Achieving balance in a new hospital

Donna Sollenberger

Bringing a smile to Donna Sollenberger's face is not hard. Just mention her grandchild and children or the success she had in improving patient satisfaction in the University of Wisconsin Clinics and Hospitals in Madison, Wisconsin.

It's a sample of the balance she brings to life, and an inkling of how she will manage the clinical arm of Baylor College of Medicine—Baylor Clinic and Hospital—in the future. In her first weeks in her job, she plunged into the maelstrom of planning for the new hospital, slated to open in 2011, yet she still had time to be gracious to visitors and to admire the artistry with which BCM carpenters had remodeled her office.

The personalized medicine that will hallmark the Baylor Clinic and Hospital comes from integrating a team that makes sure a patient's health care needs are met, whether through traditional standardized medicine or the translational treat-ments that will come from genetics, genomics and other advances, said Sollenberger.

Sollenberger's ability to adjust to her situation showed itself early. She was working in a political job in the Midwest, when the governor lost the primary.

"I had nine months to figure out what I was going to do next," she said. A friend suggested she apply for a department of surgery administrator opening at a fairly new medical school in Springfield, Ill., where she was living.

"So I applied, and I was hired at age 26," she said. "I started out in classic medical school administration." That meant she worked with academic physicians and basic scientists, helped run their clinics and laboratories and manage their operations.

"It gave me a nice appreciation of physicians and scientists and the academic side of what we do in health care," she said.

When she left that institution 15 years later, she asked the chief of surgery what had prompted him to hire her.

"He said that during the interview, he thought I was bright and articulate and that he could teach me. He said, 'You had an English degree and my mother was an English teacher.'" People who studied English had a good work ethic and a rigorous thought process, he told her.

Sollenberger's career has taken her to Houston before. From 1991 until 1997, she was at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where, as Vice President for Hospitals and Clinic, she was instrumental in expanding the state institution's physical plant and upgrading its patient care programs. Later, she went to the City of Hope in California.

However, her biggest challenge to date was the leadership of the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison. When she arrived there as President and CEO, patient satisfaction scores were well below 50 percent. Using a variety of management techniques and bringing the entire hospital and clinic staff into the process, she managed to increase those satisfaction scores to some of the highest in the nation.

"What I found is that it is a team effort," she said. She advocates team work with a personal touch.

"At Wisconsin, one of the things I told everybody is that when you see the patient, see your mother's face, see your father's face, see your child's face. How would you want them to be cared for?

photo of Sollenberger reviewing a document at the Baylor Clinic and Hospital construction site

BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS Building is at the forefront of Donna Sollenberger's mind: building BCM's first hospital, building her management team, and building a culture that delivers the highest quality of care and service to all patients.

"Donna Sollenberger is the consummate professional, able to lead teams and be part of a team," said Peter G. Traber, M.D., President and CEO of BCM. "She has a passion for health care that focuses on the individual and developing systems and programs that deliver the best quality care and service. Most important, she believes in people as the most important element in any organization and I am confident she will build an enduring culture in the Baylor Clinic and Hospital that will serve our patients and the community for many years to come."

Building that culture while meeting the demands of personalized medicine will be a priority for Sollenberger.

"I think that getting to the more DNA-based medicine is going to happen over time because science is evolving," she said. "The question is how do we take what we can do now and create a foundation for future discovery and care innovation?

"For me, personalized medicine is the integration of science and medicine around an individual. All medicine really should be personalized—even beyond the clinical care an individual receives."

"It begins to work when you interact with physicians, and the clinical team is focused on you and your needs," she said. "If I am a patient, no one knows me better than I do. The team should listen to the patient. I've always had the best health care outcome when I, as a patient, have been accepted as part of the team. When I talk to the physicians and nurses, I want them to take my input seriously."

"When I call, can I get an appointment in a timely manner?" she said. "Do I talk to a real person? Can I get access to the health care I need? At the end of the day, patients have a difficult time evaluating whether treatment was good or not. Instead, they look at how they were treated. Was the phone answered? Were my questions answered? When I have tests, does someone give me the feedback from those tests? The piece of personalized medicine that we can do now is ensuring that we are operating in a manner that is completely focused on patients."

Currently, Sollenberger, who is also Executive Vice President of Baylor College of Medicine, is concentrating on building her team of people who can work with BCM physicians to insure that patients get the best care possible at the Baylor Clinic and Hospital.

"When I talk to people, they have been excited about the (Baylor) Clinic. It helped create even more of an identity for Baylor," she said. "I think the hospital will be the final piece that is needed to complete that identity. I think it will increase the pride that people have in working here. We have the opportunity to create a care environment for inpatients that is exceptional."

The Baylor Clinic and Hospital complex will create a much more prominent community presence, she said.

For now, she is getting her feet under her, orienting herself to the planning process already underway. That is her first priority along with "making sure we are starting to hire people who can assure that we are, in fact, creating the best possible hospital for patients who come here. That has to be my focus."

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Volume 4, Issue 1, Summer 2008


	Achieving balance in a new hospital by Ruth SoRelle, M.P.H. Donna Sollenberger Bringing a smile to Donna Sollenberger's face is not hard. Just mention her grandchild and children or the success she had in improving patient satisfaction in the University of Wisconsin Clinics and Hospitals in Madison, Wisconsin. It's a sample of the balance she brings to life, and an inkling of how she will manage the clinical arm of Baylor College of Medicine—Baylor Clinic and Hospital—in the future. In her first weeks in her job, she plunged into the maelstrom of planning for the new hospital, slated to open in 2011, yet she still had time to be gracious to visitors and to admire the artistry with which BCM carpenters had remodeled her office. The personalized medicine that will hallmark the Baylor Clinic and Hospital comes from integrating a team that makes sure a patient's health care needs are met, whether through traditional standardized medicine or the translational treat-ments that will come from genetics, genomics and other advances, said Sollenberger. Sollenberger's ability to adjust to her situation showed itself early. She was working in a political job in the Midwest, when the governor lost the primary. "I had nine months to figure out what I was going to do next," she said. A friend suggested she apply for a department of surgery administrator opening at a fairly new medical school in Springfield, Ill., where she was living. "So I applied, and I was hired at age 26," she said. "I started out in classic medical school administration." That meant she worked with academic physicians and basic scientists, helped run their clinics and laboratories and manage their operations. "It gave me a nice appreciation of physicians and scientists and the academic side of what we do in health care," she said. When she left that institution 15 years later, she asked the chief of surgery what had prompted him to hire her. "He said that during the interview, he thought I was bright and articulate and that he could teach me. He said, 'You had an English degree and my mother was an English teacher.'" People who studied English had a good work ethic and a rigorous thought process, he told her. Sollenberger's career has taken her to Houston before. From 1991 until 1997, she was at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where, as Vice President for Hospitals and Clinic, she was instrumental in expanding the state institution's physical plant and upgrading its patient care programs. Later, she went to the City of Hope in California. However, her biggest challenge to date was the leadership of the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison. When she arrived there as President and CEO, patient satisfaction scores were well below 50 percent. Using a variety of management techniques and bringing the entire hospital and clinic staff into the process, she managed to increase those satisfaction scores to some of the highest in the nation. "What I found is that it is a team effort," she said. She advocates team work with a personal touch. "At Wisconsin, one of the things I told everybody is that when you see the patient, see your mother's face, see your father's face, see your child's face. How would you want them to be cared for? "That really resonated with the staff," she said. BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS Building is at the forefront of Donna Sollenberger's mind: building BCM's first hospital, building her management team, and building a culture that delivers the highest quality of care and service to all patients. "Donna Sollenberger is the consummate professional, able to lead teams and be part of a team," said Peter G. Traber, M.D., President and CEO of BCM. "She has a passion for health care that focuses on the individual and developing systems and programs that deliver the best quality care and service. Most important, she believes in people as the most important element in any organization and I am confident she will build an enduring culture in the Baylor Clinic and Hospital that will serve our patients and the community for many years to come." Building that culture while meeting the demands of personalized medicine will be a priority for Sollenberger. "I think that getting to the more DNA-based medicine is going to happen over time because science is evolving," she said. "The question is how do we take what we can do now and create a foundation for future discovery and care innovation? "For me, personalized medicine is the integration of science and medicine around an individual. All medicine really should be personalized—even beyond the clinical care an individual receives." In other words, personalized medicine begins with you, the patient, she said. "It begins to work when you interact with physicians, and the clinical team is focused on you and your needs," she said. "If I am a patient, no one knows me better than I do. The team should listen to the patient. I've always had the best health care outcome when I, as a patient, have been accepted as part of the team. When I talk to the physicians and nurses, I want them to take my input seriously." Personalized medicine begins with that first contact, Sollenberger said. "When I call, can I get an appointment in a timely manner?" she said. "Do I talk to a real person? Can I get access to the health care I need? At the end of the day, patients have a difficult time evaluating whether treatment was good or not. Instead, they look at how they were treated. Was the phone answered? Were my questions answered? When I have tests, does someone give me the feedback from those tests? The piece of personalized medicine that we can do now is ensuring that we are operating in a manner that is completely focused on patients." Currently, Sollenberger, who is also Executive Vice President of Baylor College of Medicine, is concentrating on building her team of people who can work with BCM physicians to insure that patients get the best care possible at the Baylor Clinic and Hospital. "When I talk to people, they have been excited about the (Baylor) Clinic. It helped create even more of an identity for Baylor," she said. "I think the hospital will be the final piece that is needed to complete that identity. I think it will increase the pride that people have in working here. We have the opportunity to create a care environment for inpatients that is exceptional." The Baylor Clinic and Hospital complex will create a much more prominent community presence, she said. For now, she is getting her feet under her, orienting herself to the planning process already underway. That is her first priority along with "making sure we are starting to hire people who can assure that we are, in fact, creating the best possible hospital for patients who come here. That has to be my focus."		Search all issues: Best Minds Best Medicine BCM Campaign Seeks to Raise $1 Billion Attracting Stars: McNairs Give $100 Million To Recruit Top Scientists Lester and Sue Smith Gift Tackles Breast Cancer in the Clinic and Lab Two Alumni Share Commitment to Scholarship Support Features Taking Personalized Medicine to New Heights Creating Culture While Building Walls Changing Complexion of Medicine Spotlight Click for your Doctor: New eVisits Trade Exam Room for Inbox Kjersti Aagaard: 2007 Winner of NIH New Innovator Award Getting World-Class Breast Cancer Care...With or Without Insurance James Lupski's Tenacity Founds New Field of Genomic Medicine Briefs BCM Named National Diabetes Research Center DeBakey Takes the Gold The Trash is no Place for Expired Medication Removing Brain Tumors Through the Nose SPORE Spawns New Lymphoma Efforts The Coffee-Cholesterol Connection BCM Campaign puts Personalized Medicine on the Fast-Track

	Volume 4, Issue 1, Summer 2008



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