HFMA VIEWS

Mike Johns, Vice President of Finance
Baptist Hospital, Nashville, Tennessee

At an HFMA National Advisory Counsel meeting in Chicago in November there was discussion of ways for finance to collaborate with nursing and other operations departments. It was a concept in its early stages of discussion, but it struck a cord with me. The very next day I was back at my hospital in Nashville at our monthly leadership meeting, which includes all directors and managers. At the end of my financial presentation I announced that I was available for departments to invite me for a day, or part of a day, to their department. I borrowed the concept from the Chicago meeting and called it "Take your CFO to Work." Almost immediately I had more requests than I could meet.

The experience of working with these managers in their department setting has been valuable to both me and to the manager and their department. By working in their setting I can see the challenges they face, I can appreciate the pressures they work under and can appreciate their needs. Above all I have come to appreciate even more how these individuals see their work as a “calling” and have the care of their patients as their highest priority. It’s more than a job to most of these people… it is a part of their spiritual service.

One of the unanticipated benefits of this process is that employees of the departments appreciated the fact that the CFO would spend time learning about their department and expressed that appreciation to their directors and to administration.