A Walk in the Shoes with One of the Nation’s Top 50 Rural Hospital CEOs

“Undercover CEO” is a popular new television reality show where the CEO of a major corporation will go undercover and work in an entry level position somewhere within the organization. They learn a great deal about their employees and how they do their job. Many learn that the processes their employees go through in their work are difficult, awkward, and sometimes, truly rewarding.

 

From time to time, GRMC President and CEO Todd Linden does this, but not undercover. He will shadow an employee to learn how they do their job to be able to have a full sense of the hospital operation at every level. Todd refers to this as “A Walk in the Shoes.”

Let’s take a quick “walk in the shoes” with Todd.

A typical day? There’s no such thing as a typical day. Every single day presents something new. There is an agenda to the day that can be cast aside at a moment’s notice if say, for example, the local high school experiences a sewer leak and more than 35 students and teachers arrive in the emergency department. If that happens, Todd jumps in and takes on the role of helping to escort students to receive medical attention.

Most of his days are back-to-back meetings with physicians, department managers, conference calls, patients and members of the community, and with other administrative team members. He makes time to join the GRMC Auxiliary Board monthly meeting to update them on what’s new at GRMC. Meetings with board members, potential donors, and teams of people working on capital improvements and renovations fill his daily agenda.

Meetings in the community. Todd currently serves as a trustee of Grinnell College and on the Grinnell Chamber of Commerce board. He has served on several community boards and committees.

Email. Todd receives hundreds of emails on a daily basis and does an amazing job of sorting and replying given the sheer number of them.

Phone calls. If communication isn’t by email, it’s by telephone – landline or cell while he’s dashing to a meeting.

Travel is a big part of the job. Sometimes, meetings have to happen face-to-face and not via telephone. Todd is a hospital administrator who is regularly called upon to present to groups around the country on topics like healthcare reform and board governance. During his tenure at GRMC, Todd has created a well-worn path between Grinnell, Iowa, and Washington, DC, where he has advocated for healthcare reform, equity in Medicare reimbursement, and for the greater Poweshiek County community.

It’s no surprise to us that Becker’s Hospital Review this week named Todd as one of the “Top 50Rural Hospital CEOs to Know.” 

In the announcement, BHR says: “These 50 presidents and CEOs have shown commitment to providing high-quality, accessible care to their patient populations and have approached the challenge of rural healthcare with great aplomb.”

For 20 years, Todd has been president and CEO of GRMC. That’s pretty impressive when the national average tenure for a hospital CEO is five years.

It’s been Todd’s vision and leadership that has led GRMC to be the organization we are today. Congratulations, Todd, on this well-earned national recognition!

*For this list, "rural" was defined as being located outside a major metropolitan area or healthcare hub. Leaders were selected based on a number of factors, including awards received; local, regional and national leadership positions held and their organization's recent performance. Nominations were also considered.