In this episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard sits down with Colleen Swick, chief nursing officer and vice president of patient care continuum at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System in Mattoon, Illinois. Their discussion centered on what nearly two decades of sustained cultural excellence looks like and how to protect it through growth.

Sarah Bush Lincoln began its culture journey in 2007. They branded the work “Excellence as a Way of Life,” a name chosen deliberately to signal that this was not a consulting engagement with an expiration date. It stuck. Nearly 20 years later, the organization has grown from a three-county to a ten-county service area and from 1,500 to 3,600 employees, with a broad ambulatory and outpatient footprint across South Central Illinois.

But growth dilutes culture. When Sarah Bush Lincoln looked around and realized only 300 of its employees had been there for the original launch, they made a decision: bring everyone back into the room, all 3,600 of them, to reset the foundation and rewire what needed rewiring.

Listeners will learn:

· How Sarah Bush Lincoln branded its culture work to signal permanence, not a flavor-of-the-month

· Why a pre-employment commitment statement became a cornerstone of hiring and accountability

· How to recognize culture dilution and know when it’s time to refresh

· Why bringing all 3,600 employees into the same message mattered (and what that commitment signaled to the team)

· How a strong culture drove physician recruitment and service line growth in a rural market

· How outside coaching helped a high-performing organization see what its own leaders had stopped noticing

This is a conversation for any healthcare leader who wants to build something that lasts and keep it strong even as the organization around it grows and changes.

In this episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard sits down with Don Taylor, president of Don Taylor Leadership, LLC, and adjunct professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center’s School of Public Health, to explore one of healthcare’s most underutilized assets: its nearly 700,000 advanced practice clinicians.

Taylor brings a perspective few can match. A retired U.S. Air Force colonel with more than 45 years in healthcare, he commanded the busiest trauma hospital in Iraq as the only non-physician to hold that role. There, advanced practice clinicians (APCs) were indistinguishable in many ways from the physicians working alongside them. That experience shaped a conviction he has carried ever since: The healthcare system has underestimated what nurse practitioners, physician assistants, CRNAs, and other advanced practice clinicians can lead and do.

This episode, recorded as part of the run-up to the Rewiring Healthcare: Foundation to Future conference to be held October 20-21, 2026, in Nashville, TN, frames APCs not as gap-fillers but as a largely undeveloped leadership pipeline with real potential to reshape care delivery, physician well-being, and healthcare costs.

Listeners will learn:

1. Why healthcare is at an inflection point on how it develops and deploys advanced practice clinicians
2. What vertical development means for APCs, from dedicated leadership training to creating a legitimate path into senior leadership roles
3. How horizontal development could extend APC practice into prevention, primary care, post-acute care, and end-of-life settings
4. Why the APC conversation is “physician-and,” not “physician-or,” and why that framing matters for well-being across the care team
5. How AI augmentation could support the safe expansion of APC practice, particularly in primary care and low-intensity settings
6. Why Taylor says less than 10 percent of healthcare workers using AI are formally trained on it, and what that means for health systems right now

This is a conversation for any healthcare leader thinking seriously about workforce strategy, care redesign, and what it will take to meet the access and cost challenges ahead.

In this episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard sits down with Mike Schafer, CEO of Spooner Health in Spooner, Wisconsin, for a conversation about what sustained high performance looks like over time.

Schafer has led Spooner Health since 1990. When he partnered with the Studer Group in 2009, his organization was at the 12th percentile for employee engagement. Within two years, they had hit the 94th. For the last three years, they have held at the 99th. This is an impressive turnaround story. But it’s also a staying-the-course story, and those are rarer and harder to tell.

Schafer brought that story to the inaugural Rewiring Healthcare: Foundation to Future conference in Atlanta earlier this year, where attendees called him one of the most humble and self-aware CEOs they had ever seen on a stage. This episode gives listeners who were not in the room a chance to hear it.

Listeners will learn:

• Why Spooner Health's five-year engagement plan happened in two years, and what made the difference
• How employee-written standards of excellence became the cultural backbone of the organization and still hold today
• Why transparency with data, including the uncomfortable numbers, builds more trust than protecting people from them
• What Schafer tells every new hire at orientation and why storytelling is now central to how he does it
• How the rewiring concept gave a high-performing organization a framework for continuing to improve without starting over
• Why investing in external development matters even when an organization is already at the top of its game

This is a conversation for any healthcare leader who wants to know what it looks like to build something that lasts.

With an average CEO tenure now at 3.8 years, leaders are moving between organizations faster than ever. Cultures are shifting. Leadership structures are reshaping. The ability to step into a new environment and genuinely connect, not just perform, is a skill every healthcare leader needs to develop deliberately. That skill has a name: belonging. (Yes, we talk about belonging for employees all the time…but rarely for the leaders themselves.)

In this episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard sits down with Corrin McCloskey, vice president of heart & vascular and oncology services at Tanner Health in Carrollton, Georgia, to explore what it actually takes for leaders to belong in a new culture…and why that belonging is the foundation of everything else.

Corrin brings her background in executive coaching, strategy, and physician leadership to a conversation about what that looks like in practice: building trust before pushing strategy; finding sponsors, not just mentors; crossing silos with confidence; and knowing when to lead with your skills rather than your expertise.

Listeners will learn:

• Why belonging is not a feel-good concept but a direct driver of leader effectiveness and team performance
• How new leaders can earn trust and build connection in a new culture
• The difference between mentors and sponsors, and why sponsors matter more as leaders move up
• Why breaking down silos starts with personal security and a willingness to share, not just collaborate
• What leaders get wrong when they expand their scope, including the expert trap and the right-thing-wrong-way problem
• What the next generation of healthcare leaders needs to look like, and why culture-focused may matter more than credential-focused

This is a conversation for any leader who has ever walked into a new role, a new team, or a new organization and wondered how to make it work without losing themselves in the process.

About Corrin McCloskey:

Corrin McCloskey is a healthcare executive, executive coach, and national speaker focused on leadership, culture, and change management in healthcare. She serves as vice president of heart & vascular and oncology services at Tanner Health, where she leads strategy, growth, and service line development. Passionate about helping leaders build trust and navigate complexity, Corrin frequently speaks on physician leadership, organizational culture, and leading change in healthcare. Over the past year, she has expanded her national speaking presence and contributed thought leadership focused on creating healthier, more sustainable healthcare systems.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/corrinmccloskey/

https://corrinmccloskey.com/

In this episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard continues the conference preview series for Rewiring Healthcare: Foundation to Future (April 28–29, Atlanta) with Kay Kennedy, co-founder of uLeadershipÒ and a leading voice behind the Human-Centered Leadership movement in healthcare.

Kennedy shares updates on the newly released book, Human-Centered Leadership in Health Care: The Revolution Continues, published in partnership with the American Nurses Association. The book builds on the original theory of Human-Centered Leadership and extends it into practice highlighting real-world implementation, outcomes, sustainability, and research emerging from healthcare organizations across the country.

The conversation previews Kennedy’s expanded role at the upcoming conference, where uLeadership will host breakfast and lunch breakouts, as well as a main-stage session. Together with colleagues Lucy Leclerc and Susan Campis, Kennedy explores what changes when leaders truly internalize the principle: it starts with you, but it’s not about you. When leadership becomes human-centered, how leaders spend their time, engage their teams, and make decisions fundamentally shifts.

They also discuss the importance of staying “high touch in a high-tech world,” the power of peer connection and networking, and why bringing like-hearted leaders together accelerates learning and impact.

Listeners will learn:

• How Human-Centered Leadership has evolved from theory to practice
• What organizations are seeing when they implement the framework
• Why leadership behaviors, not just intentions, must change
• How research, assessment, and reflection strengthen sustainability
• What to expect from uLeadership’s sessions at the conference

This episode offers a practical preview of a leadership approach designed to strengthen culture, connection, and care at every level of the organization.

About Kay Kennedy, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, CPHQ, FAAN

Kay Kennedy is a nurse executive, educator, and entrepreneur. By combining a love for nurses, patients, and quality improvement, she has led large nursing teams to create healthy work environments, satisfied patients, and consistent, high-quality care. With experience ranging from bedside nursing to chief nursing officer, she also serves as adjunct faculty at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University, MGH Institute of Health Professions, and the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. She is the CEO of uLeadership, LLC, an internationally recognized professional development and research organization. Her passion as a leader is to ignite innovative problem-solving, develop others to be their best, and lead with empathy and service.

Click here for speaking inquiries or to order books

In this episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard continues the conference preview series for Rewiring Healthcare: Foundation to Future (April 28–29, Atlanta) with healthcare leader, author, and longtime HPSG colleague Regina Shupe.

Shupe will deliver two main-stage sessions at the conference, and this conversation previews both, starting with a timely focus on rewiring how healthcare organizations care for their caregivers. Drawing on nearly four decades in healthcare, Shupe reflects on the toll that passion, grit, and commitment can take on teams, and why the pandemic served as a catalyst for rethinking team well-being. She challenges leaders to go deeper than traditional employee rounding by pairing meaningful questions with practical support tools already available in many organizations, including employee assistance programs, Code Lavender, intentional pauses, and Schwartz Rounds.

The discussion then turns to the emergency department, where Shupe is widely known for her work on leadership, flow, and culture. She previews a session focused on rewiring ED operations through intentional flow strategies, non-negotiable goals, and leadership development tailored to today’s realities. From door-to-bed time to trust-building and “love leadership,” Shupe makes the case that emergency departments must be treated as an organization-wide strategy, not a standalone problem.

Listeners will learn:

• Why caring for caregivers requires deeper, more intentional leadership
• How to rewire employee support without adding complexity
• What effective ED flow looks like in today’s environment
• Why patients still expect speed, clarity, and compassion
• How leadership development must adapt for newer, less-experienced leaders

This episode offers a practical preview of two sessions designed to strengthen teams, improve flow, and create environments where caregivers and patients can thrive.

Click here for conference information and registration.

Regina Shupe, DNP, RN—author of Rewiring the Emergency Department: Innovative Solutions for Modern Emergency Care—serves as an advisor, speaker, author, and thought leader for Healthcare Plus Solutions Group®. She brings greater than 30 years of nursing leadership and healthcare operational leadership with expertise in emergency services. She is an innovative healthcare leader driven by the correlation between positive team culture and improved patient outcomes. She leads transformative organizational change by leveraging proven clinical, operational, and leadership development.

She holds a doctor of nursing practice degree. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International and the Emergency Nurses Association. She holds a certification in LEAN for Healthcare.

Click here for speaking inquiries or to order books.

In this episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard continues a special conference preview series for Rewiring Healthcare: Foundation to Future (April 28–29, Atlanta) with longtime HPSG colleague and nurse coach Lisa Reich.

With nearly four decades in healthcare and more than 15 years of coaching experience across hospitals, clinics, critical access facilities, and behavioral health settings, Reich brings a grounded perspective on what truly transcends care environments: human connection. While technology, workflows, and roles continue to evolve, the moments that matter most for patients and for teams are still deeply human.Reich reflects on the concept of “rewiring” and why small, intentional shifts often produce better outcomes than wholesale change. Drawing from her work on patient rounding in Rewiring Excellence, she explains why practices that once worked may need adjustment, not abandonment, and how focusing on outcomes instead of habits leads to more meaningful interactions.

The conversation previews Reich’s upcoming conference session, Caring Connection, which explores how empathy, compassion, and kindness move from words on a slide to behaviors people can feel. She outlines the specific “message makers” and connection points that create memorable moments, whether delivered by a nurse, environmental services team member, food service staff, or leader.

Listeners will learn:

• Why human connection still differentiates care in a technology-driven world
• How small rewires improve outcomes without adding burden
• What makes compassion visible and felt, not just stated
• Why caring connection applies to every role, not just clinical staff
• How leaders can design environments where connection can thrive

This episode sets the stage for a session focused on the human moments that patients and teams remember long after the task is complete.

Learn more about the conference at www.rewiringhealthcare.com