Master Your Healthcare Career
Master Your Healthcare Career
Saving Lives and Saving Souls: The Inspiring Journey of Dr. Rulon Stacey
Discover the unique journey of Rulon Stacey whose story takes us through his humble beginnings at BYU, his service in the United States Air Force, to his award-winning leadership as the CEO of leading health systems, including Fairview Health System in Minneapolis, University of Colorado Health, and the Poudre Valley Health System (PVHS) in Fort Collins, Colorado. Under Dr Stacey’s leadership, Poudre Valley became one of the first hospitals to receive the United States’ most prestigious quality award, The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Rulon reflects on the meaningful transition from a healthcare professional, Guidehouse consultant, Board Chair of ACHE, and Director of Graduate Programs in Health Administration at the University of Colorado, to mission president for the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-Day Saints in Canada. This episode is a heartfelt tribute to leadership, growth, and the enduring connections that can help shape our lives as leaders not just in healthcare but in our community.
Well, melissa, thank you very much for that introduction and, ruan, a special thank you to you today for our first podcast that kind of features someone from outside of the United States, someone in Canada. So thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Well, you didn't have to go far, Hi how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well, I'm doing well, you know you're. You're in my career. We've intersected over several different levels and places where both of us have been, and I think our paths just continue to intertwine, which to me, is a real special treat.
Speaker 2:Sadly, our, our paths have crossed over two different centuries. Have crossed over two different centuries.
Speaker 1:True Boy. Now I really feel old. I know Ruling that, you know. Master, your Healthcare career is really dedicated to help early careerists kind of move along, and I think the fun part about your career is that it's definitely not a linear process. I mean, I think you know a lot of early careerists think, okay, I'll go from point A to point B to point C and things will kind of happen. And to me it's interesting how things kind of intertwine. For you and the title of this particular podcast I'm calling we're calling Saving Lives and Saving Souls, because I think what you're all about, when it comes down to the core of it, is how do you help other people get better? And sometimes that's individuals and sometimes that's communities and sometimes it's the souls of the people too. So it's a fascinating kind of career process for you.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that I actually agree with that. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your first job. Let's even kind of go prior to that College College.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I went to, I was at BYU and I wanted to get into their public administration program. I scored so low on the GMAT 405 on the GMAT gets you nowhere and they happened to be starting an mha and they took everybody and so I said, okay, I'll, I'll do the byu unaccredited mha. And I've been trying to get byu to get accredited since then and they haven't and I'm sad about that university of ut, utah and Weber State have. But I wish BYU would get off the dime and get accredited.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll work on that after this call.
Speaker 2:We can do that. But it doesn't matter now because University of Colorado Denver is accredited, so I'm all good about that. So I went there, got my master's degree there, could not find a residency uh, an internship residency because we had no alumni. And that's really how you, you do that and um. So I joined, out of desperation, the United States Air Force, which turned out to be a fabulous, fabulous experience, highly recommended Anybody in the military. Do not whine, you are in a great place. And I, I would have stayed forever, except at the time they would only let physicians be CEOs and I wanted to be the CEO one day. So I got out to take a CEO role in a rural Colorado town and shortly after they allowed non-physicians to be the CEO.
Speaker 1:So, and from there, rural town to Chicago, back to Fort Collins, academic medicine I've kind of been all over, okay, I you know you're and I think you first made kind of the national spotlight and I first became aware of you when you were at Poudre Valley and I think you were doing. You know you were the president and CEO at Poudre Valley and I think you were doing. You were the president and CEO of Poudre Valley and, if I can recall correctly again mind being memory almost full at this point but you've really kind of moved in some innovative ways at Poudre Valley. So do you wanna talk about those for a second?
Speaker 2:Well, I would like to think that I was the fifth CEO in four years. We had to do something. We needed to find new ways to engage the employees. Interestingly, I took many of the, the philosophies that guide me personally and spiritually, then adopted them in our day-to-day operations. At Puna Valley, for example, you've got a lot of people who will say, well, my employees don't have to like me, they just have to get the job done. And I say, yeah, actually, actually that won't work here. You can't. You can't work here with that. We have a um, we have a scripture in um.
Speaker 2:Now I'm on a church mission. So this is all very new to me, I mean very familiar to me right now, but it says no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness, meekness and love, unfeigned that is. And I adopted that there. We're going to be kind and loving and gentle and meek. We're going to move toward a common goal, which we used was baldridge, and we're going to measure that and we're going to but. But we're going to be nice to each other and we're going to be. We're going to measure how nice we are to each other and we're just I don't want to work in a place that doesn't feel like I'm at home and it really changed the culture and led us to the Baldrige and led us from an organization that was making about $100 million a year to an organization that was making $800 million a year Wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's quite a growth trajectory and kind of taking that into account with the Baldrige, which is an incredible process improvement approach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, baldrige was. It is the tool. We sat down, we talked about it when I came from SSM and was working with Sister Mary Jean, who was very into Baldrige. Yeah, I was a follower of the Baldrige process. When I got to to Poudre Valley and we talked about it as a senior team and I said I, I'm not smart enough I got 405 on my gmat I to do this myself. I need a pattern, I need something to follow and if it's not Baldrige, we can do ISO 9000. I'm okay with that. We can do whatever we want to do and we've vetted it out and we decided on Baldrige and I've been very, very grateful. I believe Baldrige adds a level of complexity to ISO 9000 or to Lane Six Sigma Lane Six Sigma I know there's people who love that. It's a tiny portion of Baldrige. If all you're doing is Lean Six Sigma, you're leaving gallons on the table. And so I wanted to move forward with that and had a team there was some people on the team. Had a team there was some people on the team.
Speaker 2:For example, we would tell, based on this philosophy of mine that comes for really from my religious background that I would talk to the leaders and and we would.
Speaker 2:We would encourage leaders to to that your goal is to provide a service and the service you provide is management and the customers of that service are your employees. And if you can't treat them like like customers, and we would do customer satisfaction surveys and and we would understand every, every employee, every leader in the organization would get a customer survey back from their employees and we'd post them on the wall and say this is how well I'm meeting the needs of our employees, including the CEO. The CEO would get feedback from my senior team. I would report what I was working on with the board, post it on the wall. The senior team would say Rulon, you're a great guy, honestly, we love working for you, but you have a tendency to get out in public and promise things that are in my area and it burdens me and I would like to be involved in that process and I thought that's pretty fair. Yeah, it was that kind of process and we tried to work that all the way through the organization was something that became noticed in the professional press.
Speaker 1:I remember that's when you got picked up by Modern Healthcare. You were named one of Modern Healthcare's top most influential people at that point.
Speaker 2:I was. I was in the top 100 for several years in a row, as we were trying to adopt this philosophy and move it forward. See.
Speaker 1:I honestly do. I did follow your back. I'm so impressed. I'm so impressed. You also really got to start to get involved when you were at Poudreville Maybe more involved with ACHE at increasing levels of work with them is what comes down to it, if I remember. Levels of work with them is what it comes down to it, if I remember. So you were on the governance committee and moved to University of Colorado Health but really was on track to be the chair back when you were with Poudre, and I'll never forget Rowan, you gave the funniest address as chair of ACHE.
Speaker 2:Oh no, what did I say?
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever seen anyone kind of break up the crowd as much as you did in that point. Well, what did I say? Was it bad it was. It had a self-deprecating part to it which was really, you know, charming, kind of being the particular role of the ACHE chair. But the way you kind of referenced prior chairs and everything like that, which is so nice, I mean not, you know, not insulting everyone, but you kind of went through that part and just I don't what's the saying. You may not remember what someone said, but you always remember how they made you feel, and I think anyone in the audience.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm honored by that, Thank you. So tell me what that was like being the chair of ACHE, and why. Why did you do it?
Speaker 2:Well, I started just as the chapter on the, the chapter committee in um, colorado, and then as regent and then as, uh, when I was regent, I I started to think about, did I ever want to do that? And I just got more involved and more involved, really became fans of both Tom and Deborah and, honestly, the people on the board. I can fully say to the membership of the American College of Healthcare Executives that those, the leaders, the chair officers, the governing board, they are such good people and they are so committed to doing what's right. You're talking about souls to saving lives and saving souls or something like that.
Speaker 2:and and you know, that was big for us at poudre valley, what we, we were all about I would, we, we wanted, we kept track of numbers all the time, but it was because and we reminded our people there that behind every number was a grandmother who was going to be able to go to tea with her granddaughter, or a grandfather is going to be able to pay catch with his grandson. Again, every number represented a person, a real thing presented a person, a real, a real thing. And when I got to ACHE, I found other people of that same ilk. That that's what guided them. They were, they were high expectation, but they were high love and I liked that.
Speaker 1:You know, a prior episode we did was just with Bill Santoli, who is the current chair. You really you do get that sense with ACHE that people are doing it because there is a greater good. And how do you learn from others, how do you create those connections and how do you you know, how do you both advance your career but also advance the society better?
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a group that really really did that and I learned from so many people while I was there who were doing it in Charlie Evans, in an investor-owned place, and then giving to the whole world. Giving to the whole world. And David Rubenstein in the military, in a very tight box but leading out truly one of the best leaders I've ever known. I mean, I could keep going on. I shouldn't have started naming names, because that's a path that will frog. They were all like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are, they really are. So how did you? What was the point? And then let's go back in your early career and we'll kind of like switch ages that you said, oh, I want to join ACHE. What was the? What made you do it?
Speaker 2:Oh, I was in school. In school, even in a brand new program, we would go and talk to professionals and they would say ACHE, if you're serious about it, you've got to get into ACHE. And even though I was not in an accredited program, we formed a club, knew that it was important. We went to state meetings and to this day, uh it, when you're in my program and I'm and this is assuming, I'm going back to the university of colorado, denver, ach or mba, mba and mba health emphasis program, which I, that's the plan. Um, um, even now, if, if, if you're not in, I don't think you're serious about health care, I just I, you. But if you're in a CAMI accredited program, I know you're serious.
Speaker 2:So get in ACHE and get active and get engaged and take time there's there's only so much that that I can do as a leader, as a program director. There is only so much that a professor can do in teaching you the intricacies of healthcare accounting and how AI is going to impact healthcare in the future and all the things we're doing right now. A lot of it is picking up a phone and calling a friend who is now running the hospital or running the, the insurance company in topeka, and and that's you. That's what ach and nobody else does it like ACHE.
Speaker 1:And the membership is really a worldwide membership to this point too, and Deborah's just done an amazing job with the International Hospital Federation, which I believe I was on the trip with you to Brazil back when I was with in my Aramark days with the IHF. Am I, am I wrong?
Speaker 2:I wasn't to Brazil but I've been to many of them. You know there's two. From a professional standpoint. There's two things that stand out to me. One is the gold medal from ACAG. That's the highest word they have and I'm honored by that. But the other one is lifetime membership and honorary member of the International Hospital Federation. There's they've only given out like two dozen of those ever in 100 years and I. It is a great honor and I love that organization and I love those people and I want to be engaged with them again too.
Speaker 1:All right, you were at Cooter Valley. You went to the University of Colorado health system. You served there for several years. You then went to a small community hospital, fairview Health Services. And then again, the interesting twist in your career you went. I'm going to go work for a consultant now.
Speaker 2:Well kind of. Fairview is actually the University of Minnesota health system and it's 2x as big as University of Colorado. Oh, I didn't realize that. I thought it was the other way around, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, 28,000 employees and it's got the faculty practice plan from the University of Minnesota. A lot of fun things going on there. They've been fraught with conflict. Even today, I understand, as we speak, the conflict rages between the medical staff and the community. Fairview was a community health system that bought the faculty practice plan, and the physicians have never been really terribly happy with that, and so it was a big organization.
Speaker 2:But, as you know by where you're calling me now, I'm now a mission president for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are a volunteer organization and we are fully engaged. I am, first and foremost. This is what I do, and the prophet called me. We will do anything the prophet says.
Speaker 2:I believe that this is the very church that Jesus started when he was on the earth, and I think any of us, if we knew that, would do what he wanted right. And so they called me to be an area 70. The biblical term is that in Luke, chapter 11, the Lord called 270 to go out in front of the apostles two by two. We have those today and I would go all around North America and teach what the apostles taught us to teach. But it took so much time that I left my other job and that's how I got into consulting. I called up David Burek and said I've got some time during the week, can you use me? And he said yes. So I did that for the five years that I was an Area 70 for the church and then I joined University of Colorado after that as their program director.
Speaker 1:Wow, University of Colorado, after that as their program director Wow. And then we got reconnected through that approach because I think you really led that amazing MBA program that's there. That's well known for their executive program. What they've, you know, the students who go there come in at high levels and then leave it even higher levels.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's the real deal. I'm honored to be affiliated with that. I could only. I was only there for a couple of years before I received another call to come now to Canada. This the difference between where I am now and where I was in 2015 when I called David Burek, was this is a full-time gig. I'm responsible for all the missionary work in Ontario, canada, from really Brockville to Windsor to Timmins and, if you know the geography, up here so we have 200 missionaries.
Speaker 2:We're responsible for their safety, we're responsible for their spiritual education, we're responsible, and I'll tell you the education these young people are getting right now. They're out on their own, they get up in the morning, no dating, just we're focused on Jesus and him crucified and that's it. And it is amazing to see what it makes me even more comfortable in the future of the world than I was at University of Colorado when I see those amazing young people.
Speaker 1:I remember when you called me and told me you were doing this and what I the first part that kind of came to my mind is what an incredible sacrifice that you were making to kind of go okay, I'm going to, I'm going to put my career on hold and where I was kind of heading and I'm going to focus on this. But that was the first part, one incredible. But the second part was by no means did you consider it a sacrifice. This was part of who you were and what you wanted to do, and what I had thought at that point is what an incredible level of support that the, the young people out in the church in Toronto, are going to have, with someone like you behind them, helping them kind of meet your mission.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, anthony, I wish, if you get a chance, you should come to Toronto and spend a day with some of them and see what they do. These people will be running the world in 10 years. They are so, and imagine an internship like this. That's two years long, they pay for it themselves, they get up, they study the scriptures, they go out, they teach people, they get people. You can imagine. We live in a society where we give Tony Awards. We live in a society where we give Tony Awards on Broadway to people who mock my religion, and it is. That's the kind of world we live in, and I just think how did that even and now even understand? There's a TV show about Mormon wives or something. A TV show about Mormon wives or something, and I'm just thinking, you know, come on.
Speaker 2:These young people go out every day and get blasted by that and I, honestly, I just they are as committed as I am that it is in fact what we say it is. It's the very New Testament church that Jesus started. It's on the earth today. If you want to do your stupid Broadway play, do it, but read the book. At least read the book. I mean, give us the courtesy of reading the book and seeing how it's true. But it's amazing, they're making a difference. It's cool.
Speaker 1:I think that's the part when they're making a difference and I really want to say you've made a difference.
Speaker 2:And Anthony, I I appreciate that these. One of the things that we do with these young people is we want them to go home. Different people, we. We just think you're going to come here. It's not going to be about you for the first time in your life, it is not about you and you're going to come here. It's not going to be about you for the first time in your life. It is not about you and you're going to be a different person. And now I'm two and a half years into it and I think, oh my gosh, I'm a different person. I am not the same person I was just two years ago. It has changed my life.
Speaker 1:And I'm an old man. There's a famous one of the quotes in kahil jabran if a teacher, then by your students you'll be taught, and uh, certainly, kind of.
Speaker 2:I've always felt that yeah, and I have the book up here.
Speaker 1:I love that book yeah, well, roland, this was, this was a great call. Thank you. I know we kind of squeezed in some time here and just really appreciate it. In six months is it a three-year part, so six months she'll be back to Colorado.
Speaker 2:It's a three-year assignment. It started on July 1st 2022. It will end on July 1st 2025. And the dean has been kind enough to call me and he and I are going to talk first part of next year and I think that's the plan, but they are under no obligation. So we'll see. We'll see where it goes.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm sure our paths will cross many, many times.
Speaker 2:Many times, Anthony. It's so good to talk to you, my friend.