HJNO Sep/Oct 2025

DIALOGUE financially and serves our purpose is a challenge. One of the benefits of working for HCA early on as a leader was the people I met who taught me things about managing hos- pitals. Young CEOs were often given “turn- around hospitals.” One of the hospitals closed a few years after I left. I learned to manage the financial side of healthcare, to establish financial performance that enables our system to realize its purpose. We have no debt, and we built many buildings and created many services and so on, but we know we have to be financially disciplined in order to create something and sustain the focus on the patient. We have high marks for patient satisfac- tion and we do that consistently. That’s a hard thing. Our methods to sustain excel- lence include leadership training, leader- ship focus, planning, accountability, hiring has turned into, for me, a vision, a powerful vision that gets inside of people and helps them remember our purpose, helps them see a future that we can build together, helps them see what’s possible when it seems impossible, and make commitments to that vision. Being an independent system is some- thing that we have established pretty firmly at Thibodaux Regional. We are not owned or controlled by any other larger system, either in the state or nationally, and in that sense, we’re different than many hospitals today. We have a local board, we have strong financials, and we are serving the region in the best possible manner. We make deci- sions that are related to real benefit for the people who live here, and everything we do is focused on our community. Our commu- nity is not justThibodaux, Louisiana; it’s sur- rounding parishes also. Editor Thibodaux Regional reportedly has zero debt. How do you balance financial discipline with capital investments like the $73 million Wellness Center? Stock Thibodaux Regional has no debt; I can confirm that. For me, personally, the financial discipline and investments and so forth are necessary in order for us to realize our vision. To provide excellence in patient care you have to have the resources: buildings, facilities, recruitment of doctors, specialists as well as primary care, the recruitment of staff who work closely with them, the acquisition of technology that today is very, very expensive. Navigating the reimbursement systems that are out there is very tricky today. To get paid for anything is quite a challenge. Bringing that all together so that the little aircraft carrier stays as strong and vibrant Thibodaux Regional Health System meal distribution after Hurricane Ida 10 SEP / OCT 2025 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS