Children’s CEO retires as hospital reaches new peaks
When Dr. Steve Allen became its CEO in 2006, Nationwide Children’s Hospital was a good regional health-care facility. Now, 13 years later and with Allen's retirement at the end of June, Children’s has become an international hospital, attracting patients from all 50 states and around the world to an ever-expanding complex that includes a state-of-the-art pediatric hospital, a research institute that’s on the cutting edge of genomic research and a nearly completed behavioral health pavilion.
In a recent interview with Columbus CEO magazine, Allen talked about the growth of the hospital, why he came to Columbus and his future.
Q: Why are you retiring now, when all your hard work is coming to fruition, and what’s in the future for you?
A: I'll be turning 67 next month and I had thought for some time that, with where the hospital was in its trajectory, that was a good time
for me to step away and let the next leader take over. I knew this was about the time frame in which I would want to step away. I’m going to take a couple of months and think through what I might want to put my energies into next. I have every intention of staying in town because my wife still works at Ohio State University.
Q: Overall, what has the growth during your time as CEO meant for the hospital as it went from being a local hospital to an international one?
A: To realize the aspirations that the board had for the institution when I came on as CEO, we needed to develop our clinical programs. We needed to have programs that not only were the best but also had unique clinical offerings. We had to expand our educational enterprise because it was important for us to train the next generation of providers and to expand our research enterprise. Those are important aspects to what it takes to become the lead academic medical center.
In addition, by doing all Dr. Steve Allen
Position: Retired CEO, Nationwide Children’s Hospital (replaced by Tim Robinson on June 30)
Age: 67
In position: Since July 2006 Previous position: Vice president and CEO at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston
Hospital staff: 12,000 Medical staff: More than 1,400 Annual patients: More than 1.5 million
2018 revenue: $2.5 billion Education: Undergraduate, Rice University; MD, University of Texas Medical Branch; MBA, University of Houston-clear Lake Personal: Resides in New Albany with wife, Dr. Jamie Keller Allen. Five children
those things, it gave us the resources and credibility to do other things that disrupt our industry, things like the enormous expansion of our behavioral health services, the things that we have done with rejuvenating healthy neighborhoods and healthy families and our ability to attract and create talent in order to lead our new digital genomic medicine.
Q: What does that mean for the kids in Columbus?
A: It is all about making sure we’re taking the best care possible of children in Columbus. It was Abigail’s (Wexner) driving passion when I came here that no child would have to leave central Ohio to get the care they needed. To do that we need to have programs that are so good no child needs to leave and programs that attract people from across the country and around the world.
The research we do here means we’re able to provide new cures and treatment to the children of central Ohio before anybody else in the country or the world sees them. By having this enormous educational opportunity, we’re able to train and attract and retain talent here in central Ohio so that we have people to take care of our community’s children.
Q: Why has research been an important part of Children’s expansion?
A: If your child has a complex medical problem, you have two choices: You can either take your child to a place where they read the latest textbooks and do everything the latest textbooks say you should do. Or, you can take your child to the place that writes the textbooks and is generating new knowledge through research that gives them the credibility to write the textbooks.
Q: Why are you adding a behavioral health facility and running a campaign to raise awareness about mental health issues in children?
A: We realized that there was inadequate capacity to deal with the behavioral health problems children have in central Ohio. And we were the best organization to try to address those problems. It comes back to our founding mission: providing for the children in Franklin County. We can’t say we’re just going to provide for their physical health. We need to provide for the whole child.
Q: What potential did you see at Nationwide Children’s that made you want to become its CEO in 2006?
A: I became quite enamored with the ambition and aspirations that the board had set out and the unique opportunities I saw in Columbus. And it looked like we would be able to generate the resources to make things happen. But as I tell everybody whom I recruit here, I grossly underestimated what could be done. We’ve really done remarkable things and it’s been fabulous. Columbus is just a great place to do something remarkable.
Kathy Lynn Gray is a freelance writer for Columbus CEO, a sister publication to The Dispatch.