Sheri Milone has made a name for herself in health care and not just because she has been with Lovelace Health System since 1992, serving as CEO for two Lovelace hospitals. She provides leadership and guidance on three boards, has received numerous awards locally and nationally – one of Albuquerque Business First’s Top-Performing CEOs in 2011 and made the list on Becker’s Hospital Review’s 130 Women Hospital and Health System Leaders to Know, to name just two. In 2014, she was inducted into The University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management Foundation Board Hall of Fame, where she received her MBA – her second master’s degree. Sheri has been recognized by Lovelace’s parent company, Ardent Health Services, as CEO of the Year three times with Lovelace Women’s Hospital receiving the Ardent Cup (awarded to the top-performing Ardent hospital) six times under her reign. Yes, all of these things are tremendous accomplishments, but what sets Sheri apart in her industry is her undeniable way of getting things done.
“I can have a vision and an idea, but it is really the medical staff and our employees who really make it happen,” she says of where credit is due to accomplishments and achievements throughout her career. “I’ve found a lot of our best ideas have come from those two key constituents. That’s been the key to our success – listen to them, help develop their ideas and have them really understand what we are trying to achieve and help us achieve it. They are critical. If I don’t have them onboard, I won’t be able to get any of these wonderful ideas off the ground.”
The foundation for Sheri’s work at Lovelace began in Tucson, AZ where she graduated from The University of Arizona with her master’s degree as a certified speech pathologist and audiologist. As the director for a speech and hearing program for developmentally disabled children and adults, Sheri led therapists providing a vast array of services to patients of all ages. She is most proud of her work to integrate preschool-aged participants in the program into traditional school environments. “We convinced the preschools to let us send our children with needs to their schools,” she adds. “We worked with the parents and teachers so that they were comfortable in this environment. It turned into a wonderful program.”
Following a move to Pennsylvania, Sheri and her husband considered going west once again. “If you have ever skied in the east, it is cold, grey and you ski on ice,” she says. “Skiing out west is a different sport. My husband and I decided to move to Albuquerque to go skiing – that’s really why we moved here. Albuquerque was a beautiful spot. It was big enough that we could work here and we were still close to skiing.” That decision in 1992 became Albuquerque’s and Lovelace’s gain.
“My first job was with the St. Joseph Health System,” Sheri says of what became Lovelace Health System. “I worked at Lovelace Medical Center as the manager of acute therapy services.” Her ability to see the bigger picture – improving patient care and expanding services – led to promotions at Lovelace Medical Center, followed by a transition to Lovelace Rehabilitation Hospital. “Eventually, I was over the entire rehab program and then I was over the entire Rehabilitation Hospital as the CEO.”
Her biggest challenge was just a few years ahead. In 2003, Sheri became CEO of Northeast Heights Medical Center – what is today Lovelace Women’s Hospital. “After doing research and talking to people who had been involved with women’s hospitals, my vision was to have a hospital for women of all ages,” Sheri explains. “That wasn’t completely popular at that time. A lot of women’s hospitals were elite programs – delivery programs. The initial plan was to close the hospital, remodel and move all OB services within Lovelace together and make it an OB hospital. Unfortunately, it is difficult to make those programs profitable if you don’t have other service lines. I was afraid we would never be able to make it a long-term viable opportunity for the system.”
Sheri knew what had worked in the past and put that plan in place. “I worked with everyone and convinced them to make it an acute care hospital for women of all ages,” she says. “I wanted to keep the hospital open and keep all those adult services in place – the surgical unit, medical/surgical floor and intensive care unit (ICU), for example. I wanted to make it women-focused, but for women of all ages.”
Lovelace Women’s Hospital – the state’s only hospital dedicated to the care of women – brought together OB services within Lovelace and rebranded under the new hospital name in 2004. “That was an exciting milestone for us, but that was hard,” she admits.
Next followed adding a neonatal intensive care unit so that women and babies did not have to be transferred to other hospitals or even out-of-state in some cases. Again, it was easier said than done. “There was one provider, in particular, who was wonderful in helping me see what we could become and helped us organize it,” she recalls. “I had a wonderful architect who worked with me to help design the NICU. We designed it, I bet, 15 times. Eventually we came up with a plan that everyone could really dive into and join efforts with us. Adding a NICU was a big change for us.”
Over the last 12 years, Lovelace Women’s Hospital added a nationally-recognized breast cancer center, maternal-fetal program for high risk pregnancies, first-class natural birthing center and minimally-invasive robotic surgery program. Lovelace Women’s Hospital is only the second hospital in New Mexico to receive the state’s highest quality award – the Zia Award - in 2011. Providing excellent patient care is driven by the work of the people who work at Lovelace Women’s Hospital. It is not a coincidence that the hospital has also been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the 100 Best Places to Work in Health Care for eight consecutive years.
“It is about figuring out how to tap into our employees and medical staff providers so that our initiatives are really their programs they are building,” Sheri explains. “That’s one of the reasons we have been successful, but I also say it is a work in progress, because we always have to figure out how to re-engage those people to help us move forward on another project.”
From the customer service program, Women’s Outstanding Way, to bi-monthly town hall meetings and listening to and engaging staff and providers, Sheri continues to challenge the way things are done for the benefit of patients and employees. The work is never complete. “In 2017, we have an expanded focus for our hospital to become a tertiary care facility in the area of women’s health for the entire state of New Mexico,” she says. “It is going to stretch our team as we figure out how to work more collaboratively with other hospitals and provider groups to make that happen. It is going to be an exciting new venture for us, but it is also going to be a challenge, because it is something we haven’t done before.”
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