Shop Talk: Q&A with Sheila Daly, Clinton Hospital
Photo/Christina H. Davis
Sheila Daly, President & CEO, Clinton Hospital
Sheila Daly probably knows every inch of Clinton Hospital. That’s because she’s worked her way up through the small, 41-bed facility from nurse to CEO in her more than 30-year career. She’s held the chief executive title since 2001 and remains as committed to the issue of quality health care access today as she was when she first entered nursing school. Here, she talks about her career path as well as her wish for the health care system.
>> What has your career path been?
A little bit of luck and I guess a lot of love of Clinton Hospital. I never planned on being the CEO. Most of my jobs, I never planned for at all. I got out of nursing school and this is where I came. I thought I’d be here for a year. At one point somebody said, “Do you want to be CEO?” It wasn’t anything that was ever planned.
>> What was the toughest transition when you did take over as president and CEO?
It was a similar transition when I left patient care and moved to management. I had to leave behind a lot of my nursing skills and patient contact. Then, when I left my vice president’s job I had to leave behind being directly in charge of the patient care departments. It was difficult, but not difficult at the same time, because I have great people that I work with that I really can trust.
>> How has this hospital changed since 2001?
We started growing for a while, particularly in our in-patient census. It probably peaked about two years ago, but we’ve seen in the last few months that it’s dropped off a little bit. I think everybody’s waiting to see if that’s just the economy. Health care reform has already started with insurers trying to keep more and more people out of the hospital. So that’s probably one of the bigger changes at Clinton. Now, the good stuff that I’ve seen is that as part of the UMass Memorial Health Care System we’re getting more and more electronic here, which we never could have done alone.
>> What do you mean when you say health care reform has “already started?”
People talk about health care costs rising too quickly and that we’ve got to control those costs. The only way you can control spending is if you spend less. So, somewhere along the line, particularly if we’re going to cover more people, you’re going to have to be doing a little bit less. That sounds very negative and I don’t want it to sound completely negative. These changes have been evolving over time — the hoops you have to jump through.
>> What’s the biggest challenge that you face as head of this hospital?
Same as everybody: finances. Also, we wonder about what health care reform is going to mean for such a small hospital. People have often said to me, “Oh most of the small hospitals are gone. I don’t know if you’re going to make it.” The biggest difference for us has been patient satisfaction. But is that going to be enough in the long run? I don’t know. It’s going to depend on what reform looks like. It could be very good for us because we are a low-cost hospital.
>> What’s the toughest management lesson you’ve had to learn?
This is going to sound backwards, but I think for me it’s actually that sometimes you need to follow your own gut and your beliefs rather than what some of the management books tell you. When I’ve tried to follow some of those real management rules, I find my gut has been a better judge for most of my decisions.
>> If you had a magic wand and you could change anything about the health care system, what fix first?
I’d like to see that everybody in health care truly puts the patient first. So that means making sure that people can access care easily. I don’t think we really understand what that means to people. For some people who live in this community, to travel into another community for routine care is very difficult. So, I think that’s big. If we really do care about them we have to find a way to help them access care.
Watch as Sheila Daly talks about her favorite aspects of her job:
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