Vice President of Hospital Services for West Tennessee Healthcare
Hailing from a small town in Iowa, Deann Montchal spent her childhood on the farm where her family raised not only crops but also pigs and cattle. While she had not thought of nursing as a career, she changed her mind after a family member spent some time in intensive care. One thing that has not changed is Montchal’s love of the slower pace of life outside of the big city, which made the opportunity to become vice president of hospital services at West Tennessee Healthcare a perfect fit for her personally and professionally.
When Montchal’s grandmother was involved in an accident that landed her in the Intensive Care Unit, Montchal saw first-hand the impact nurses can have. That experience led her to decide nursing was the career for her. After graduating high school in a class of 50 students, she headed to the University of Iowa. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1991. She started her career as a nurse at the University of Iowa Medical Center in Iowa City where she remained until 2012.
“I started as a cardiac nurse and worked in the ICU. I moved into management and progressed from there into administration,” said Montchal. “I had worked in several different service lines and in 2012, was working as the chief of operations of the Heart Hospital when I learned of the position at West Tennessee Healthcare.”
Montchal found the fit at WTH a good one not only in terms of the job but the people and the area. As vice president of hospital services, Montchal is responsible for the Heart and Vascular Center, Pharmacy, Respiratory Care, Radiology and Imaging, Dialysis, Wound Clinic and the Infusion Clinic. “It was a great opportunity for me that had lots of room for growth. I also liked the culture of the organization as well as the people I met on the leadership team,” she said. “And as a small town girl, I loved the feel of Jackson, it has an outstanding medical community and lots of amenities, but still had the pace of a smaller town. It was a great fit for me and my family.”
Coming from a nursing background, Montchal values the importance of relationships and sees them as an integral part of her management style. “You have to be able to develop relationships and develop trust with all those you work with from physicians to families. In the end it is all about people and you cannot forget that they are at the core of your business,” said Montchal. “One of my greatest mentors, who is now the CEO at the University of Massachusetts Hospital, always made it about the people and related it to the positive impact you can have on them. I have really focused on that throughout my career and it is the relationships I have developed with those I work with that I am most proud of.”
While the basic of her management style has not changed much, Montchal says you have to be open to learning new things. “There is a natural learning curve in anything you do over time,” she says. “And the way healthcare changes, you have got to be malleable and open to new ways to improve. You cannot be stagnant and have to always be looking for ways to improve.”
This mindset led Montchal to pursue her Master of Business Administration degree in 2004, right in the midst of growing her career and raising two children. “That was one of the most challenging times in my career, but one that was needed in order for me to grow personally and professionally,” she said. I have learned that with life challenges come growth opportunities. Being able to grow, expand my role and do new things over the course of my career is something I am proud of.”
Learning to manage in the midst of payment reform has also proven to be a challenge for Montchal as it has meant managing in a completely different way and is something she works on every single day. “As a result we are not only having to evaluate new services and we are also trying to find ways to align physicians and hospitals to work closely together,” she said. “Payment reform has created a need for us to align strategies more than ever before. We now are looking at how to really managed patients based on disease process before, during and after their hospital stay. It is no longer just about what happens when they are here in our facility but more about the responsibility we have to the community and our patients to care about their entire health and well being.”
Collaboration does not just happen between departments. Montchal networks with other organizations as well as with colleagues from the University of Iowa, Cleveland Clinic and Vanderbilt to name a few, to share ideas and processes that have been successful. She says these connections are so helpful because you can learn from one another, since there seems to be no cookie cutter approach that works among all the changes that are happening in healthcare.
Other changes that Montchal is excited about are the new technologies and new programs being brought to West Tennessee including Clinical Research. “Clinical research will allow our community to stay local and receive some of the latest advances in medicine and technology without having to drive to a large city,” she said. “We are just beginning our first trial and will continue to add trials as those come along that meet the needs of our community.”
Outside of her professional career, Montchal has been a busy mother of two. Her oldest son, who played high school and college football, will graduate in May from Medical School at the University of Iowa. Her daughter, who competes on a national level in barrel racing, will graduate from high school this year. “Although my kids were very involved and I rarely missed one of their events,” said Montchal, who is a huge football fan. “It was hard and I did not sleep a lot but I found a way to balance it all. Fortunately the kids were older when I came to West Tennessee Healthcare, so the move had minimal impact.”
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