Building Community Through Quality Healthcare
By Dawn Robinette, APR | Photography by David Teran
There are moments in your career that inspire you to pause and reflect. As Megan Cool Amalakuhan, FACHE, CEO of Methodist Hospital Westover Hills, works to open the doors of Methodist’s newest full-service, acute care hospital later this fall, she’s grateful for the journey – and the opportunity to serve the community.
“It’s really a full circle moment to be at a de novo hospital. I started at a de novo hospital. In about a year and a half, you could see the transformation of the community. And here I am again with the same opportunity to witness community transformation that happens when you have access to high-quality health care closer to your home,” she explains.
Yet it’s not a journey she planned. Amalakuhan never intended to enter the healthcare field, but proximity and a natural fit for her skills changed all of that. “HCA Healthcare, one of our partners at Methodist Healthcare, built a hospital right next to where I grew up and went to college. And when you’re young, you wonder, ‘What do I want to do when I get out of college?’ It was truly divine intervention. I saw how having access to care could be transformative for the community it serves.”
The Tennessee native jumped at an opportunity to join the hospital in an accounting role. “That began my relationship with hospital administration. The healthcare industry allowed me to combine my social and analytical sides. It empowered me to explore my passion for understanding the relationships within humanity.
Nineteen years later, she’s a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives – and that hospital is still in her life. “My family is still in the community. It was the same hospital where my father transitioned into hospice and that I trusted to reduce my anxieties after an emergency surgery at a nearby HCA hospital while visiting the Nashville area earlier this year.
“I stepped back into that ER to have a CT to check things out before I came back home. Again, it struck me how hospitals can be the fabric of our communities. You turn to hospitals in crisis. You turn to hospitals as a place of respite. I grew up with the value of being responsible for others. I’m blessed. I’m where I need to be, in the industry I need to be in.
“I think that’s really rare now. I’m on the cusp of being a millennial. For me to be in the same organization for 19 years is just unheard of. But I lucked out with an amazing opportunity in a company that supports growth and supports female leadership.”
It’s something she’d tell her younger self. “‘You may not have gone where you intended to go, but you’ll end up where you need to be.’ That sticks with me. Because I’m originally from south of Nashville, but I’ve been in San Antonio and Austin for many years I thought I was supposed to be somewhere else, and God kept leading me somewhere that wasn’t on my plan.
“I make the joke that you know what God does to all your well-intended plans? He crumbles them up and makes better ones for you. Throws them out. Throughout my journey over the last 10-plus years, I’ve learned that that’s it. I may not go where I intend to go, but I’ll end up where I need to be.”
Part of being where she needs to be is ensuring that she’s providing the support needed that allows health care practitioners to focus on what they do best: patient care.
“I joke that I want to be the wind beneath people’s wings. I consider myself support services, strategic support services, whatever it is, so clinicians don’t have to think about anything else except delivering high-quality, consistent healing experiences. We get to step back and see all the operational processes, clinical processes, support processes, what’s happening in the community – and how can we take care of our community. We have to relentlessly pursue creating healing experiences. That’s our vision. We need to do everything that we can to reduce any burden on a clinician that would be a barrier for them to deliver consistent, high-quality healing experiences.
“Quotes speak to me a lot. The Maya Angelou quote about how people may forget what you said or forget what you did, but people will never forget how you make them feel. That plays out in hospitals moment by moment. If you remember and keep hold of that, the relationship that patients and their families let you in and trust you, they trust that you are going to consistently deliver healing experiences throughout their whole stay.
“Going back to who I am, and really what drives me, I feel responsible to create that experience. That’s what my mission is for our community and our patients. So how can I set others up for success so that patients and their families trust us – and we deliver on that promise for them.”
Amalakuhan was the first employee hired for the new hospital – while she was six months pregnant. The now mother of two young girls, 3-year-old Aria, and almost 1-year-old Anjali, credits her husband, Dr. Bravein Amalakuhan, a pulmonary critical care physician – and a robust support system – for allowing her to keep both family and work on track. “Work/life balance is not 50/50. There are times when it might be 80/20 or 20/80, but there is a balance. It lets us show up when I’m at home, and I feel like I have a great support system when I’m not there. Then when I’m not at work, I have a great support system at work that lets me show up at home.”
Despite her busy schedule, she finds time to fit in fun. “I’m a live entertainment junkie. I love concerts, I love live music, musicals, comedy shows, Broadway shows. There’s nothing like experiencing the talents and artistry of people right in front of you. So, if I get an opportunity to be able to plan something and go to something, that’s what I seek out.”
How does she make it all work? She focuses on prioritizing what’s important and borrows the medical practice of making rounds. “I try to focus on making time for what’s most significant. Especially at an executive level, I can spend a lot of time on what’s right in front of me. But you have to instead make time for what’s most significant. An example of that in health care and administration is rounding with our colleagues and our patients, hearing directly from them. Our goal is to provide an excellent patient care experience today. So how are we doing? You can formulate a much better connection to what the solution needs to be if you’re rounding and spending time directly with your colleagues. I think the solutions that come out of being visible to our colleagues and our patients are the most impactful ones.”
She also takes time to assess challenges and then find the right solution. “I like to find solutions where I break it down into what’s the process, people or resources needed, but also what are the relationships needed to be successful at something and how can I impact that?
“I also really focus, and I coach quite a bit on, looking what are the things that we can control? Because you can spend time on finding solutions for challenges that maybe won’t have such an impact because that’s not within our sphere of influence. So, can you directly control this outcome? Is it something for us to think about and keep in the back of our minds that we can’t control it? Or is there some way to indirectly impact it?
No matter what challenges pop up, she remains inspired by what she calls “micro-mission moments,” the brilliance in the basics of providing people-focused, high-quality care.
“Being in health care, you get to see and work with people who dedicate their lives to the care and improvement of other human life. I get to witness that a lot in different places and different ways. As a support person, as a clinician, or as an administrator, people constantly put other people ahead of themselves.
“You get to see that so much in health care. That fills your cup up and makes you ask, ‘How can I help you? How can I be of service?’”
