From mobilizing teams and command centers to managing regulatory and operational changes, one of Ms. Tinch’s proudest accomplishments at Penn State Health was the system’s financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she told Becker’s.
“We’re all still dealing with the hangover of [the pandemic], but it was a couple of years of a lot of unprecedented change that, I think, facilitated some good things,” she said. “It brought telehealth, virtual health and other access points to a forefront that hadn’t been as explicitly pushed in the past. Hopefully, they stay.”
As the system continues its nationwide search for a new CFO and a new permanent CEO, Ms. Tinch is excited to hand off the work done to implement Epic systemwide, which will formally launch at the beginning of June.
Penn State Health entered negotiations with Epic in September 2024 to transition from Oracle Health, formerly known as Cerner. The health system plans to start project team training by the end of March or early April, with a targeted go-live date at the end of 2026.
“We’ve been pushing for change and kind of lobbying to engage the organization in a really big investment that’s going to be transformational for us,” she said. “It’s great to have been part of all of that, getting it through, getting it approved and working through all of the right channels.”
As the CFO role continues to acclimate to a changing healthcare industry, Ms. Tinch stressed the importance for finance leaders to be a strong partner in removing barriers to ensure colleagues have a consumable and deep understanding of what is going on from the financial standpoint at a healthcare organization.
“It’s more than just the numbers,” she said. “It’s going to be really critical to be nimble, to be agile, to help influence the financial acumen of our partners so that we’re pushing out information that may seem obvious … it’s not always obvious to others that don’t look at that all the time. So, how do we put the information in a way that’s easy, consumable and digestible so that others can make decisions in their daily work that will benefit the patient, the organization and the system overall?”
When asked what advice she has for the incoming CFO, Ms. Tinch said that she encourages a strong partnership with whoever the incoming permanent CEO is to ensure strong leadership amid system growth.
“They’re going to have a new view, new ideas and I would say to continue to challenge the status quo,” she said. “We, as a system, have morphed every year, over the last several years. We’ve acquired practices, we’ve opened new hospitals and now we’re going to launch on a new EMR. We are not in a stabilization mode yet, we are in a continued growth and pace of change. For whoever comes in here, don’t be afraid of that change. Embrace it and use it as the catalyst to bolt the organization even further forward.”
