PREMIER HEALTH CEO SHARES WHAT CRISIS TAUGHT

Dayton-based health system uses ‘a bias for action’ in its response.

It’s a busy and uncertain time to be leading a health system.

Premier Health CEO Mary Boosalis sat down (remotely) with the Dayton Daily News to talk about what challenges the Dayton-based health system is facing at this time. Boosalis was named chief executive in 2016, leading the parent organization of Miami Valley Hospital, its south and north hospital campuses, Atrium Medical Center, Upper Valley Medical Center and other services.

The Dayton Daily News will be talking with different leaders around the region in exclusive interviews about how their organizations are navigating through this pandemic.

Q: What do you recall about when you started seeing that this outbreak was going to impact the Dayton region?

Boosalis: I would say the first thing we did was work with our medical staff leaders because you’re trying to understand the disease process, so the first thing you do is engage your medical staff. That was toward the end of January, for us.

What we did after we started working with the medical staff, we started monitoring more in February.

And I think one thing I wanted to convey is that people in health care — and I think particularly at a Level 1 trauma — we’re constantly doing prep for disasters. That’s just the nature of what’s required.

And when you overlay that with the fact we had been through the tornadoes, we’ve been through the shootings, I’m not saying we’re not learning and we’re not having to change with more information, but I think there’s a bias for action with people and planning.

When I say ‘a bias for action,’ the couple things we had to do was: We always focus on our mission. So our mission is to care for people. We’re not going to abdicate our mission. So then the challenge became everything we had to do would be around “How do you provide care safely to keep your staff safe and the patients and the visitors?”

We, for example, started right away saying we can’t be traveling. We have to have visitor restrictions. “Where should we cohort patients or not?” The other thing surrounding the push for safety, which is still going on, is: communicate, communicate, communicate.

We started partnering, of course, right away. And I do

STAFF / FILE Mary Boosalis, president and CEO of Miami Valley Hospital, greets David R. Hopkins, then president of Wright State University, after she introduced him to speak at Beiser Auditorium at MVH. At far right is Ted Strickland, the former Ohio governor who was also a speaker at the event.