UVA Health University Medical Center CEO focuses on the workforce

Wendy Horton began leading the UVA Health University Medical Center just as the COVID-19 pandemic began, so that may explain why she has focused on building and strengthening the workforce.

She began her tenure as the CEO of the medical center in Charlottesville, Va. in March 2020, just as COVID-19 was upending life as we knew it. More than four years later, Horton has aimed to ensure the medical center keeps its top clinicians and staff, but she has also looked for novel ways to bring talent into the organization.

“People are the heart of healthcare,” Horton says.

“And this is something that I'm just so passionate about,” she adds. “We have a looming problem. We're going to have even more patients to care for, in multiple generations.”

In a recent interview with Chief Healthcare Executive®, Horton talks about her career, getting through the pandemic, and some of the strategies UVA Health has employed to keep workers and design a new pipeline to find workers for important roles.

(See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

An unexpected advantage

A trained pharmacist, Horton previously served as the chief administrative officer of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. She also served as the vice president of operations at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.

She arrived at UVA Health University Medical Center in the spring of 2020 and began a month earlier than she was initially scheduled. With the pandemic just beginning, Horton didn’t get the typical introduction to a new system.

“It was not a traditional onboarding by any means. No meet and greets,” she says.

But she takes pride in the way everyone at the medical center came together and devised new ways to solve problems.

“We made decisions really quickly,” Horton says. “We innovated. We knew that we had to move forward fast, and we had to make do with what we had.”

“I look back on those times with just such gratitude for so many people that were willing to help in so many different ways, and to the health systems in Virginia, banding together, comparing notes, sharing what we had and helping one another … it was really amazing.”

Horton says coming in at the beginning of the pandemic also provided a different advantage. Without some of the traditional events outside of work, Horton immersed herself in the medical center.

“You could have amazing focus to really learn the organization and learn the job really well,” she says. “So that was an advantage.”

• Read more: UVA Health CEO talks about expansion and extension

Retaining staff

At the height of the pandemic, the medical center, like hospitals and health systems nationwide, struggled to fill positions, particularly nursing jobs, and relied heavily on staffing agencies for travel nurses. During the peak, the medical center was relying on nearly 900 temporary nurses, Horton says.

But the medical center has seen a remarkable turnaround. Horton says the system utilized about 350 travel nurses over the past year, and the goal is reducing that number to 250.

The system has succeeded in retaining more nurses. She cites the success in seeing the turnover rate for registered nurses drop to 9.9%.

Horton has focused heavily on retaining nurses.

“The knowledge, the experience, the training at an academic medical center is so vitally

important,” Horton says.

UVA Health has also developed a leadership institute, which is open to doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others through the system, and that is helping emerging leaders within the system, Horton says.

Those in the system learn about leadership and improving communication.

“We're also finding that this program is really helping with retention, but also career progression and development,” Horton says.

‘Earn while you learn’

While the medical center is finding success in keeping talented caregivers, Horton says she’s encouraged by the organization’s progress in recruiting new talent as well.

“We've been able to recruit a lot of new nurses, and really that pipeline is very, very strong,” Horton says.

Horton has also led efforts to build a new pipeline of talent into the medical center for a host of vital roles. The medical center has launched the “Earn While You Learn” program, which trains people for a variety of essential roles, including emergency medical technician, pharmacy technician, patient care technician, and other jobs.

Individuals with a high school diploma can enter the program and they get paid while they prepare for new roles. So far, 400 people have gone through the program.

“This is really born out of the pandemic,” Horton says. “How do we train people that really want to go into healthcare?”

The medical center also helps those with credentialing. Horton relishes the success of the program.

“It's been really, really fantastic to see,” she says.

This year, the medical center began the next phase, offering advanced programs for UVA Health employees looking to grow in their careers. This program helps people prepare for roles as nurses, paramedics, surgical technicians, and other areas.

The programs are helping the system, but they’re also improving the lives of workers, Horton says.

“These individuals are from the community,” she says. ‘The diversity is amazing, and also the people are staying in their roles, and they're excited they have career progression and they're advancing in their career, which just really warms my heart.”

Horton says the success in helping people advance in their career, and bringing in people to help out with vital support roles, also aids in the retention of nurses and other caregivers. They feel supported and see opportunities to grow.

UVA Health has been expanding significantly in recent years. The system has nearly doubled in size since Horton joined UVA Health. The system has launched a strategic plan to expand research and treatment capabilities across Virginia.

Horton is excited about the system’s growth.

“It's really making sure that … no one in Virginia has to leave Virginia for their care, and to make sure that the quality and the expertise is available, people can get in and be seen when they need to be seen,” she says. “So that's really my mission, is to really serve the community and the patients.”

As Horton’s career has evolved, she says she never forgets the importance of caring for patients, and she relishes the chance to do that on a larger scale.

“It's really why I went into healthcare, and I think it's really what excites me every morning and really keeps you focused on the mission,” she says.