2024 Most Influential Women: Tara Bielinski

Being a leader can mean many different things. For Tara Bielinski, it is never a title.

“It is an earned opportunity to make a positive difference,” she says. “The only way a leader exists is if he or she has followers. Each of the leadership initiatives in which I have been involved have been launched due to a need or opportunity to help those we serve in our community.”

As vice president of strategic initiatives and population health at Phoenix Home Care & Hospice since 2016, Bielinski launched Keep Well ACO to help physicians meet requirements of Medicare’s Quality Payment Program, educated people about the differences between managed care and Medicare and brought one of the first palliative care programs to Springfield. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she kept those in assisted living facilities and nursing facilities from becoming isolated.

“We instituted window visits and brought entertainment outside of their buildings, creating events and opportunities to engage and let them know they were not alone,” Bielinski says.

Bielinski said helping others succeed is her purpose.

“It is the driving force that gets me up every morning,” she says. “I serve to find what success is for them and then find a way to help them get there.”

The “flight culture” of Phoenix Home and Hospice provides her team with development classes tailored to leaders. Bielinski and her company work with area chambers of commerce to promote economic and leadership growth within the community.

Bielinski loves the story of the phoenix.

“It was a bird that had a great life, crashed to the ground and burst into flames. It had a decision to rest on its laurels and remain a pile of ashes or rise up and become something new and better. Our company was built on that story – to rise up and take flight to a better place, helping those find their flight as well,” she says. “We never look at competition or peers to judge our success or find our opportunities. We look at ourselves as our own competition, always reaching higher than our achievement of yesterday.”

Bielinski is a committed volunteer. She is co-founder of the Time of Need Foundation to provide basic needs for those experiencing a health crisis. She is also preparing to launch the second “Last Days of Extraordinary Lives” hospice awareness film with Randy Bacon and the Hospice Foundation of the Ozarks.

“I am the professional I am because I sincerely care about people,” Bielinski says. “I want them to have the best quality of life possible. I value moments. I value people.”