Special Feature: CEO Spotlight-John Tressa

BY SUBHRATA BAROT, Pierpont Communications

December 2011

“My vision of a hospital is no different than a hotel experience. I like to create an environment and atmosphere where people feel comfortable, well taken care of and give them personalized attention,” says John Tressa, chief executive officer of Park Plaza Hospital.

Not one to stay buried in his office, Tressa makes it a point to provide a welcoming environment to the hospital he oversees and can often be found walking the halls of Park Plaza Hospital conversing with staff members, patients and visitors alike. Tressa’s passion for excellent patient care stems from his experiences as a child and young professional.

From a young age, Tressa has been exposed to the inner workings of the health care industry through his family, filled with health care professionals, and particularly his mother, who was a nurse for 42 years. His mother was instrumental in Tressa’s decision to pursue a career in the health care industry. He would often visit her at work during the weekends and began volunteering at the same hospital when he turned 13. His exposure was further broadened at 16, when he worked as a nursing assistant in Chicago.

Following in his mother’s footsteps , Tressa chose to become a registered nurse. In 1983, he received his nursing degree and began his career as a Pediatric nurse at Children’s M e m o r i a l Hospital in Chicago. In this role, Tressa took his first professional steps toward becoming a health care leader. He quickly rose through the ranks and was appointed to a charge nurse role.

Soon after, Tressa shifted gears and became a life flight nurse, an occupation that many would find too stressful to bear. Tressa truly enjoyed his job and found it to be rewarding in a number of ways. He thrived in situations that demanded quick thinking and action — situations that would eventually help him excel in executive roles.

“I learned several life skills during this time including how to handle stressful and chaotic situations,” said Tressa. People ask me how I can be so calm and clear during an unpleasant time, but that’s all I know. Most importantly I learned how to be decisive in an uncertain environment.”

During his years as a life flight nurse, Tressa became the president of the Illinois Association of Air Medical Services and soon afterward, the director of a life flight program in Chicago. Around this time, Tressa enrolled in an MBA program at Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois, which began paving the way for him to pursue his interest in the business side of health care.

T r e s s a t r a n s i t i o n e d from health care provider to businessman after joining the University of North Carolina Health Care System in Chapel Hill. While there, he held roles in strategic planning and d eve l o pment and daily operations for Patient Care Services. Since then, Tressa has excelled in his career and held several l e a d e r s h i p positions, each guiding him to where he is today – CEO of Park Plaza Hospital.

As CEO, one of Tressa’s personal passions is developing the health care leaders of tomorrow. He enjoys mentoring his staff and encourages professional development whenever possible. He finds it rewarding to identify potential leaders and work hand-inhand with them — guiding and preparing them for future leadership roles. For Tressa, the ideal staffing model involves pairing people who have experience as health care providers with those who do not. He believes that this type of work environment leads to a common positive energy, drive, passion and commitment to the job, and ultimately is in the best interest of those who are most important — patients and their families.

One of Tressa’s “hot topics” to discuss is the ever changing landscape of health care reform. He believes that the reform is still a moving target, which is causing apprehension and anxiety amongst health care providers, patients and citizens in general. Tressa commented that he sees patients putting off procedures because they cannot afford the rising deductibles and co-pays. These same patients may often reappear with an emergent condition related to their inability to access needed care at the point that they required it. According to Tressa, the wavering of patients is causing an effect on volumes both for outpatient visits and inpatient admissions — a problem he sees across the board in Houston.

D e s p i t e all of the uncer taint y, Tressa sees opportunities for growth and improvement in 2012, pa r t icul a r ly with further personalizing systems and protocols. He also believes that over the next year, it will be crucial for health care leaders to educate government officials and the public on the intricacies of hospitals and the services they provide so, “that together we can create a happier and healthier Houston.”

George Gaston Chief Executive Officer, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital

Patients are highly satisfied, physicians are extremely satisfied, and employees are vastly satisfied. Indeed, George Gaston has plenty to be satisfied about too, but you won’t find him sitting back with the grin of a Cheshire cat. There’s still work to do.

As Chief Executive Officer at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital, Gaston has spent the last several months raising a c ommu n i t y hospital back to splendor. Gaston’s secret to success is s o m e t h i n g called “servant le ader ship,” he said, which embraces the concept of leaders who are servants first and who believe in hard work, community spirit and helping employees succeed.

Gaston is the epitome of working his way up the ladder.

It began with a summer job pulling computer cables at a hospital in Abilene, but all that elbow grease got him rubbing elbows with the CEO of Hendrick Medical Center. “He agreed to mentor me and would meet with me every couple of days and let me sit-in on leadership meetings,” Gaston said. “The concept of marrying patient care with the business aspect was very interesting to me. My eyes were opened up to this field.”

Gaston spent his second summer working in the same h o s p i t a l ’ s h u m a n r e s o u r c e s depar tment, then went on to earn a degree in Human R e s o u r c e Management from Baylor in Waco, followed by g r a d u a t e school in St. Louis.

A f t e r r e c e i v i n g his master’s degree in Human Resources from Washington University, Gaston went after a second master’s degree, this one in Health Administration from the Washington University School of Medicine.

After graduating in 1996, the native Texan moved back to Houston and launched a career with Memorial Hermann. As Assistant Vice President of Operations at Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital, Gaston oversaw campus expansion and special projects.

As Assistant Vice President of Operations at Memorial Hermann Southwest, Gaston implemented programs to streamline jointr e p l a c e m e n t patient care, resulting in a 99 percent patient satisfaction rate.

As Chief O p e r a t i o n s Officer of M e m o r i a l H e r m a n n S o u t h e a s t H o s p i t a l , Gaston took on cardiology by introducing interventional programs. When he later became CEO, he steered the hospital to become an accredited chest pain center. He also was instrumental in the creation of the hospital’s Level III NICU and Cancer Treatment Center. While overseeing 1,200 employees and 630 medical staff, Gaston received several awards, including the Texas Healthcare Quality Improvement Award for Clinical Excellence, and was the only Texan among 12 national recipients to receive a Modern Healthcare Up and Comers Award.

In January 2010, Gaston took on the role of CEO for Memorial Hermann Southwest, stepping in at a time when morale was low, patients were ambivalent and finances were uncertain.

The hospital, established in 1977, had been for sale, but a deal with the Harris County H o s p i t a l District fell through.

Initially, Gaston wasn’t sure about the move. “I wasn’t looking to leave Memorial H e r m a n n S o u t h e a s t , ” Gaston said. “I’d only been there a couple of years. I thought and prayed long and hard about it, and in the end, joining M e m o r i a l Hermann Southwest was like coming home for me. It’s my roots.”

Gaston, the son of a Baptist minister, attended both middle and high school in the area, and remembers visiting Southwest hospital with his dad when members of the church were patients.

“It was our community hospital, it was where we were taken care of,” Gaston said. “Now I had the opportunity to come back to the community, and had the challenge of helping Memorial Hermann Southwest rebuild relationships and trust.”

Gaston began the process of re-vamping the 457-bed facility, home to some 2,000 employees and 600 doctors with hospital privileges.

“It won’t happen overnight,” Gaston cautioned. “It’s a journey we’re on.”

Maybe so, but the first leg of the voyage has been relatively smooth. With servant leadership in mind, Gaston is zeroing in on the hospital’s most valuable resource –people – whether staff, physicians or patients.

Gaston gave doctors a voice by creating a physicians’ council. As of June 30, according to an independent study conducted by HealthStream Research, physician satisfaction has soared from the 29th percentile in the country to the 92nd.

He has taken note of the community’s fastest growing populations – senior citizens and Asians – and implemented solutions to provide better care for them. Now there’s an inpatient unit devoted to the comfort of Asians, with translation services, Vietnamese and Chinese television and food offerings. Plans are underway to build a B u d d h i s t pagoda.

For senior citizens, there’s a separate e m e r g e n c y center, a d e d i c a t e d inpatient unit, and the Senior Treatment and Recovery Unit for Behavioral Care for seniors with c o n d i t i o n s such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Gaston has great empathy for all patients, having been one himself at Memorial H e r m a n n - Texas Medical Center.

Gaston, who was on staff at Memorial Hermann Northwest at the time, underwent multiple brain surgeries after a large cyst was discovered in the back of his head.

“It gave me a whole new perspective,” Gaston said. “I understood the anxiety and uncertainty that goes along with being a patient, having to turn my life over to other people.”

One of the hardest parts for Gaston was being forced to cut back his work hours.

“I had to face the fact I couldn’t keep going fulltime,” said Gaston, a married father of three. “It was one of the toughest times of my life, to have to step back and step away.”

Approximately one year later, a fullyrecovered Gaston was back, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

He’s got plans.

“As our community evolves and changes, I want Memorial Hermann Southwest to stay in front and continue to reinvent itself,” Gaston said. “I want us to be a hospital known for its passion to keep the community healthy. When people think of us, I want them to think of us as a partner for life.”