Paula Bell, PharmD, recently made the leap in late May from pharmacy leadership to CEO of Paris, Tenn.-based Henry County Medical Center.
With a deep clinical background and personal ties to the hospital, including being born there, Dr. Bell shared with Becker’s how her personal connection to the community and her experience in pharmacy has helped inform her approach to leadership.
Question: You’ve made a significant transition from director of pharmacy to hospital CEO. What inspired you to take on the new leadership role?
Dr. Paula Bell: Serving my hometown for the last 11 years has given me the most job satisfaction I have ever had in my career. It is special to take care of people you have known my entire life and to play a role in the healthcare services we provide at Henry County. I am the second generation in my family to work in Henry County. My mother was a pharmacist here in the late ’90s and my uncle was an internal medicine provider for our community and former chief of staff here at the hospital.
When considering the transition to CEO, I believed it was the next logical step for my career and a way to continue to expand healthcare services to our area. Our pharmacy department grew over the years and we were able to provide more services related to 340B, medication access, discharge medication education, antimicrobial stewardship support for providers, and an American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Accredited PGY1 Pharmacy Residency Program. With the support of a fantastic group of employees at Henry County and the backing of West Tennessee Healthcare, we are paving the way to broaden our healthcare services here. I enjoy helping patients, which is why healthcare workers do what they do. I wanted to have the ability of a system to continue to help patients in my hometown.
Q: How has your clinical background shaped your leadership style and decision-making as an administrator?
PB: Having a clinical background, I believe, is important to being an administrator. Advancing in my role from clinical pharmacist, residency coordinator, residency director, and then to pharmacy director has allowed me to grow clinically and administratively. Not having to worry about the financial impact of how to take care of a patient as a clinical pharmacist to learning how to efficiently and cost-effectively care for the patient is growth only achieved through experience. During my leadership as pharmacy director, I did not perceive myself as a “micro-manager.” My team of pharmacists and technicians were hard workers and always got the job done. We always took care of the patient. The relationship we built was a family with respect for one another. I went through difficult staffing times with COVID and had to make difficult decisions on layoffs. In the end, I was able to develop the right characteristics to prepare me to lead our hospital.
Q: As CEO, what are some of your top priorities for Henry County Medical Center in the next year?
PB: My priorities are to expand our cardiology services, recruit more nurses to increase our census, bring back our OB services for the community and, in turn, receive our 340B status back.
Q: What role do you see pharmacy and other clinical departments playing in hospital-wide strategy under your leadership?
PB: Taking care of patients is our ultimate responsibility. It seems like an oversimplification, but clinical services are what drives success. Every department, clinical and non-clinical, serves a role to take care of patients, communicate with the community, and keep the finances in order for West Tennessee Healthcare Henry County to be successful. Clinical departments that provide outpatient services are critical to the financial backbone of the facility. Expansion of these departments and the services they provide to the community shows our commitment to Henry County and the surrounding communities.
Q: What lessons are you bringing into the CEO role that might surprise people?
PB: COVID was a difficult time here, just as it was for everyone else. It reinforced the need to really listen to people and their concerns, both ones I agreed with and ones I did not. I learned to not let negative comments influence my decision making or let the negative comments influence my personal life and family. I built the residency program here from the ground up and that experience and work leading to an accredited program was extremely fulfilling.
Q: What advice would you want to give pharmacists or clinical leaders who want to move into executive leadership roles?
PB: Jump right in to lead and serve at your organization. Serve by doing. Servant leadership is the key to showing coworkers I understand what successes and problems they are going through. I would encourage them to not give up when the times get tough and to remember why they started to work in healthcare in the first place. I still get to help patients, but now it is in a different capacity.
