Health system CEOs, faced with evolving market forces, financial challenges and workforce shortages, are making bold decisions that are reshaping their organizations’ trajectories.
For several systems, that means expanding access to care in the communities they serve. Jennifer Mendrzycki, president and CEO of TMC Health — a Tucson-based regional nonprofit health system — told Becker’s the journey to establish the TMC Health Cancer Center involved a thoughtful and deliberate approach.
“Making the decision to acquire the assets [formerly operated by Arizona Oncology in Southern Arizona] and establish the TMC Health Cancer Center was not taken lightly,” Ms. Mendrzycki said. “It required a significant financial investment and extraordinary commitment from our teams to complete the transition in a tight time frame. But I knew — both professionally and personally — that this service meets a critical need in our community.”
TMC Health includes Tucson Medical Center; TMCOne, a large primary care and multispecialty group; Benson Hospital; Northern Cochise Community Hospital; Tucson Medical Center Rincon; and the TMC Health Foundation.
For Ms. Mendrzycki — who joined TMC Health in 2024 from St. Joseph’s Health in Paterson, N.J. — integrating the Southern Arizona sites formerly operated by Arizona Oncology and formally launching the TMC Health Cancer Center in April marked the culmination of months of work and a defining step toward the system’s future.
“Cancer has touched people I love, and I’ve seen firsthand how important timely, compassionate care close to home can be,” she said. “By staying focused on the ‘why,’ even the hardest parts of this journey became possible. We did this for the people of Southern Arizona — and I have no doubt the impact will be felt for generations.”
Stephanie Conners, MBA, BSN, RN, president and CEO of BayCare Health System, a 16-hospital system based in Clearwater, Fla., has also been focused on expanding care access.
She told Becker’s that in 2024, she led BayCare through a corporate restructuring that transitioned the health system from a joint operating agreement — originally formed by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, Morton Plant Mease Health Care, and South Florida Baptist Hospital — into a single, unified corporate entity under BayCare Health System.
“It was paramount for all involved, including our board and our legacy partners, that the new organization would remain committed to our communities,” Ms. Conners said. “Arriving at a new structure required significant financial commitment and broad political alignment, but almost immediately we began to see how streamlined governance is helping us be more nimble in responding to market forces and strategic opportunities.”
She specifically pointed to BayCare’s June announcement of a new strategic collaboration with Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine, including Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, to obtain a final key piece the organization needed to move to an academic health system.
“The new corporate structure enabled my leadership team to move quickly to investigate, select and negotiate with a new academic collaborator,” Ms. Conners said. “That means we will be expanding access to academic medicine to the communities we serve more quickly and that is ultimately the best benefit of all as we deliver on our mission to improve the health of all we serve.”
Arkansas Children’s, a Little Rock-based pediatric health system, is expanding access through $371 million in construction projects. These include the expansion of outpatient surgery, sports medicine and a pediatric clinical research unit at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock; an addition at Arkansas Children’s Northwest in Springdale to expand surgical space, procedure rooms, hospital beds and clinic capacity; and construction of the National Center on Opioid Research and Clinical Effectiveness, which will soon break ground adjacent to the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute.
Marcy Doderer, president and CEO of Arkansas Children’s, told Becker’s the health system will close out the five-year strategic plan that launched the projects on June 30.
“Five years ago, when we put that plan in front of our board, that was the spring of 2020,” she said. “That was in the very first month of the pandemic, where so many healthcare systems were almost paralyzed by the challenge of living in a pandemic and leading in a pandemic. And we found the kind of internal strength and the need to put forth a strategic plan that has paid off in spades for us.”
Now, Arkansas Children’s is preparing to launch a five-year strategic plan amid regulatory and funding uncertainty.
“I look around the country, and there are plenty of healthcare leaders who are a bit, potentially, paralyzed by, ‘I can’t put a plan in place if I don’t know what’s going to be paid for,'” Ms. Doderer said. “And our boldest move is taking our next strategic plan to the board and launching a new, variable, five-year strategic plan that we will announce in the first part of July.
“And so, when we look to the next five years, you will see continued growth and expansion and impact of Arkansas Children’s across our region. And I don’t know that many people are putting together that kind of full plan for their board in May and June of 2025, when Congress has not yet acted — and we did. And we will do it.”
