ALDONNA R. AMBLER, CMC, CSP
The Growth Strategist
H
aving a complementary CEO and
CFO has become a competitive
advantage in the dynamic world
of major hospitals. At Children’s
Specialized Hospital, with 12 sites in New
Jersey, CEO Amy Mansue clearly leads the
process of identifying opportunities, but
she is the first to say she values CFO Joseph
Dobosh as a “visionary,” who plays “an im-
portant role in the expansion” in addition to
bearing responsibility for 17 percent of the
1,200 full-time employees.
John Sheridan is the CEO of Cooper
University Health Care in southern New
Jersey. Well-known for its trauma center,
Cooper has expanded dramatically over the
past several years. “We recognized the need
to increase our access to clinical trials,” says
Doug Shirley, CFO. The result: a deal with
MD Anderson Cancer Center. Shirley played
a key role in deal structure and making sure
managed care rates were in place during the
creation of the recently opened $100 million
MD Anderson Cooper Cancer Center.
Today’s hospital-based CFO must have
extensive experience handling major
projects. Dobosh and Shirley view their CFO
role as predominantly focused on major
strategic initiatives. It is very telling that these
and other hospital CFOs interviewed see
compliance with the newest International
Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) as a
“short term project” — although it involves
“quadruple the information, a big learning
curve, and dual coding,” says Trinitas CFO
Karen Lumpp. Dobosh says that the project
to transform hospital records to a MediTech
paperless system involved “a few years and
less than $6 million.” Either ICD-10 or going
paperless would have been viewed as major
projects for a CFO not very long ago.
When Shirley isn’t structuring a joint
venture with the No. 1 hospital in the country,
he is leading Cooper’s Lean Six Sigma
initiative or teaching surgeons about supply
costs. When Dobosh isn’t structuring the
financing for a new service or location, he is
“retiring debt, refinancing to direct placement,
or thinking about Triple-B bonds.”
Today’s hospital-based CFOmust have
strong communication skills. No longer
do CEOs and board executive committees
consider strategic options and then consult
the CFO. The CFO is “at the table.” It can take
as long as five years for a CFO to earn trust in
a hospital setting, so the CFOmust demon-
strate that he or she is motivated to help other
professionals use state-of-the-art technology,
treatment techniques, etc. He or she cannot
sound like a negative bean counter.
Health care-based CFOs must be
level-headed and accept that the rules will
constantly change. Lumpp says that hospital
CFOs must “replace the word ‘hospital’ with
‘health care systems.’” The reality is “by the
time a brick-and-mortar project is built, it
will already be out of date,” she predicts.
Clearly one of the most important
decisions made by a hospital CEO is the
selection of the CFO.
C
In a Crucial Role
The traits that define the successful hospital CFO
Aldonna R. Ambler, CMC, CSP, has earned the right to be called The Growth Strategist
®
. She built a suite of companies that help privately held midsized companies in Achieving
Accelerated Growth With Sustained Profitability® through opportunity and resource analysis, strategic planning, executive advisory services, growth financing, and targeted search. A
Certified Professional Speaker (CSP), she provides 40-50 strategic and keynote presentations each year and has done so for 30+ years. A multi award-winning entrepreneur, online talk
show host, and highly esteemed economic development advocate, Ambler continues to broaden her participation on corporate boards and serves as a growth-financing intermediary for
midsized businesses ($20-$200 million in revenue).
Learn more about the author
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2nd QUARTER 2014
