OAHHS Hospital Voice Fall/Winter 2020

26 » A magazine for and about Oregon Community Hospitals. what we are doing and to say, “What have we learned from this?” and then how do we apply that to our systems and structures moving forward? Doing the same thing with less money is not a recipe for success. So how do we do things differently, what does that look like, and how do we work with our community partners to create a vision and to implement it? I’m not a fan of just saying we’re going to do the same thing, and just be paid less for it as a recipe for success. We have to think bigger than that, we have to think transformational, and while it’s hard to do those things in a time of fewer resources, sometimes that’s the time that it’s most important to have those conversations. You have a lot of experience in hospital association work both at the state level and also at the national level. How has your work with AHA helped you in the two states where you’ve worked with the state association? I’m really fortunate to sit on the AHA board right now and to have a firsthand view of how the hospital association is responding at a national level. The federal partner- ship and the federal funds that have flowed to hospitals have been absolutely critical in this pandemic. The largest source of relief has been the federal government. The state legislature has allocated funds for rural relief and we greatly appreciate those funds, but federal money came in at a critical time to save these rural hospitals. I’ve had a chance to wit- ness firsthand the process for build- ing the case, for underscoring why it was so important. The other piece that is less talked about but equally important was regulatory relief that happened early on, to enable hospi- tals to be flexible and to respond. Many of those things we were talking about earlier, creating new inpatient units, creating triage areas, required waivers that the federal government had to act quickly to put into place. If you look at how we’ve responded to the pandemic in Oregon, it’s really been influenced by those decisions that were made at the federal level. We would not have been able to be as effective in our state response without that strong partnership. As we mentioned at the top, you’re still in your first few months, and I know that it’s a big priority for you to work on the culture of collaboration on the team that you run at OAHHS. That was ongoing, and then the pandemic happened and we’re not even in the office anymore. How difficult is that challenge as you try to create that culture? That is a really good question, Dave. I do care really deeply about organiza- tional culture, that our organization is a place where people want to come and work, where they find fulfillment and camaraderie with their team, and that they’re proud of the work that they do because it serves an impor- tant social purpose. I was blessed to have a couple of months in the office with the team and then we had to make this wrenching transition, which a lot of organizations had to make, and figure out what that looked like in a virtual environment. I’m an intro- vert at heart, so I’m OK working from home, but even as an introvert I miss people! I miss being in the office, walking around popping my head into someone’s office and saying, “How are you doing? What are you working on?” and that’s not as organic in a virtual environment. I feel like we’ve adapted. People are thriving online, but there are definitely elements that I miss and when we get to the point where we can get back in the office, I will be really grateful to have that experi- ence again. One of the things that has been positive has been having an advisory group of employees who have made recommendations on things we can do to make connections with each other during this time. We’re going to try and have an employee retreat! How do you have a retreat virtually? We have to try things out until we can figure out what works because there’s not an end date to this right now, so failure’s not an option. We have to create and sustain that feeling of teamwork even though we can’t be in the same room. Well, teams come in all sizes, and Team Hultberg packed up and moved to a brand-new state, with all that goes with that. It’s We need to be able to respond to the pandemic, and at the same time pay attention to these other important issues and continue to move them forward. There’s a challenge in that, a lot of work in that, and we have to take care of ourselves and our team members so that we have the resilience to do the work.