Imagine Thats the motto that headlines the Boca Raton Community Hospital website. But, when you first talk with Jerry Fedele it is hard to imagine that he is the relatively new President and CEO of Boca Raton Community Hospital. In fact, with a year under his belt in October, Fedele can point to successfully engaging the leadership team in strategic operations improvements and financial discipline that are yielding a major turnaround at the 400 bed community hospital noted for advanced care.
In the early 60s the hospital was born out of a community tragedy when a child died in transport to a hospital in another community. Boca Raton Community Hospital is located in an affluent seasonal community whose residents are generously supportive of hospital programs. It can also boast of a workforce predisposed with the passion to be of service to others. The combination may sound like an idyllic opportunity for any CEO candidate. However, the organization faced significant financial challenges and that was certainly one area where Fedele had excelled. The challenge was on.
With more than 22 years of healthcare experience, including executive leadership, operations improvement, quality and patient satisfaction improvement, physician recruitment and network management, clinical program development, strategic plan development, insurance and law, Fedele hit the ground running to implement processes resulting in rapid cycle improvement in operations, quality and satisfaction.
“When you are blessed with a supportive community and premiere clinicians, it only ups the ante to provide locally focused strategy geared toward offering the highest levels of quality, efficiency, productivity and response to local community needs,” Fedele said. “My strengths, oddly enough, are not clinical skills, or focused expertise in one area. My academic preparation as an attorney and my varied work experience even prior to health care, help me see the big picture and create a vision for success. Then my job is to attract & motivate the appropriate puzzle pieces – physicians & clinicians, planners & operational experts, technicians, professionals and service workers, to provide a patient experience that balances quality, satisfaction and financial performance.” he explained.
One soon begins to understand how this experienced down-to-earth CEO is a good fit with a hospital that strives to imagine .
A self declared zealot for patient satisfaction, Fedele believes that staff need to connect with patients. In fact, one of the attractions of this current position in a community focused facility was the lack of layers between administration and patient care. He has instituted and himself participates in interactive programs including job share and patient rounds.
Job Share and Rounds
According to management engineers, a basic staff motivator is knowing that a boss understands the particulars of a job situation before he starts reorganizing procedures. According to Fedele, “One way Ive reached out is to share a job at all staff levels regularly for a day, getting first hand knowledge of how its done and soliciting employee ideas for improvement. ”
“My family roots are in blue collar employment and I believe encouraging 2000 front line employees to make suggestions for improvement has unleashed a powerful flood of employee pride, enthusiasm and determination to achieve enhanced patient care and satisfaction results,” he continued.
According to Fedele, all management participates in regular patient rounds and always come back to their desks with a new perspective on patient expectations of health care delivery.
“Being on the front line, even for a day, can pop the top off a surge of new ideas and ways to implement them,” he explained.
Programs & Technology
In addition to encouraging creative people, Fedele strives for quality in an array of programs including a focus on recruiting and providing technology to meet community needs. The hospital has several Centers of Excellence. Among these are Cardiology, which is in the final stages of adding endovascular specialists; a Cancer Center housed in a brand new $75 million state-of-the-art architectural design that serves as a testament to the transition from illness to wellness; and a Womens Center that performs cutting edge research and performs over 70,000 mammographies annually. The Cancer Center features a patient- centric multi-modality clinic of oncology specialists who together confer with a newly diagnosed patient and family to discuss care options. And finally, plans to enhance the Womens Center beyond a focus on breast disease and Orthopedics and Neurosciences programs compatible with an aging population are on the table.
Fedele received his bachelor of science in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, his juris doctor from Duquesne University School of Law where he was class valedictorian and his master of business administration from the University of Pittsburgh. An avid golfer and college basketball enthusiast he tries to get time on the links and in the stands as often as possible. Recently he traveled to Europe with his youngest son, Andy, and biked from Prague to Vienna and gladly shares tales of the positive experience when asked!
Imagine
Thats the motto that headlines the Boca Raton Community Hospital website. But, when you first talk with Jerry Fedele it is hard to imagine that he is the relatively new President and CEO of Boca Raton Community Hospital. In fact, with a year under his belt in October, Fedele can point to successfully engaging the leadership team in strategic operations improvements and financial discipline that are yielding a major turnaround at the 400 bed community hospital noted for advanced care. 
