What I Heard. What I Learned. What’s Next.

I know many of you were probably sitting by your inbox at 6:30 Tuesday morning, eagerly waiting for this week’s blog post. At least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe.

This one is arriving a day later than usual, and the delay was intentional. I wanted to write after Tuesday evening’s Vision GBMC event, when we had the opportunity to share where GBMC HealthCare is headed with many of the people who have supported this organization for years.

One year ago this week, I began as President and CEO of GBMC HealthCare. I came here with a lot of questions and, intentionally, not a lot of answers. I believed the most important thing I could do in my first year was understand this organization: its strengths, its challenges, its people and its culture.

So I listened.

Some of that listening was structured. More than 100 people across our Board, our physicians and our leadership took an honest look at where we are strong and where we need to improve. But just as important were the things I heard and saw in the course of everyday work: hallway conversations, time with people who have given decades to this place, and opportunities to shadow our own team members as they care for patients and families.

Taken together, those experiences have given me a much clearer picture of who we are.

After a year of listening, I believe more strongly than ever that GBMC is a very special place. Care is delivered here at a level people usually associate with a major academic medical center, but at GBMC, it feels personal. Because it is.

Special organizations, though, cannot stand still. This fall, we are sharing where we are headed. It is not a reset. It is an evolution, built on what has always distinguished us: excellent medicine, personal relationships, accountability to our community and our independence.

It begins with our refreshed Mission:

At every stage of life, we provide the care that we would want for our loved ones.

That language should sound familiar. It has guided GBMC for years. What we added matters: at every stage of life. We may meet you before your child is born, care for you through adulthood, perform a complex surgery and, decades later, walk alongside your family through serious illness and the end of life.

A Mission should describe why we exist today. This one does.

Our refreshed Vision asks a different question: what are we trying to become?

To be a highly coordinated system of care, trusted for excellence in delivering the highest quality of life for all.

We have come a long way from excellent hospital to true system of care, but we are not finished. A patient should not have to understand our organizational structure to receive coordinated care. Whether you come to us through primary care, our Emergency Department, a specialist, surgery or Gilchrist, the system should do the connecting for you.

Our values now spell GREAT: Growth, Respect, Excellence, Accountability, Teamwork. Four have long defined us. Growth is new and deliberate: a commitment to keep learning and improving, as individuals and as a system.

Five commitments turn this into action. Over the next three years, our strategic direction comes down to:

Care you can trust, every single time.

The right care, right when you need it.

Care that feels personal, because the people caring for you actually know you.

Thoughtfully growing the services our community needs most.

Operating with the discipline to make sure GBMC remains strong, and independent, for the people who will need us tomorrow.

Independence does not mean doing everything alone. It means staying accountable to this community and deciding based on what the people we serve need.

You will start to see one phrase everywhere: Care Built Around You. This is the promise underneath everything above, and how we will tell our story from here forward. At Vision GBMC, we shared it with the donors who helped build the GBMC I inherited, alongside stories of that promise in action.

One year ago, I came here to listen and learn. A year later, I still have plenty to learn, but I have never been more confident in what GBMC can become.

We know why we are here. We know where we want to go. We have the people to get us there, and we have a community that has stood behind us for more than six decades.

That is why I believe GBMC HealthCare’s future is brighter than ever.