By Lois Thomson
In his role as Assistant Vice President of Operations at Baptist Health Baptist Hospital, Scott Singer has quite a full plate of responsibilities. He is the executive lead for many of the support services, including capacity management, dietary and clinical nutrition, environmental services, patient transport, employee events, linens, and even the gift shop – although he admits the latter doesn’t take too much time!
What does take time is being executive sponsor for space planning. As Singer said, “We have a lot of construction around the campus – more than a billion-dollars in projects – and I’m helping with leading the space planning.”
He described some of the projects, saying, “We have a new neuroscience institute building that’s currently going up. Right next to that we’ll be building a new inpatient bed tower, which is our north tower, and we are doing a major renovation of our women’s services building, which we call the Lake Pavilion. And on the back side of our campus – the south side – we have a large surgical expansion happening.”
While many of these projects fall under Singer’s jurisdiction, he is quick to point out, “We have a great team, so it’s certainly not me (doing all the work) in isolation. We rely on a whole host of people, and we’re focused on improving the experience, outcome, and value that our patients receive, and that consists of prioritizing what the most important needs are at the time.”
It’s working with this team and others at Baptist that Singer considers to be one of the things he likes best about his job. Having joined the facility just two years ago, he said the size of the hospital – 902-bed capacity – creates a big learning curve for someone new to the organization, “but I’ve had great support from many people helping me learn.”
He said the people are welcoming and are excited to come to work. “They love taking care of patients and it shows, and getting to be a part of that is incredibly rewarding.” Singer said this is the type of work he envisioned as a career. “I love hospital operations. This kind of environment is very dynamic, it’s fast-paced, complex, challenging. It’s really a great place to be.”
Singer went to school for business administration at Marshall University and then to grad school at the Ohio State University to earn a Masters in Health Administration. “I came to South Florida when I finished grad school in 2004 and did an administrative fellowship, and have been here ever since.”
In addition to his responsibilities at Baptist Health, Singer is a member of ACHE – the American College of Healthcare Executives – having first learned about the organization while at OSU. He joined the student chapter at that time and had an opportunity to go to the ACHE conference in Chicago; he called it “an incredible experience, seeing thousands of people from across the country.”
When he came to South Florida he got involved in the local chapter and has had the opportunity to serve on the board for six years in various positions, including as treasurer and president. Singer commented, “I joined because I think it’s the most recognized professional association for healthcare administrators, and I also earned my fellowship from ACHE basically as soon as I was eligible because that’s the most recognized ongoing professional commitment you can make in the field.”
Singer said he continues to be engaged with the chapter because it’s a great way to meet people who are either new to the market or are early in their careers. “The organization is probably the single best way to meet people from other health systems or other sectors from leadership.”
Calling himself “a huge proponent of ACHE,” Singer concluded, “I think we’re very fortunate in South Florida to have a quality chapter that puts on a number of networking and educational events that we’re able to give back to the local members.”
