Administrator, Henry County Healthcare Center
Not one to shy away from the unknown, Sandra Ray has taken on many new programs and projects throughout her 30-plus year career. That willingness to take on unchartered territory led her to realize her love of the nursing home side of healthcare. Today, as administrator of Henry County Healthcare Center in Paris, Tennessee, Ray is enjoying the nursing home side of things while still capitalizing on her talent for new projects and programs as she leads.
Ray, who hails from Central Arkansas and holds a Master’s degree in Operations Management from the University of Arkansas, entered the field of healthcare when she went to work at a hospital in Blytheville, Arkansas. Management quickly pegged her as the go-to-girl for special projects as she displayed quite a knack for getting people on board with new projects and programs. She got her first taste in geriatric care when she headed the opening of a geriatric psychiatric unit. When the hospital built a new facility that was attached to the existing structure, Ray got the assignment to renovate the older facility to house a nursing home.
“I basically started from scratch in the old facility,” said Ray. “There were no policies, staff and not even any furniture, so I pretty much had a blank canvas to work with. Once things were up and going, I realized that running a nursing home was my calling so I got my Nursing Home Administrator license.”
When the hospital went from being a county-owned facility to corporate owned, Ray decided to make a change herself. “A friend who was a human resource person in Henry County told me about an opening at Henry County Healthcare Center for a nursing home administrator and decided to apply. I had really liked working for a non-profit county owned healthcare system and the opportunity to do so again was too good to pass up,” said Ray. “I have also fallen in love with the Paris area. It has a great culture and offers so much that I hate that I did not discover it sooner in life because I would have loved to have raised my two boys here.”
Today, Henry County Healthcare Center is a 136-bed facility that provides skilled and intermediate care with an emphasis on rehabilitation services through the Plumley Rehabilitation Center. “A lot of people think we are just a nursing home but we offer a lot more,” said Ray. “Many of our patients are young and are in our facility due to things such as on the job injuries, strokes, or car accidents. We provide high quality specialized programs that help people rebuild their lives and are far more than just a long-term care facility.”
Ray will admit that today’s center is not the one she took over in 1998. “The hospital system had recently taken over the nursing home and everything needed to be overhauled. There were no processes in place, no programs, the interior needed remodeling and we needed staff experienced in working in a long term care environment,” she said. “Once again it was like starting with a blank canvas, we had to start with the basics: training, education, setting up programs, hiring staff and remodeling the facility. I salvaged what I could, made the changes and improvements required to ensure we provided the patient-centered level of care needed. It took about two years to accomplish.”
During her time at Henry County, the Healthcare Center has seen other improvements. The hospital’s foundation provided funding to build a state of the art rehabilitation gym, which is a part of the Center’s Plumley Rehabilitation Program. A full-time geriatric nurse practitioner has been added to the center’s staff. “This is unique for our industry,” said Ray. “But having a nurse practitioner onsite means our patients get a higher level of hands-on care and monitoring without leaving the center that also helps prevent hospitalizations and complications.”
The Healthcare Center was one of only four facilities in Tennessee to be recognized by the American Health Care Association in its Quality Initiative Recognition Program. The program recognizes nursing centers that meet one or more of the programs four quality initiative goals. These goals look at turnover, customer satisfaction, reduced hospital readmissions and reducing psychotic drug use in the facility. Henry County Healthcare Center will be honored at the AHCA’s symposium in Austin, Texas.
In her 34 years in management, Ray says she has had a lot of time to tweak her management style but says one thing that has resonated with her is that you are only as good as your team. “I have put together a team of people with integrity and an unstoppable quest for excellence which is what I have as well. We stress the mission, the values and the vision of this organization,” she said. “Most of our managers have been here 10-15 years and we are very proud of our low turnover rate because it’s not the norm in the industry. I think we have created a positive work environment. We believe there is no job that is more important than another and that what one does or doesn’t do in their job affects everyone.”
Ray says she has two great passions, her job and music. Having taken piano lessons since she was seven until she was in college, Ray says her ability to play has evolved over the years. She is the accompanist at her church, First Baptist, which feeds not only her love to play the piano but also her desire to serve others.
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