Interview With Wayne M. Lerner, DrPH, FACHE, Past President and Chief Executive Officer, Holy Cross Hospital

Abstract

Wayne M. Lerner, DrPH, FACHE, was president and CEO of Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, from 2006 to 2013. He spent the first 17 years of his career at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, where he rose to the position of vice president for administrative affairs and chair of the Department of Health Systems Management. During the early 1990s, Dr. Lerner served as president of Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, Missouri, and as a senior executive officer within the BJC Health System, where he was a key executive behind the merger of Jewish and Barnes hospitals as well as the creation of the BJC Health System. From 1997 to 2006, Dr. Lerner was president and CEO of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, an organization distinguished by its designation as the best rehabilitation hospital in the United States since 1991 by U.S. News & World Report. In 2006, Dr. Lerner became interim president and CEO of Holy Cross Hospital, an inner-city, faith-based, disproportionate-share hospital in Chicago. In 2007, he assumed the role on a full-time basis and stepped down from that position in 2013. Dr. Lerner is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and MHA and DrPH degrees from the University of Michigan. In 2013 he was the recipient of ACHE's Gold Medal Award in the healthcare delivery organization category. The Gold Medal Award is the highest honor bestowed by the American College of Healthcare Executives on outstanding leaders who have made significant contributions to the healthcare profession. Dr. O'Connor: Congratulations on receiving the 2013 Gold Medal Award! The variety of organizations (academic medical center; rehabilitation facility; large, integrated system; inner-city, faith-based hospital) in which you have worked and the breadth of activities you have managed are noteworthy. Similarly, you have filled many different types of leadership roles. How have you been able to adapt to the different role demands and differences in organizational context, culture, governance, resources, and so on, as you moved among these various settings ? What did you learn from working in these different types of organizations and roles? Dr. Lerner: First, we should establish a contextual baseline for this question. The delivery system roles were important, but so were the many external roles in which I also participated. I always tell people that I've had an atypical career, in that it has not followed any type of linear trajectory. I have always been motivated by opportunities that are intellectually demanding and professionally exciting. If an opportunity meets those criteria, then I tend to say yes. Those are the qualities that have driven me to follow a career path not considered to be the norm for someone with my background. I'm not sure I have a great secret here. I first became a hospital president when I was about 40 years old. It was the biggest transition I had ever made. I tell students that the best job you will ever have is when you're number two or three in an organization, because you can be yourself, you don't have ultimate responsibility for the direction of the institution, and you can relate to people on a more humanto-human basis than you can in a higher position. When you become number one, you assume a role for which you may have been prepared but you're not really ready for, as it can be very isolating in terms of personal interrelationships. People look to you to provide the last word on whatever is going on in the institution. I finally realized the true implications of being a CEO when I understood the need to change my approach slightly. I had to modify my sense of humor, and in general I didn't feel free to relate to people in exactly the same way I had previously--I began playing the role of president. That adjustment included acknowledging that now I'm responsible for, say, 10,000 lives, 1,200 staff, 100,000 people in my community, and the strategic direction of the organization. …