Moreover, LifePoint, like most hospital systems in the country, is increasing its focus on standardizing and centralizing certain aspects of its business. Being a spinoff of Nashville-based HCA Healthcare, LifePoint has evolved from a holding company with a few dozen hospitals to a large corporation. This, coupled with healthcare reform and all of its various components, as well as declining reimbursement, is driving the company to standardize its business model to remove costs in areas such as supply chain, revenue cycle, and payroll.
Given all of these challenges and the constantly changing nature of healthcare, it is critical to take an advanced approach to talent management. In the past, healthcare HR has often been seen as more transactional in nature, but this is changing for organizations like LifePoint, which understand that the workforce must be operating with a high level of competence and be in sync with its culture and values in order to drive clinical and financial success.“ Our talent is what leverages the performance of the organization,” says Belcher.“ It is this philosophy that is the driving force behind our daily discussions about talent within LifePoint.”
As such, LifePoint is taking its talent management strategy to a whole new level. To start, LifePoint has made talent management and leadership one of its four key strategies. This comes from the very top, says Bumpus.“ We are very fortunate to have a chairman and CEO like Bill Carpenter who understands the importance of leadership and talent development and has made it a priority since he became CEO in 2006.” The company’ s overall talent management strategy centers on the fact that“ talent management is the biggest asset at LifePoint.”
“ Our talent is what leverages the performance of the organization.”
At LifePoint, the talent management strategy includes an advanced support structure for hospital CEOs, an innovative leadership and training model, and a unique partnership with CNOs to grow nurse leaders, build a competent clinical workforce, and meet rigorous quality directives.
Setting the Bar High
LifePoint has five primary talent development goals, including: 1. Recruit strong leaders. 2. Set clear expectations and hold people accountable. 3. Have a strong rewards and recognition program. 4. Excel at training and development. 5. Develop smart succession planning.
HOW THE RIGHT LEADERSHIP MODEL BECAME A GAME CHANGER
LifePoint places a high priority on supporting and developing exceptional hospital CEOs. This intention dates back to the first year of the company’ s inception, when its founding CEO, Scott Mercy, passed away. One year later, the unthinkable happened, when its second CEO, Jim Fleetwood, also passed away unexpectedly.“ The company learned many lessons during these troubling times, but above all others we learned that the CEO of the corporation is not the most important job,” says Bumpus.“ Out of all of the positions in our company, the hospital CEO is most important because healthcare is local, and it will be the leadership on the ground that will determine whether or not the hospital is successful in delivering on our mission in the community,” says Bumpus.
To that end, in 2006, LifePoint began a process of identifying and talking to its most successful CEOs, as well as their direct reports at the group leadership level, to determine the competencies and skills required to be successful on the job. It was out of these conversations that LifePoint developed its advanced leadership model, comprised of 20 competencies that are categorized into four areas, including core values, and business, personal and relationship mastery.“ We now have a profile of what a successful LifePoint leader looks like, which includes desired behavior, competencies, and experience,” says Belcher.“ We use that profile to recruit and to select, train, and develop talent within the organization.” 16