Vice President, Physician Services, West Tennessee Healthcare
As though being the mother of four – three of which are triplets – would not be challenging enough, try also being a pediatrician who is one of only six in the state sub-boarded in child abuse. Add to that being vice president of physician services for West Tennessee Healthcare, which involves overseeing more than 700 employees across more than 27 locations in nine counties throughout West Tennessee. If that is not enough to make you feel challenged, try being an active triathlete as well as serving on the boards of several community organizations.
At the very heart of Piercey is her love of kids, family and her West Tennessee roots. The Trenton native was born in the flagship hospital of West Tennessee Healthcare, Jackson-Madison County General Hospital and spent her early teenage days being a candy striper at the Gibson General Hospital in Trenton. She went to college at David Lipscomb University in Nashville on academic and tennis scholarships. She married a boy from Milan. For medical school and her residency, she went to East Tennessee State University in Johnson City.
While in pediatric training at East Tennessee State University, where she earned her medical degree and completed her pediatric residency, Piercey was encouraged to work in a child abuse clinic by a faculty mentor. “Initially I was reluctant to do it but after I got over the normal emotional reactions during the first few weeks, I really gravitated to it,” she said. “Mostly because it was and still is such an underserved specialty for children. At that time, there were no accredited fellowship training programs in existence, so I gathered my formal training through various academic and educational venues, as well as years of hands-on experience with mentoring and peer review. The American Board of Pediatrics formally recognized the subspecialty board certification a few years ago, and based on my training and experience, I was able to sit for the exam and ultimately was certified in 2013.”
When it came time to enter into practice Piercey returned to West Tennessee to join the Jackson Clinic. “All my family as well as my husband David’s still live in the area and we always knew we wanted to be close to them,” said Piercey. “And since at the time I joined the clinic we had a three year old and three month old triplets, being close to family was important. We actually moved to Jackson two days after the triplets were released from the hospital.”
During her time at the Jackson Clinic, Piercey felt she needed an academic challenge and decided to pursue a Master of Business Administration degree through Bethel University. In order to complete her practicum in a real world setting she turned to Dave Roberts, MD, CMO at West Tennessee Healthcare to collaborate on a healthcare improvement project. “I loved how business and healthcare intersected,” said Piercey. “After finishing my practicum, I decided to split my time between private practice and working in administration at the hospital since I felt like I could affect a bigger change on a more strategic level,” said Piercey. “That eventually was the motivation for me to make the leap to full time administration. While I miss the one on one everyday interaction with patients and families in the clinic, I know I can have an affect on a community and regional level.”
In 2010, Piercey became assistant medical director under Roberts focusing on case management utilization and some quality initiatives. In 2011, she became a vice president overseeing the development of The LIFT Wellness Center, which opened in 2013. Today she is Vice President of Physician Services where she is responsible for the West Tennessee Medical Group employed physicians, Sports Plus Rehab Centers, The LIFT, senior services and employers’ services.
Piercey’s responsibilities span not only across clinics but across county lines as well, which means she is on the go quite a bit. “I am in every clinic or facility that I oversee at least once each quarter. It is very important to me to try to make staff meetings as well as celebrations at each location, so I am pretty much heading somewhere each day,” said Piercey. “I also think it is important to live by and use the services I am always touting to others. I believe in them and know they are the best.”
Although she oversees a wide range of employees from physicians to pool techs to physical therapists, Piercey says her management style is the same across all. “I think autonomy and empowerment are crucial,” she said. “It is my role to set the parameters but it is the folks in the trenches that need to figure out the details. They know the minute workings better than I. I am always happy to help in any way but sort of see my role as greasing the wheels and removing barriers for them to be successful.”
Though she may not don a white coat and stethoscope everyday, Piercey has not given up her role as a child abuse pediatrician in the area. She serves as the medical director for the Carl Perkins Child Abuse Center and sees patients in their local clinic one afternoon a week as well as does inpatient consultations for patients at the hospital. “There are very few resources in the state for these patients and being able to fill that need is very rewarding,” said Piercey. “It also helps build some credibility with the physicians I manage because I know all the hoops they have to jump through and the issues they deal with.”
One challenge Piercey has faced as an administrator is one that hit very close to home and her heart, realigning three hospitals in Gibson County where she had grown up. “The Gibson County realignment had personal implications for me. My family is still there and I have friends there but there was also a business side. Any decision made would impact employees and patients,” she said. “We had to look closely at the services that were actually being utilized and what could be done to maintain a presence in Gibson County and be viable. In my home town of Trenton, we found the facility was not being used as a traditional inpatient model and the Emergency Department was not being used by and large for true emergencies because less acute issues were presenting there.”
The decision was made to tailor services in the three cities to meet what the population in that area needed. Milan would maintain inpatient services and surgical services. Humboldt would transition into an extension of the Emergency Department in Jackson. Trenton would become an urgent care and primary care location.
“The process took more than three years to complete and the result was more of a shifting of services to be more sustainable and effective while also making things more efficient and specialized,” said Piercey. “Knowing these decisions would impact employees our human resources department worked very hard to develop a very comprehensive plan for employees. From placement services to retirement packages, HR worked with each employee individually to find what worked best for them.”
One more aspect of the realignment would be a new facility in Trenton for which construction has started and is expected to be complete at the end of 2015. The new facility will house a primary care clinic, an urgent care clinic and Sports Plus Rehab. The former hospital, which is being utilized until the new facility is open, has been sold to Gibson Electric Membership Corporation. “We have partnered with Dr. Jim Williams and Christian Family Medicine and will have specialists coming in to see patients. Education and support groups will also meet in the facility,” said Piercey. “This facility and its services will address the community’s primary care needs and work toward population health and disease management goals that are increasingly important in healthcare.”
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