Sitting in her spacious office in the administrative suite of White Plains Hospital on a recent afternoon, Susan Fox said she never envisioned herself there when she began in the health care field some 30 years ago.
“I didn”™t get out of high school thinking I was going to be the president of a hospital,” she said with a laugh.
But Fox, who took on that role this past Jan. 1, has followed a path that, in retrospect, seemed to lead exactly there.
“I was always on the search for new experiences and new skills, not always knowing where it was going,” Fox said. Joining the hospital in 2010 as senior vice president was the latest move in a career that began as a nurse back in the mid-1980s.
The first 10 months in the new job, she said, have been “exciting.”
“I describe it as drinking from a fire hose ”“ a tremendous amount going on but it”™s a very exciting time to be in the position.”
For Fox, it”™s been all about the progress.
“I was the first to go to college in my family.” Her supportive parents, she said, steered her toward a career with a reputation of being stable and secure.
Fox, who grew up on Long Island, graduated from the Columbia University School of Nursing and would spend the next two years as a staff nurse at New York Presbyterian Hospital, specializing as a pediatric ICU nurse.
“It was a really challenging job to be a nurse,” she said. “Very quickly I was at the highest end of intensity.”
Within a year, she had advanced to a role as the “go-to” nurse.
“It seemed to come naturally,” she said. “As quickly as that came what also came quickly was the realization that I wanted to do something different.”
Back then, nurses were “not supportive” of each other, and she remembers one particular incident when a colleague showed utter disregard for the task at hand.
“It was such a disconnect,” Fox said.
She knew she wanted something more: “I love health care, but I want to come back and do something where I can establish a culture.”
And from there, she was on her way.
“I connected the dots with health care and management.”
It began with enrollment at the City University of New York-Baruch College, where she earned an MBA in health care administration.
“It was ”˜Business School 101,”™” she said. The school”™s connection to Mount Sinai also led to an administrative residency there.
Fox, ever looking to advance, wound up sitting next to people from Ernst & Young at an event when her networking kicked into high gear.
“I did my thing and I followed up,” she said. “I was pretty aggressive about getting it.”
In a case of what she said was “right place, right time,” she was hired by the consulting company where she would spend the next decade rising to the role of senior manager as she handled both nursing- and financial-consulting assignments.
The job, she said, was ever-changing, again offering her skills that would prove invaluable.
“It was one of these ”˜love-hate”™ things. You”™re never really comfortable,” she said of the constant motion and challenges. “You”™re always in a situation where you”™re with people facing change.”
Her last client at Ernst & Young was Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Her Ernst & Young work would mean more travel for the mother of two children under 5 so she accepted a role with LIJ, which was about to merge and become North Shore LIJ Health System. There, she worked on integrating the hospitals from a clinical perspective as they grew into what she said is now a $7 billion entity.
“After 14 years there, I got the bug to kind of run my own place.”
Again, it would be all about the timing as Fox met Jon B. Schandler, White Plains Hospital”™s president of 30-plus years. Though he”™s now transitioned to CEO, Fox said the role of president was not guaranteed.
“I was not promised that on the way in,” she said, in three years rising from senior vice president to president.
With the promotion, she also became the first woman outside a religious order to serve as president of an acute-care hospital in Westchester County. (The late Sister Mary Linehan had served as president of St. Joseph”™s Medical Center in Yonkers from 1969-2000).
And the timing, while challenging, suits Fox just fine.
“Everybody in health care has, for the most part, the same goals but they have different things to work with and different challenges,” she said. There are regulatory pressures, community needs, staffing issues and fundraising. “You still need to get everything done by the end of the day.”
Even though Fox was already on staff, she still said there was a period of settling into the role as president. She noted that fact during the retirement celebration of a 50 year-plus employee.
“I had said that this is a really tough place to break in and be accepted,” she said, with many employees having decades of service.
Fox, though, would soon have her own “trial by fire.”
White Plains Hospital, Fox explains, hires and invites The Joint Commission in for accreditation. They usually come every three years. Though arrival is unannounced, the inspection was expected in November or December. So in the summer, the hospital was just starting to think about it.
“That”™s when you start ”˜waxing your car”™ and make sure everything”™s ready,” she said.
But at 7:30 a.m. on an August morning, Fox got the call that the commission was on site. Fox jumped to service, corralling the staff and assuring everyone they were suitably prepared. Group meetings, pep rallies of a sort, were held daily and they emerged successful.
“I really felt like that was my hazing,” Fox said.
And her actions, it turned out, led to her being embraced by any lingering doubters.
“Having gone through that experience with them, one of my vice presidents said ”˜Now, you”™re one of us. We”™ve got your back.”™”
And she is savoring the role, welcoming interaction with all employees and continuing an open-door policy that acknowledges “the value and necessity of communication.”
The goal is to create an environment that is both encouraging and productive.
“That”™s one of our strategic visions, to be an employer of choice, which we are,” she said. The hospital, she said, has some 2,500 employees with an additional thousand affiliated doctors.
Their role is a tough one.
“We”™re in the business of making people better and keeping people well, but we don”™t necessarily have control of all those parts,” Fox said.
Health care reform, she said, of course will impact the future.
“Everybody”™s trying to figure out how to get the costs down,” while also maintaining and advancing quality.
She said the goal is for the hospital, all hospitals, to move from “episodic care” ”“ treating someone for a specific incident and then not seeing them, perhaps, ever again ”“ to creating a community dedicated to all-around wellness, or “population health.”
“There”™s layers and layers of complexity to this new paradigm, and we all need to figure it out,” she said.
And as Fox helps White Plains do just that, her past is never far from her thoughts.
She points to a photograph on an office console. Family pictures surround a young Fox holding a small child, the first AIDS baby she worked with in 1984. She”™ll talk briefly about her and others who remain in memory. It not only reminds her of her own past but also the challenges all in her field continue to face every day.
Fox likes nothing more than to motivate young workers, even those joining the hospital at entry-level positions.
She will tell them “”˜I know this doesn”™t sound exciting. If you do it well, somebody”™s going to give you something else.”™”
Fox, though, has never been at a loss for things to do and remains committed to “figuring out how to spend your time.”
Though her two children are now in college, her husband is also in the health care field, “so the city never sleeps,” she said.
Fox tries to make time for favorite activities such as antiquing and more recently learning golf with her husband, Jeffrey Menkes, a veteran hospital administrator now with Montefiore.
A few lovely vases, boxes, mirror and art-glass pocketbooks decorate her office, spilling over from her Larchmont home.
“We”™ve actually filled our house and we have no more room for it,” Fox said.
Outside her office, the newly renovated hallway features historical images from the 120-year-old hospital”™s history, and, Fox said, “speak to the progression of the hospital.”
Today, she notes, renovations continue. The work ranges from the most cosmetic, from a revamped parking garage to a renovated lobby to the most necessary including new operating rooms and an expanded cancer center.
“People need the services, and we”™ve got to figure it out,” she said.
And while their emergency room alone sees 60,000 patients each year, to Fox serving as president of White Plains Hospital is about much more than the numbers.
“It”™s one patient at a time, and that”™s our moral compass”¦ that one patient.”
Winners Circle is a new biweekly feature that will take a look at the top women business executives and top attorneys, men and women, in the region. To nominate someone, please contact John Golden at jgolden@westfairinc.com.