptions,” she stated.

While influenced by many mentors, Crider credits three with helping shape her professional worldview. “Dr. Johnny Wink …

he was my English professor who taught me that creativity is to be embraced in every situation,” she said. “Dr. Robert Laurence … he was my law school professor who taught me a good lawyer understands complex issues, but a great lawyer can take a complex, messy set of facts and distill it down into simple pieces that can be solved one at a time,” she continued. “Dr. Jim Powers … he is head of Geriatrics at Vanderbilt who taught me that healthcare is, above all else, about compassion.”

As head of Baker Donelson’s Women’s Initiative, Crider searches for creative, collaborative solutions to support female colleagues. “In the past year, we have increased our gender neutral parental leave policy to 16 weeks paid and added the ability to take that intermittently, formed a task force to promote more women into positions of leadership, started the Women’s Initiative newsletter, held quarterly programming, and joined a select group of law firms across the country piloting the OnRamp Fellowship – an innovative program for women lawyers re-entering the legal profession,” she enumerated.

At home, Crider and husband Marcus, also an attorney, stay busy trying to keep pace with seventh-grader Lydia and eighth-grader Cole. “I spend every minute with them that they will let me,” she said with a laugh. Both children play soccer and lacrosse, along with other sports. Like her mother, Lydia also loves to perform.

Crider is a member of The Gospelaires at Woodmont Christian, and she also helped form a firm band in the Nashville office. While the legal group plays for corporate events a couple of times a year, Crider said the real treat is just getting together after work to practice and have fun.

Whether coaching the mock trial team for Harpeth Hall or presenting oral arguments before the Tennessee Supreme Court … Crider brings the same sense of preparedness and passion to all her interests. Ultimately, she said, “It would be very satisfying to be a part of the team that reinvents the way our society looks at end-of-life care. It can be beautiful, just like the beginning of life.”

In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare environment, the ability to embrace change and face new challenges are critically important qualities for any leader. For Lauren Hackett, this is woven in her DNA. As a child, she attended six schools in 12 years when her family moved between Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey.

Her interest in science, public policy, and people and how they interact in organizations led to an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst followed by a master’s in Public Administration from the University of New Haven.

While most of her career has been at academic medical centers, Hackett’s first professional job focused on urban issues for the city of Brookline, Mass. “I realized I needed to better understand federal funding mechanisms which led to a position at Rockefeller University.” Hackett not only gained expertise in administering a $45 million sponsored research program, she realized how much she truly loved the academic healthcare world.

After several years at Rockefeller, Hackett accepted a position at Yale Cancer Center. There, she continued to broaden her leadership skills with Center Director Vince DeVita, MD, an internationally recognized medical oncologist and former director of the National Cancer Institute. “He believed in me and took the risk to invest in a young protégé,” Hackett recalled. “He was living proof of how passionate leadership with a dedicated team could change the face of cancer. I learned the importance of leadership and how to effect change in dynamic organizations,” she said.

Those lessons have served her well at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, a top-10 NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center. “The opportunity to work in business, administration and operations at the intersection of science and medicine is inspiring,” Hackett noted. Never one to shy away from change and challenge, Hackett was in her seventh year as executive director of administration at NYU Cancer Institute when approached by VICC leadership in 2011. The catalyst, Hackett said, was VICC Director Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, “with her visionary and inspiring

leadership who has translated her discoveries into clinical trials and new therapies for women with triple negative breast cancer.”

Hackett said the opportunity represented a ‘trifecta’ both personally and professionally. “What helped us decide to make the change were the people at Vanderbilt who are just extraordinary, the community – a great place to bring up a family, and the impact that could be made given the southeast region has the highest cancer incidence and mortality rates in the country.”

Working with Pietenpol, Hackett and the executive team have led expansive growth in VICC clinical programs and trials and have developed affiliations with oncology programs in regional health systems. “VICC is part of the national leadership team in genetically informed cancer medicine and is really making a difference,” Hackett said. “Every day is an opportunity to pay it forward.”

Hackett said she loves “the speed at which discovery can be translated to new treatment options, better outcomes and quality of life for our patients.” However, VICC’s robust research engine also provides one of Hackett’s greatest challenges … translating rapid discovery into operational standards of care that are accessible, reimbursable, and cost effective.

Husband Jeff, a photographer, “is an incredible partner and very vested in our work,” Hackett said. “I couldn’t do what I do if he wasn’t absolutely committed.” Son Wyatt, now a sophomore at Babson College in Massachusetts, and daughter Rebecca, a freshman at Ravenwood, consider Nashville their new home. “We love music and the arts and take advantage at every turn to attend concerts at the Ryman, Schermerhorn, or a local spot for musicin-the-round.” Hackett, a long-time runner, noted how much they enjoy the outdoors as a family, whether hiking, bicycling, or climbing in Tennessee, snowboarding out west or exploring NYC, their favorite city.

A sought-after and valued member of many NCI Cancer Center advisory boards and a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Board of Directors, Hackett is clearly excited about the progress that is changing the paradigm of care for patients on a local, regional, national and international level.

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Partner

Brentwood Children’s Clinic

Always drawn to helping others, there isn’t really a time that Christina Lohse can remember not wanting to be a doctor. It wasn’t until medical school, though, that she found her true calling.

“My experience during my pediatric rotation allowed me to see the impact I could have on the health and wellness of children and the support I could provide the families,” she recalled.

“There is nothing better than to see a single patient grow up in front of you and know that you had some help in guiding that wellness.”

Lohse earned her undergraduate degree in kinesiology at the University of Illinois before heading to Ross University School of Medicine in New Jersey. After graduation, she completed residency at Goryeb Children’s Hospital in Morristown, N.J. where she served as pediatric chief resident her final year.

“There were two pediatricians – specifically, Dr. Alan Meltzer, my program director during residency, and Dr. John Krikorian, a retired general pediatrician giving his time during lectures and morning report – who were instrumental in me becoming the type of doctor I am today,” Lohse said, adding the pair gave her the tools to become a good clinician and the guidance to become a compassionate one.

The best part of any day, Lohse said, is having patients come in and greet her with hugs and excitement. “That tells me that I have done my job in making them feel comfortable in my office and not fearful to be at the doctor.”

As much as she loves her field, Lohse said there are certainly challenges to practicing in today’s environment. Two years ago, she moved from being an employed physician to becoming the first female partner at Brentwood Children’s Clinic. “There are so many decisions you have to make other than just the medical ones,” she said of the business side of practicing medicine.

On the clinical front, Lohse has seen a spike in time spent disputing myths about vaccine safety. “Today there is a great deal of controversy regarding vaccines where there shouldn’t

be,” she stated. “It is so important for the health and wellness of the child, as well as for prevention of some of these horrible disease processes.” Lohse added that even seemingly ‘harmless’ diseases like chicken pox are not always benign and could have serious complications for some patients. Additionally, she noted, vaccines protect the general population in addition to an individual child. “It’s a shame we had to get to the point where we’ve had a resurgence of some diseases like measles to bring attention to this subject,” she said.

Another challenge bridging both clinical and business concerns is the rise of walk-in clinics. In addition to causing a gap in the continuity of care, Lohse said parents have to be cognizant of whether or not a provider has pediatrics training.

“Children are not just little adults,” she said of creating an appropriate care plan. As a working mother of three, however, Lohse understands the need for convenience and said continuing to find ways to improve accessibility for patients is an ongoing priority.

Having a busy life that mirrors many of the families she sees helps her connect with parents. “I’ve been in the trenches. I try to be supportive because I’ve been there with a newborn … several times,” she said with a laugh.

Growing up a dancer, Lohse might have dreamed of little pink tutus. Instead, she’s come to embrace hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and baseball bats. She met her sports physician husband James while in medical school, and they are parents to nine-year-old Quinn, six-year-old Hudson, and three-year-old Griffin.

“With both of us in the medical field, he understands the day-to-day difficulties of medicine and grounds me when I feel that I am not finding that balance between work and family,” she said. When they do have time off, the focus is all about family.

“We love to travel, and beach vacations are the best.”

For this mom and pediatrician, seeing both her patients and her own children growing up happy and healthy makes every busy day worthwhile.

In the fight against cancer, Lauren Hackett is a leader.

We would like to thank Lauren Hackett for all she accomplishes at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

She has touched so many lives through her dedicated efforts to advance cancer research and treatment. Her work enables VICC to continue providing our patients with the most advanced and effective medicine possible.

Congratulations and thank you, Lauren, for all you do.

nashvillemedicalnews

.com

Women to Watch

MAY 2015

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Partner & Practice Leader,

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Transaction Advisory Services

LBMC

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President & CEO

Lovell Communications Inc.

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MAY 2015

Women to Watch

In life … and healthcare … it takes a village.

As a numbers person, Lisa Nix is well aware patients are impacted not only at the bedside but also in the boardroom. A transaction advisory specialist with more than a decade experience in healthcare mergers and acquisitions (M&A), Nix has worked across a broad range of healthcare industry sectors as clients look to optimize size and structure to answer new challenges within the industry.

That changeability is what Nix simultaneously finds most intriguing and most challenging about her job. “I love the everchanging nature and unpredictability of healthcare deal-making and transaction advisory services,” she said. “One phone call could change everything.”

What some would find daunting, Nix sees as an opportunity for a new adventure. It’s a trait she’s been honing for years. In a five-week span in late 1989, Nix graduated from college, got married, and began her career in public accounting. Going to work for Deloitte, Nix spent nearly 15 years in the firm’s audit practice.

It was while working in auditing for client Community Health Systems that her interest in healthcare M&A was sparked. “I had the good fortune to work alongside some of the best healthcare operators and dealmakers on many challenging acquisition due diligence projects in my formative years of becoming a healthcare transaction advisory specialist,” said Nix, who then spent the next decade as a director with Deloitte’s National Life Sciences and Health Care Practice.

Chatting with former colleague and good friend, Greg Eli, who leads LBMC’s healthcare practice, Nix mentioned she would like a more entrepreneurial focus professionally. “He said, ‘What about doing that here?’” Nix recalled. What began as a casual conversation soon led to more serious discussions about how Nix could help lead and grow LBMC’s burgeoning healthcare transaction advisory services practice.

“I value the collaborative approach,” said Nix, who came aboard in June 2014. She added LBMC not only has financial and tax expertise but also excels in other areas including HIT

assessments, healthcare consulting, billing and coding. ‘We’re able to use all those services in the transaction arena.”

Just as the ‘village’ approach helps clients, Nix said she has benefitted from numerous individuals serving as mentors, role models and teachers. “Also, the power of peer mentoring should not be underestimated,” she stated. ““Early in my career through the Nashville Health Care Council’s Leadership Health Care, I met and became friends with Angela Humphreys – a member at Bass, Berry & Sims and prior Women to Watch honoree. Having a peer that understands your practice, business and industry has been an invaluable mentoring relationship.”

Nix added her first … and most influential … mentor is her mother Marilyn. “My mother became a single mother of two girls – ages six and three – at a very young age and was unable to complete college,” Nix explained. “Her influence was consistent and steadfast in emphasizing the importance of a college education, hard work and achieving excellence.”

Another constant is husband Steve, a lean process engineer who works with DCI Donor Services Tissue Bank. “Probably one of my biggest accomplishments in life is a 25-year marriage … especially to a high school sweetheart,” Nix said with a grin. The couple love to golf, paddleboard and fish, and Steve is a certified fly casting instructor. Not long ago, Nix caught two brown trout, each measuring more than two feet long. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him more proud,” she laughed of Steve’s reaction.

While Nix cherishes time with family and friends, she also relishes the opportunity to build an M&A legacy at LBMC founded on excellent service delivered by a collaborative team. She knows it will require a village to answer the complex needs of the healthcare industry.

“With an aging population, healthcare coverage expansion, and continued growth of healthcare spending as a percent of GDP, we need real difference makers in all aspects of our healthcare industry who challenge the status quo and bring truly innovative solutions for efficiency, cost containment, patient access and affordability and quality of care to the system,” Nix concluded.

A rare find in our rapidly growing city, Rosemary Plorin is a native Nashvillian.

After graduating from St. Cecilia High School, she headed to Denison University where she embarked on a creative writing degree, which Plorin jokingly said left her ill trained for any specific profession. In actuality, she continued, the intensive liberal arts education honed her writing skills, creativity, and ability to organize and disseminate information to prepare her for a communications career … even if she didn’t realize it at the time.

After 14 years in Ohio, she returned home. “Paula Lovell brought me on in 2000 to help grow the firm’s transportation clientele … only to have the bottom fall out of the transportation industry in about a year,” Plorin explained. Luckily, she continued, “My experience in crisis management lent itself to the challenges that healthcare providers sometimes face so I found myself increasingly contributing on the healthcare side of the business.”

She recalled being embedded in a hospital for an assignment early on in her healthcare career. “I literally had to walk around with a dictionary and learn ‘healthcare speak,’” she said.

“Within 18 months, I had learned an entirely new language and was working full-time on our healthcare clients … and loving it.”

Mastering the language was but one challenge the industry presented. “The pace of change in healthcare is stunning … technology changes, regulatory changes, patient preferences, payer changes … it’s an incredibly dynamic industry,” she noted.

Happily, Plorin said, she and colleagues at Lovell are “hungry lifelong learners” who truly are interested in the subtleties and intricacies of each client’s business plan and market space.

“One day we’re learning about how researchers are outsmarting antibiotic-resistant bacteria; the next day we’re studying best practices in the creation of medical homes; and the next we’re learning about new uses for robots in the operating suite,” she explained.

Plorin credits two mentors with expanding her career focus.

“My firm’s founder, Paula Lovell, has been a counselor, busi-

ness partner, endurance trainer and sensei for me for 15 years.

She has opened hundreds of doors for me, giving me a piece of advice and pushing me through to new and career-building opportunities,” Plorin said.

“Wayne Smith, chairman and CEO of Community Health Systems, has also been an enormous force in my career,” she continued. “He is masterful at identifying people’s potential and challenging them to do their best.” Plorin noted that, like Lovell, Smith has afforded her opportunities that have shaped her career. “Those experiences will continue to influence me as long as I work.”

An adept student, Plorin was tapped to lead Lovell’s healthcare practice by 2006. In December 2013, she was named president of the firm and succeeded Lovell as CEO at the beginning of 2015. Now a nationally recognized communications strategist and expert in healthcare crisis communications, Plorin graduated from the Council Fellows Initiative last year. “The Health Care Council has an absolute homerun in that program,” she said enthusiastically. “Anytime you have an opportunity to learn from Sen. Frist and Larry Van Horn, you should take it.”

Plorin’s willingness to embark on new ventures extends to her personal life, as well. “My husband and I each married for the first time at 38 and 45,” she noted of wedding Wayne Plorin, a ‘born again Nashvillian’ who originally hailed from North Dakota. “We are blessed to have a spunky little girl, Lyla, who is nine years old.” She added, “My time and energy away from work is almost always spent with my family.”

For this lifelong learner, it turns out one of the most important lessons was one of the first. “It’s easy to get caught up in our own little slice of the healthcare industry where we speak in acronyms and make important decisions about numbers and results and regulations,” she said. “But the only reason any of us work is because human beings get sick, at which point they most often become scared and vulnerable.

Our work matters nothing if we don’t positively contribute to the patient experience.”

nashvillemedicalnews

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President & CEO

TriStar Centennial Medical Center

As a 17-year-old watching a team of physicians and nurses save her father’s life following a heart attack, Heather Rohan knew she had found her calling. “It was then I decided I wanted to become a nurse to help other people,” she said.

Having earned both her bachelor’s degree in nursing and an MBA from Barry University in Miami Shores, Fla., Rohan has relied on a mix of clinical and business acumen to improve care quality throughout her career. After being promoted to head nurse in the ICU, Rohan recalled, “I started wondering what it would be like if you had the ability to impact other departments, as well.”

During her nearly 30-year tenure with HCA, she has taken on increasing leadership roles within the company, serving as CEO of Aventura Hospital and Medical Center in the Miami area prior to taking the helm at TriStar Centennial, the flagship hospital within TriStar Health, in late 2012.

True to her bedside roots, Rohan said her favorite part of the day is interacting with patients and families. “This is the core reason for our existence,” she noted. “On any given day, I can speak with patients and their families about the care we are providing. I truly enjoy hearing their feedback and putting it to use for the benefit of our facility and all of our patients.”

She’s equally passionate about the medical center’s values expressed in the ICARE statement. “Integrity, Compassion, Attitude, Respect and Excellence in clinical care guide all that we do for our patients and for each other,” she said. “When you look at these values, you see they embody everything we are about … and that traces back to Dr. Frist and his legacy of caring for patients and employees as if they were family.”

Counting herself lucky to have had a number of mentors within the HCA family, Rohan enjoys paying it forward by working with other future leaders. “It gives me great satisfaction to watch them as they grow and excel in their current roles and as they take on new challenges,” she said.

One of those challenges, she continued, will be to find in-

novative solutions to address access-to-care issues. “We know that if we provide access to preventive care that we can stave off many illnesses and increase longevity. It is just not a reality for many,” she said. However, Rohan added, she is proud TriStar is committed to improving access by having more than two dozen hospitals and emergency rooms across Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky. “We are also working with many rural hospitals to expand access to care in their communities by providing telemedicine services, education and training, and sharing of protocols,” she noted.

When she isn’t busy walking the halls of TriStar Centennial, Rohan can usually be found walking outside. “My husband and I love hiking here at Radnor Lake, in the Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks,” she said. “Every minute we can be outside is a great minute.” She and Joe, a retired deputy fire chief, also relish any time spent with their two grown sons – Joe, a CPA here in Nashville, and Patrick, an associate chief operating officer with an HCA facility in Florida.

An active community volunteer, Rohan will soon be hiking through Centennial Park as chair of the 2015 Walk to Cure Arthritis, which is set for May 16. She also works with Second Harvest Food Bank and sits on the boards of the United Way of Middle Tennessee and HCA Foundation. Recently, Rohan was named to the American College of Healthcare Executives Board of Governors.

Whether raising awareness for a specific health issue, encouraging the next generation of hospital leaders, comforting patients and families, or providing input on the issues impacting healthcare delivery, Rohan never second guesses the decision she made at 17 to become part of this industry.

“The ability to make a difference in people’s lives every day is one of the greatest rewards,” she said. “We make differences large and small, but you know each day you can impact someone’s life … that is amazing and precious.”

Meet Some of the Faces Behind Our Healthcare Experience.

Andrew Bissonette

Greg Eli

Jeff McCorpin

Andrew McDonald

Sharon Powlus

Brian Tate

Art Van Buren

LBMC has assembled a uniquely experienced team of over 50 healthcare professionals that clearly differentiate us

LBMC Healthcare Services

Accounting - consulting - HR - tecHnology

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from other service providers – all with deep financial experience as well as practical experience working in the field of healthcare.

Meet Lisa Nix, CPA 615.309.2288 (direct) / lnix@lbmc.com Partner - Transaction Advisory Services Lisa brings over 20 years experience in public accounting and healthcare to her role as leader of LBMC’s Transaction Advisory Services healthcare practice, including 10 years leading healthcare M&A transaction services teams for both strategic and financial buyers. A “Power Leader in Accounting,” she has led and managed assurance and advisory services for healthcare companies, including not-for-profit, for-profit private and public entities. Her transaction experience includes leading multi-functional teams on transactions ranging from several million to >$7 billion dollars including acute care hospitals, surgical facilities, long-term care, home health, nursing facilities, dental practices, disease management, dialysis clinics, laboratory services, managed care, physician practices, pharmaceutical services, HMO, PPO, and psych/behavioral care sectors.

Women to Watch

MAY 2015

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President, Clinical Services

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Chief Quality Officer

Community Health Systems

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Dean & Professor

Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing Belmont University

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MAY 2015

Women to Watch

“Vision without execution is hallucination.”

That quote, equally attributed to Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, has become something of a mantra for Lynn Simon, MD. In her role overseeing clinical services, quality and safety for Community Health Systems, Simon’s focus is firmly on execution and driving results. “To be successful, you must produce measurable outcomes,” she stated.

Executing a vision isn’t new to the Louisville, Ky. native.

With the encouragement of her uncle, a general surgeon, she set her sights on practicing medicine from a young age. After completing an undergraduate degree at Indiana University, she earned her medical degree from the University of Louisville followed by internship in Chicago and residency at Stanford University, where she was named chief resident her final year.

Returning home to Louisville to practice, Simon found herself drawn to a broader administrative role in the mid-1990s.

In anticipation of an increased number of patients who might benefit from newly approved tPA, executives at Jewish Hospital invited Simon to help plan a new stroke center.

“That was my first experience working with the hospital administrative team and an introduction into thinking more about processes of care and how to design systems to provide quality care to specific groups of patients,” she said. “I found the prospect of impacting many patients by system design intriguing and compelling.”

Simon put her new passion to work in increasingly demanding positions for the health system before being approached by CHS Chairman and CEO Wayne Smith in 2010. Smith asked her to oversee the company’s quality and clinical transformation efforts. In addition to the national scope of this new role, Simon said she was attracted by the organization’s deep-rooted commitment to eliminating preventable errors. “Safety and quality are built into our culture,” she said. “It’s more foundational than just being a priority … it’s a core value.”

By 2014, both CHS and Simon’s duties had grown. Today, she supports all aspects of clinical operations and provides

support to physicians, nurses and other caregivers across 200 affiliated hospitals in 29 states to ensure skillful, compassionate care is delivered in a safe, evidence-based manner.

“As much as I enjoyed the role of being a practicing physician and the one-on-one relationship with patients and families, I now have the opportunity to impact quality of care for thousands of patients nationwide,” Simon said.

True to her neurological roots, the mysteries and intricacies of the human brain continue to intrigue her. “As someone whose medical practice focused on the brain, I am also fascinated by psychology and how certain traits impact leadership competencies,” she explained.

Simon said improving care frequently requires individuals to change ingrained practices and processes, which is rarely easy.

One of her favorite books is “Influencer,” which explores the different ways people respond to change agents. “Just trying to convince people you are ‘right’ doesn’t usually work,” Simon noted. “Different people respond differently to different goals and incentives. There’s never one right way to change behaviors.”

Like many busy executives, Simon readily admits work-life balance is an ongoing struggle. “I am truly fortunate to have a wonderfully tolerant husband, an awesome daughter and two incredible step-daughters with great husbands and kids of their own,” she said of her family’s support.

With youngest daughter Mackenzie away at college and the family still in Kentucky, it makes weekends and vacations together even more special. “It’s great to spend uninterrupted time with the most important people in our lives,” Simon noted.

It also helps that husband Mark Eichengreen recently retired and now has more flexibility to spend time in Middle Tennessee.

For Simon, it really all comes down to quality … quality time with those she loves, quality care being delivered throughout CHS-affiliated hospitals and clinics, and quality processes in place to ensure every patient has the opportunity to achieve optimal outcomes.

You never know what will spark a child’s interest and start them down a specific path. For Cathy Taylor it was Jane Smoot, RN, the public health nurse assigned to the rural elementary school in the small community of New Union, near Manchester, Tenn. “She was crisp, quick-witted and commanding but with a gentle smile and a soft touch,” Taylor recalled. “I thought she might be the smartest person in the world, and I wanted to be her.”

That love of the profession is as strong today as it was when she first dreamed of becoming a nurse. Like her early role model, Taylor has spent much of her career focused on public health. “In nursing school, to discover so much of disease and disability is preventable drove me to the intersection of nursing and public health, and a focus on population health, prevention and health promotion,” Taylor said.

Even as a hospital floor nurse, she was always looking for ways to work in patient education and coaching. By 1989, Taylor had completed a master’s in Public and Community Health at the University of Tennessee. Soon after, her work at Vanderbilt and the Vanderbilt-Meharry Alliance became more intensely focused on community outreach and disease management.

During this same period, Taylor began serving as an assistant professor at Vanderbilt’s School of Nursing and discovered another love … teaching. She earned her doctorate in Public Health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2002, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Health Outcomes at Vanderbilt. Even as her career began another chapter with the Tennessee Department of Health, she continued to engage students as an adjunct professor.

In 2007, Taylor was named assistant commissioner for TDH and was instrumental in statewide implementation of the NonSmokers Protection Act, which made it illegal to smoke in most public places. “I believe it will continue to impact the health of Tennesseans for generations,” Taylor said of the law.

Although she relished the opportunity to create and implement health policy, Taylor was thrilled when Belmont University came calling in 2012 with the offer of becoming dean for Health

Sciences & Nursing. This new option allowed Taylor to share her varied experiences with the next generation of providers.

“I love my job,” she said simply. “I think we have the health sciences dream team at Belmont. We have all these allied health disciplines, marvelous laboratories and topnotch faculty – perfect for creating the interprofessional teams of the future.”

Taylor continued, “There are endless opportunities to benefit patients and communities at the intersection of healthcare research, education, practice and policy. As scientific discoveries emerge faster, we must integrate new knowledge rapidly while holding onto the ‘best of the old.’ This requires higher order thinking and has created unique challenges for teaching the next generation.”

Among those challenges, she noted, is the need for processing and interpreting mountains of data to guide decisions and support population health strategies to improve health status. “Tennessee’s rank of 45th among the states is just unacceptable,” Taylor stated unequivocally. “This is particularly concerning for our children as reports suggest they may be the first generation to have shorter lifespans than their parents. Like every parent, I want a better future for my son.”

Taylor and her environmentalist husband Kent are parents to Gray, who is majoring in architecture at the University of Tennessee. “I truly do enjoy more than anything spending time with my friends and family,” Taylor said.

She added the trio enjoys traveling and experiencing new cultures. She also never misses the opportunity to attend the Jonesboro Storytelling Festival. Singing karaoke one evening in the middle of China, Taylor hit upon one of the universe’s great truths, “It doesn’t matter where you go; everyone likes stories … and Elvis.”

Another truth she has hit upon is just how bright the future of healthcare is in the hands of this coming generation of providers.

“They are wicked smart, creative and fearless, and I think they will discover answers to questions and ways to work together that we haven’t even thought of yet,” she said. “They inspire me.”

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Executive Director

Tennessee Association of Mental Health Organizations (TAMHO)

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For more than 30 years, Ellyn Wilbur has worked to improve behavioral health resources and access for Tennessee’s most vulnerable citizens.

While still a social work undergrad at the University of Memphis, Wilbur was assigned a field placement at the Memphis Mental Health Institute. “My assignment was to interview families when they brought their loved ones to the hospital for treatment,” she explained. “I had never been in a psychiatric hospital before … and certainly not one that had locked doors between the units, but I learned that I was very comfortable talking to patients and their families and really enjoyed the interaction. This began a long and exciting career in mental health.”

Although her introduction to the field was in the inpatient setting, Wilbur has spent most of her career in communitybased care. “The hospital should be the last resort for any kind of condition,” she stressed. “Mental illness is a chronic disease so there may be a time that someone needs more intervention or less intervention,” Wilbur continued, “but having a mental illness doesn’t mean a person can’t be a contributing member of their community.”

Her first job after graduation was at Whitehaven Mental Health Center, a newly opened community organization in Memphis under the direction of Wib Smith. He would become Wilbur’s first mentor and lifelong friend.

“He was a visionary in many ways,” Wilbur recalled. “Over the years, he taught me a great deal about people, management and life in general. One thing he taught me that I put into the category of ‘universal truth’ is that all of us – whether we have a mental health need or not – want to have something to do that we enjoy, have someplace to go that we enjoy, and we want to be important to somebody else.”

While at Whitehaven, Wilbur returned to her alma mater to finish her master’s degree in public administration. After a stint with the Department of Human Services in Nashville, Wilbur moved back to Memphis. In 1990, about the time Tennessee was making a major move toward deinstitutionalization, Wilbur

came on board as the founding executive director of Case Management Inc., a community-based mental health organization that is still thriving today.

Nine years later, Wilbur was lured back to Nashville where she helped launch a statewide children and youth psychiatric crisis service for Magellan Health and served in a key policy role with the United Way of Tennessee. In 2009, she joined TAMHO to lead policy and advocacy efforts and was named executive director in 2011.

“We feel it’s important to destigmatize mental health services,” she said of TAMHO and its statewide member organizations, including Centerstone, Volunteer Behavioral Health Care System and LifeCare in Middle Tennessee. “We advocate for individualized, evidence-based services.”

While Wilbur credits parity laws and public education with helping improve policy and perception about mental illness, she said there is a long way to go. “As a nation, we still seem to characterize mental illness differently than physical illness, and this can lead to negative results,” she said of the lingering stigma. “There are so many success stories, but unfortunately, there are too many situations that could have had a better outcome if a fully developed safety net was in place to help.”

Connecting individuals to resources and helping them build a support system are keys to optimizing outcomes. Wilbur’s own support system includes her husband of 15 years, David.

Together they love to attend music events at home or while traveling. Wilbur also enjoys working with her hands … whether that’s gardening, making jam, cooking or indulging her newest hobby, beekeeping. Most special is time with David, son Kevin and daughter-in-law Vanessa who live nearby, and daughter Jennifer who is a behavior specialist in California.

Ultimately, she wants the same things for those struggling with mental health issues as she does for her own family … a happy, purposeful life. “I have seen firsthand how proper care and support can help people become fully involved in a life of their choosing. How could you not love being a witness to that process?”

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