Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Kristie Finney, President of Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital

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Kristie Finney, President of Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  This is Kristen Kuchno with the Becker's Healthcare
• 0:02
  podcast, and I'm excited to be joined today
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  by Christy Finney, president of Riverside Shore Memorial
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  Hospital.
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  Christy, thank you so much for taking the
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  time to be on the podcast today.
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  Thank you for the invitation.
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  Could you start by sharing a little bit
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  about yourself and your career journey and how
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  it led you to becoming president of Riverside
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  Shores Memorial Hospital?
• 0:24
  Sure.
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  So I am actually, born in this community,
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  raised in this community.
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  I did leave to go to college and
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  in college I was focused on the sciences.
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  I always wanted to be in the science
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  arena.
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  After college, my first four years, I thought,
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  well, I'd like to be in a research
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  lab. And I thought, well, maybe I want
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  to be a doctor because you're close to
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  20 and the world's your oyster at that
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  point. So
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  I came back home. I got a job
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  in the laboratory at the community hospital
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  and I truly fell in love with it.
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  I well, I was still trying to take
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  MCATs and think this is what I should
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  do in life, but the community there, the
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  people in the laboratory, the physicians, the nurses,
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  I just fell in love with it. So
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  I thought, well, maybe I can make my
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  career here. And in a couple of years,
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  I took over the laboratory,
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  and I decided I needed a little more
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  knowledge because I like school.
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  So I ended up back in school. I
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  ended up with a degree in toxicology,
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  and then I thought, well, I need to
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  balance that out with a finance degree. So
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  and I got a business degree.
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  And then I decided I'd get a PhD
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  because why not? So I got a PhD
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  in LA health. And through that process, I
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  met so many people, had so many good
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  programs,
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  that I know that healthcare was going to
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  be my home.
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  So in in the process, I was also
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  took over the ED for a little bit.
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  So I got some more clinical experience there.
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  And in twenty seventeen, eighteen timeframe,
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  I thought, well, I can't go back to
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  school. I've been to school a lot. What
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  am I going to do? So,
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  the president at the time, John Peterman, who
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  was a great mentor, came and said, Hey,
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  how do you feel about quality?
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  I said, well, I'd love to try it.
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  Let's, let's do it. And it was quality
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  and accreditation. So I spent, a couple of
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  years really involved trying to learn that job
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  as well.
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  And then at that point,
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  I had been thinking about leadership. I got
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  my MBA at Duke, and they're very leadership
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  focused. And those were the first courses that,
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  really had me thinking maybe I should do
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  something more.
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  And at that point, I had been trying
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  to build quality from the inside of the
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  hospital
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  out. So Riverside is a huge organization. They're
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  so supportive of community health care, but we
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  were focused and I was focused on what
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  can we do more as Riverside to make
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  this better. And I realized maybe what could
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  we do more as a community
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  to help ourselves here? So I got in
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  a couple of programs after that. And my
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  last one was at the Sorensen Institute in
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  Virginia, which is a bipartisan
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  political leadership program. And we went around the
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  state for a year and we talked to
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  communities
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  and we talked to what do you need
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  and how do you advocate for yourself and
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  how do you meet with your delegates and,
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  and, and how do you get this community
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  started?
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  So I really got thinking that's what we
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  need to do here. We need to move
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  forward with the community because as resources get
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  limited,
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  you really want to focus on your partnerships
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  because our goal is the same thing. The
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  Department of Health,
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  the other providers on the shore, we want
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  to make the community,
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  accessible to everybody, the health care here accessible.
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  So, that's kind of been my focus. That's
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  how I got to leadership.
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  Presidency came up, and I thought, well, maybe
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  this is the time that I could advocate
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  for this hospital as the leader.
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  Great. Thank you so much for sharing that.
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  And I know you previously served as senior
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  director of quality and laboratory services. So I
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  was wondering how your background in quality and
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  patient safety has influenced your leadership approach as
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  hospital president.
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  So everybody knows,
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  health care is about quality. It drives your
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  outcomes.
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  It's about patient safety. It's about getting their
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  the right
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  care for the right patients at the right
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  time.
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  So quality is very data driven.
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  We make decisions on data.
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  We make decisions on being a high reliability
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  organization, making sure that we do the same
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  thing, the correct way every time for every
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  patient.
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  So that
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  basis over those years, we built this foundation.
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  And I was lucky to have credibility in
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  this hospital when
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  I took the quality role.
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  And some I think organizations historically, sometimes quality
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  has been very separate from other departments because
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  they saw quality as an auditor, or they're
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  gonna ask you to do better. They're gonna
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  ask you to do more. But in this
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  community hospital, I'd worked with the directors for
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  many years, and it was more like, what
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  can we do together? What can we do
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  to improve our services? And it was more
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  of a collaborative experience.
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  People were not afraid to come to quality
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  and say, hey. I didn't like how this
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  went.
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  Maybe we could do better. So,
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  that
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  credibility and that transparency we've created here with
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  the help of Riverside, because Riverside is truly
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  a patient safety organization,
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  it kind of naturally occurred as leadership. Now
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  we still have that culture here, and they're
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  still not afraid to come to administration and
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  say, what can we do better?
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  What what can we do in the future?
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  So I think that transition was very the
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  foundation was just quality. We know where we
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  wanna go. Everybody is on the same page.
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  Great. I now wanna dive deeper into more
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  of your recent work. Is there an initiative
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  or partnership from the past year that you're
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  especially proud of and reflects where you want
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  to take the hospital in the future?
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  Sure. So in the last few years, as
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  I said, it's a community focus. It's it's
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  who can we partner with to create
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  more health care on the the shore, more
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  access to health care. And in the last,
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  couple of years, we are one of the
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  hospitals, one of the rural hospitals in Virginia
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  that still deliver babies. We still have our
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  full OBGYN.
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  Our Riverside supports this in this community, and
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  we feel very strongly about it.
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  So we were looking around seeing how can
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  we make that program even better. You know,
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  we're we're a rural hospital. We are dedicated
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  to this. We wanna be even better. So
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  we invited the Department of Health. We invited,
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  a moms for pregnancy and we invited,
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  who else did we have at the table?
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  We had somebody else at the table. But
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  anyway,
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  we sat there and we said, what can
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  we do to be better for these moms
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  out here in a rural area?
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  And we decided that we needed to look
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  at gestational diabetes and hypertension because those were
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  our two risk factors here. And things we
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  started to do, we provided,
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  it was moms under pressure. I'm sorry. That's
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  who we partnered with. And we decided we'd
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  give the blood pressure cuffs for free. We
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  would give the glucometer for free. And then
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  we started to build programs in our system.
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  So there's a hypertension care plan. They can
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  they can take their blood pressure at home.
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  They can enter it in the system. Instead
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  of recognizing themselves they have a problem and
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  waiting for a phone call, the doctors can
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  see it and they can proactively,
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  talk to them about their blood pressure. In
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  addition,
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  we sent text reminders. We built that in
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  the system. You know, it's really important that
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  you follow-up on this.
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  We made sure they had a PCP appointment
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  when they left the building after their delivery.
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  We made sure they were scheduled if they
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  needed to for that follow-up glucose test, and
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  that was an automatic text reminder.
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  But what really happened in that partnership is
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  that we decided that we worked well together
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  and that we could do more things. So,
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  this year we're looking at even extending that.
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  Our pediatricians are gonna go out and they're
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  gonna partner with EMS and they're gonna teach
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  them about deliveries in the field. So we've
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  already scheduled that up. But it's important that
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  our our moms here are taken care of,
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  so
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  great opportunity there.
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  Great. That's such an exciting partnership, and I'm
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  glad that you mentioned rural health care because
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  that's what I wanted to mention next. I'm
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  curious. What are some of the biggest challenges
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  and opportunities you see in delivering care in
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  a rural setting today?
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  So I'm sure you're not gonna be surprised
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  when I say access to health care, obviously.
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  Transportation is a big issue in the rural
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  health care.
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  And we do partner with some of our
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  community providers if people are having issues with
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  transportation.
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  We have issues with workforce development.
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  Rural areas are not exciting for some people,
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  believe it or not. I love it here.
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  It's got the beach and it's got the
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  water, but, you know, some people are looking
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  for a more urban area where they have
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  access to other things.
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  So while I think it's great for that
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  select group that really, really like to live
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  in this area, it's hard to recruit to
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  especially a younger
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  population. So
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  we go out and we recruit and we
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  work with the schools here. We're trying to
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  get in a little earlier in the high
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  schools. We do work with college as well.
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  We do have our workforce programs where we
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  do the rotations in the laboratory. We do
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  some rotations for students.
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  We also do that in imaging, but it
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  is definitely difficult,
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  with everybody
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  in a in a workforce retention issue right
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  now to to get more here, more providers,
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  more nurses, more ancillary departments.
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  So that is challenge.
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  Definitely. And is there anything that really excites
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  you about being in a rural community and
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  serving those patients?
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  So I grew up here. So it is
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  your it's your family. It's your friends.
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  You have a connection here. You get to
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  work with everybody that you some of us
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  grew up with. It's a feeling that you're
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  helping
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  other people that you know. And our mission
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  statement is truly to care for others as
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  we we care for those we love, which
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  is very strong mission statement for me, but
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  we get to do it here every day.
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  Definitely.
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  Well, thank you again for joining the podcast
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  today, Christy. It's been a pleasure getting to
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  know more about the important work being done
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  at Riverside Shore Memorial, and I look forward
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  to connecting again in the future. Alright. Thank
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  you so much.