Selected Podcast
Ep. 10: How to be a WellSpan Ambassador in Three Steps
Roxanna Gapstur, President and CEO of WellSpan Health, discusses how Wellspan employees can become Ambassadors.
Featuring:
Dr. Gapstur has extensive experience in strategic planning, business development and operational leadership in both ambulatory and hospital settings. She has served in multiple executive roles including chief operating officer, chief nursing officer and as a senior executive accountable for population health.
Dr. Gapstur obtained her bachelor’s degree from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn., and her master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Minnesota.
She was named a “Top 35 Women in Healthcare Leader” by Minnesota Women’s Health Leadership Trust in 2014. Dr. Gapstur has participated as a member and president of non-profit boards, including the Greater Twin Cities United Way, Minnesota Chapter of the National Hemophilia Foundation and the Minnesota Organization of Leaders in Nursing.
Roxanna Gapstur, PhD, RN
In January 2019, Roxanna Gapstur assumed the role of President and CEO of WellSpan Health. She has over 25 years of healthcare leadership experience working in group practice, academic, and integrated health care systems which included health plan operations. Prior to her appointment at WellSpan, Dr. Gapstur was a senior vice president and president within the HealthPartners system in Bloomington, Minn.Dr. Gapstur has extensive experience in strategic planning, business development and operational leadership in both ambulatory and hospital settings. She has served in multiple executive roles including chief operating officer, chief nursing officer and as a senior executive accountable for population health.
Dr. Gapstur obtained her bachelor’s degree from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn., and her master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Minnesota.
She was named a “Top 35 Women in Healthcare Leader” by Minnesota Women’s Health Leadership Trust in 2014. Dr. Gapstur has participated as a member and president of non-profit boards, including the Greater Twin Cities United Way, Minnesota Chapter of the National Hemophilia Foundation and the Minnesota Organization of Leaders in Nursing.
Transcription:
Michael Carrese (Host): Welcome to Inspiring Health, a series of conversations with Roxanna Gapstur and other WellSpan leaders about WellSpan 2025. I’m Michael Carrese and Roxanna it’s great to be with you again.
Roxanna Gapstur PhD, RN (Guest): Great to be with you too Michael.
Host: What are we talking about today?
Roxanna: Today, we’re going to talk about being an ambassador for WellSpan Health.
Host: And what does that mean to you?
Roxanna: Well being an ambassador to me, means three things. Being informed, being engaged and being committed to the organization. It’s someone who positively shapes the perceptions of other people.
Host: And why is that so important?
Roxanna: Well all organizations need to build their brand and with our 2025 vision, being a trusted partner, reimaging healthcare, inspiring health; we have 19,000 WellSpan team members, each with a unique perspective and those 19,000 team members can influence others. So, if ambassadors are spreading positive and factual information inside and outside our organization; it strengthens our messages to friends and neighbors about our quality and experience and affordability. Things that patients can expect from us no matter where they get care in our system.
Host: It sounds like you think this is a very important element in WellSpan 2025 being successful.
Roxanna: Absolutely. This is really important. We must deliver on the promises we’ve made to our communities with our new vision. And to be that trusted partner; we have to deliver value. And we’ve certainly touched on that in our other podcasts. Best experience, highest quality and most affordable care. In fact, Dr. MaryEllen Pfeiffer made a good point on our previous podcast about high reliability. I think you asked Michael, how will people know we have high quality and she said one way is through the communities interactions with us. They learn from what we tell them whether it’s in the doctor’s office, the hospital, or maybe even in the line at the grocery store.
As WellSpan employees, we all have that power to impact public perception about WellSpan.
Host: So, let’s talk about how to be a WellSpan ambassador. Boil that down for us.
Roxanna: Well being informed, engaged and committed to sharing WellSpan’s story, far and wide.
Host: And about being informed, that lays the groundwork?
Roxanna: It does. It means staying connected to the work that’s happening at WellSpan and with all the different ways that we get information out to our employees. We get information out through our newsletters like Around WellSpan. We get information out to our leaders on our Working as One Call every single Monday and we also get information out to every employee through Team Huddles. It’s important to know where we excel and where our teams are best in class and feel pride in that work. Also identifying areas where we can improve. Where do we have gaps? This is how we can be transparent about our opportunities for improvement. And also, needing to know that across the organization; it starts with our board and senior leader team that we are committed to zero harm. We’re committed to becoming a high reliability organization and to continuous improvement. And we won’t give up until we get there.
Host: You already mentioned a couple of ways to stay informed with what’s going on. What are some others?
Roxanna: Well we do have also Leadership Blogs. We have these podcasts. And we have some videos that we put out there for instance the video from the leadership forum where I shared our new vision. So, information at the entity or department level like President’s Briefings and newsletters can also be helpful as well.
Host: All right. So that’s the being informed part. What about being engaged? Engagement is a term that has got a lot of meaning when you talk about culture; how does that apply to being an ambassador?
Roxanna: It’s similar. It takes a lot of communication to engage our employees. That communication needs to be strong and it needs to get to each and every person. So, having those individual touchpoints with leaders, is very important but also being engaged means two way communication. It means that as an employee, reaching out when you have questions or trying to understand information that’s difficult to understand. So, it’s a two way communication.
It also means being a connector. So, if you are a leader, connecting your teams. If you are team member, connecting yourself to our vision and values and understanding how your daily work really improves our mission. We should be curious about all of our team members and apply that know me concept when people feel engaged. So, just like we try to know our patients and families; we really want to know our employees as well to understand what they find joy in their work. And also need to celebrate our successes together so we feel pride.
This last year, we took the month of August as 30-days of Fun to celebrate a great year end to our 2019 fiscal year. It really created a lot of momentum for our success.
Host: Okay. So, informed, engaged and committed. What does being committed mean to you Roxanna?
Roxanna: Well, being committed to WellSpan is sharing our story far and wide. We have those stories that we can share internally through Yammer and our LDMS Boards. We can also share externally on places like Linked In or with our community connections. There’s also an opportunity to speak up when we are with our community partners to correct misinformation that doesn’t accurately represent our organization. So, by using our new values as a lens; we can shape our interactions with others and be storytellers of our incredible work.
Host: So, do any examples come to your mind of this work taking place?
Roxanna: Right now, I would say sharing on Yammer is one of the ways that we’re all reimagining healthcare together. We’re telling individual stories. In each department, an employee has an opportunity to share how they’re thinking about reimaging care. It’s one of the great ways that we can get a large group of people having a conversation together in an organization this size.
Host: Is there anything that sticks out in your mind that you saw on Yammer and you thought, yup, that’s it, that’s what we need to be doing more of?
Roxanna: There was. I saw a couple of people who after they had gone to team chats and we talked about diversity and inclusion; they had a sign on Yammer that said that they were really digging into their own unconscious bias and trying to understand how they could be more connected and open with their diversity network.
Host: So recapping now, we have people to be informed, engaged and committed to being an ambassador. What’s the big take away that you want people to have from all of this?
Roxanna: The big take away is that we all own the responsibility for shaping perceptions and we each have a valuable role to play in telling the WellSpan story. Each of our employees works in a unique part of our organization and is providing unique services to our patients and families. Telling those stories and elevating those interesting ideas and thoughts for our patients and our communities is important and also remembering our new values and being vocal and sharing the great work that you are doing and observing.
Host: Good point to end on. You’ve been listening to Inspiring Health, a series of conversations with Roxanna Gapstur and other WellSpan leaders about WellSpan 2025. I’m Michael Carrese. Thanks for joining us.
Michael Carrese (Host): Welcome to Inspiring Health, a series of conversations with Roxanna Gapstur and other WellSpan leaders about WellSpan 2025. I’m Michael Carrese and Roxanna it’s great to be with you again.
Roxanna Gapstur PhD, RN (Guest): Great to be with you too Michael.
Host: What are we talking about today?
Roxanna: Today, we’re going to talk about being an ambassador for WellSpan Health.
Host: And what does that mean to you?
Roxanna: Well being an ambassador to me, means three things. Being informed, being engaged and being committed to the organization. It’s someone who positively shapes the perceptions of other people.
Host: And why is that so important?
Roxanna: Well all organizations need to build their brand and with our 2025 vision, being a trusted partner, reimaging healthcare, inspiring health; we have 19,000 WellSpan team members, each with a unique perspective and those 19,000 team members can influence others. So, if ambassadors are spreading positive and factual information inside and outside our organization; it strengthens our messages to friends and neighbors about our quality and experience and affordability. Things that patients can expect from us no matter where they get care in our system.
Host: It sounds like you think this is a very important element in WellSpan 2025 being successful.
Roxanna: Absolutely. This is really important. We must deliver on the promises we’ve made to our communities with our new vision. And to be that trusted partner; we have to deliver value. And we’ve certainly touched on that in our other podcasts. Best experience, highest quality and most affordable care. In fact, Dr. MaryEllen Pfeiffer made a good point on our previous podcast about high reliability. I think you asked Michael, how will people know we have high quality and she said one way is through the communities interactions with us. They learn from what we tell them whether it’s in the doctor’s office, the hospital, or maybe even in the line at the grocery store.
As WellSpan employees, we all have that power to impact public perception about WellSpan.
Host: So, let’s talk about how to be a WellSpan ambassador. Boil that down for us.
Roxanna: Well being informed, engaged and committed to sharing WellSpan’s story, far and wide.
Host: And about being informed, that lays the groundwork?
Roxanna: It does. It means staying connected to the work that’s happening at WellSpan and with all the different ways that we get information out to our employees. We get information out through our newsletters like Around WellSpan. We get information out to our leaders on our Working as One Call every single Monday and we also get information out to every employee through Team Huddles. It’s important to know where we excel and where our teams are best in class and feel pride in that work. Also identifying areas where we can improve. Where do we have gaps? This is how we can be transparent about our opportunities for improvement. And also, needing to know that across the organization; it starts with our board and senior leader team that we are committed to zero harm. We’re committed to becoming a high reliability organization and to continuous improvement. And we won’t give up until we get there.
Host: You already mentioned a couple of ways to stay informed with what’s going on. What are some others?
Roxanna: Well we do have also Leadership Blogs. We have these podcasts. And we have some videos that we put out there for instance the video from the leadership forum where I shared our new vision. So, information at the entity or department level like President’s Briefings and newsletters can also be helpful as well.
Host: All right. So that’s the being informed part. What about being engaged? Engagement is a term that has got a lot of meaning when you talk about culture; how does that apply to being an ambassador?
Roxanna: It’s similar. It takes a lot of communication to engage our employees. That communication needs to be strong and it needs to get to each and every person. So, having those individual touchpoints with leaders, is very important but also being engaged means two way communication. It means that as an employee, reaching out when you have questions or trying to understand information that’s difficult to understand. So, it’s a two way communication.
It also means being a connector. So, if you are a leader, connecting your teams. If you are team member, connecting yourself to our vision and values and understanding how your daily work really improves our mission. We should be curious about all of our team members and apply that know me concept when people feel engaged. So, just like we try to know our patients and families; we really want to know our employees as well to understand what they find joy in their work. And also need to celebrate our successes together so we feel pride.
This last year, we took the month of August as 30-days of Fun to celebrate a great year end to our 2019 fiscal year. It really created a lot of momentum for our success.
Host: Okay. So, informed, engaged and committed. What does being committed mean to you Roxanna?
Roxanna: Well, being committed to WellSpan is sharing our story far and wide. We have those stories that we can share internally through Yammer and our LDMS Boards. We can also share externally on places like Linked In or with our community connections. There’s also an opportunity to speak up when we are with our community partners to correct misinformation that doesn’t accurately represent our organization. So, by using our new values as a lens; we can shape our interactions with others and be storytellers of our incredible work.
Host: So, do any examples come to your mind of this work taking place?
Roxanna: Right now, I would say sharing on Yammer is one of the ways that we’re all reimagining healthcare together. We’re telling individual stories. In each department, an employee has an opportunity to share how they’re thinking about reimaging care. It’s one of the great ways that we can get a large group of people having a conversation together in an organization this size.
Host: Is there anything that sticks out in your mind that you saw on Yammer and you thought, yup, that’s it, that’s what we need to be doing more of?
Roxanna: There was. I saw a couple of people who after they had gone to team chats and we talked about diversity and inclusion; they had a sign on Yammer that said that they were really digging into their own unconscious bias and trying to understand how they could be more connected and open with their diversity network.
Host: So recapping now, we have people to be informed, engaged and committed to being an ambassador. What’s the big take away that you want people to have from all of this?
Roxanna: The big take away is that we all own the responsibility for shaping perceptions and we each have a valuable role to play in telling the WellSpan story. Each of our employees works in a unique part of our organization and is providing unique services to our patients and families. Telling those stories and elevating those interesting ideas and thoughts for our patients and our communities is important and also remembering our new values and being vocal and sharing the great work that you are doing and observing.
Host: Good point to end on. You’ve been listening to Inspiring Health, a series of conversations with Roxanna Gapstur and other WellSpan leaders about WellSpan 2025. I’m Michael Carrese. Thanks for joining us.