Brentwood, Tenn.-based hospice care provider Hospice Compassus named veteran staff member Amy Winburn executive director for the program in southwest Missouri. Winburn, a nurse of 19 years who had worked as a clinical director and as interim executive director at Hospice Compassus-Springfield, now leads a team of 75 specialists serving over 700 hospice clients annually.
Regional Experience “I was responsible for the states of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and West Virginia for most of my clinical directorship. So, I have a lot of experience regionally with the company. I originally started in 2004 in this program, and I took different opportunities to move up and gain more education and experience with the company. Then, I came back to this location as a managing clinical director. When I returned in March 2013, I assumed the managing clinical director role and was the interim executive director until December 2013 when the director retired. … The reason for my return to this program was personal. I had two girls while I was traveling, essentially. And I also have a mother who moved into my home recently, who has been diagnosed with dementia. So, I needed to be home and off the road.”
Reaching Out “We’ve been around for 35 years, so we have a lot of relationships and a lot of generations of families that recommend us and use us over and over for their end-of-life needs. Our referrals come from the community, from long-term care facilities, from physicians and from our own volunteers and staff. … We are a for-profit organization. Primarily, the main payer source for the hospice benefit is through Medicare. However, we also serve patients with Medicaid-payer sources, insurance or we provide indigent care. A patient may not have a payer source at all, but we do not turn them down based on their ability to pay or not.”
Varied Routine “What it comes down to is the patient and family are first. So, if I need to be involved in a discussion about what we are providing for a patient or how to meet a patient need, then I’m involved in that conversation. If I need to have a meeting in regard to what our budget looks like or what our plans for an initiative are, then I’m involved in that. It really varies. And I’m a nurse, so with the operational side, I still hold dear the clinical side.”
The Care Career “I was a medical/surgical nurse for CoxHealth. I’m from Springfield, but my husband and I had relocated so I could get my master’s in nursing from Vanderbilt University. I worked in the areas of case management and diabetes and I also worked as a (workers’ compensation) manager. … When I came back to Springfield, I thought, ‘Well, what do I want to do now?’ And there was an opportunity in the paper, so I called Hospice Compassus – at the time it was Community Hospices of America.”
Growth Goal “In this health care environment, we need to be growing. We must grow. As far as a percentage, we’d like to gain that growth of 5 to 10 percent and do that year after year. … It’s not only about growing in who we serve, but it’s about growing as leaders and growing in experience. It’s about developing a greater and stronger foundation, thinking beyond what we’ve done for 35 years, and looking at what we can do different to meet the needs of the health care consumer that is different than it was 10 years ago. We have to look at how people are addressing health care decisions now versus what they were doing then. There are so many factors in play now in health care that we have to be cognizant of how to adapt.”
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
