Earlier this month, Norwalk Hospital named Thomas I. H. Dubin as its new chairman of the board of directors. Dubin, a Wilton resident who was formerly senior vice president and chief legal officer at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, has served on the board for three years, most recently as vice chairman.
In this edition of Suite Talk, Business Journal Senior Enterprise Editor Phil Hall spoke with Dubin about his new duties leading the hospital”™s board of directors.
When did you first get involved with the hospital’s board? And why did you get involved?
I joined the board a little over three years ago. I was looking for additional ways to get involved in the community. A friend of mine, Ervin Shames, had been a prior board chair. We meet from time to time and over breakfast one day, he said, “You know, maybe you should get involved with the hospital.”
It was a natural flow from what I was doing at that point ”“ I left my primary job several years ago and got a master’s in public health at Yale, because I was curious about those sorts of issues. I recognized it would probably be a natural extension to get involved in hospital, which it has been.
For the benefit of readers who aren’t quite certain just what the board chairman does, what are your duties? And how do they fit into the daily operations of the hospital?
The board has several responsibilities. The primary is being focused on ensuring we have the highest quality patient care. The board is also focused on prioritizing staff and making sure that we are an employer of choice.
How has the hospital held up over the past two years with the Covid crisis?
I don’t think we’re unique at all in regard to the challenges that we’ve faced. But we’ve faced those challenges ”“ there have been staffing concerns, especially if the staff themselves have Covid. It’s been difficult to make sure that we have sufficient people, and that’s true for all hospitals in our area and across the country.
At its peak, we had many, many of our medical surgery rooms converted over to Covid care. Fortunately, as Covid receded over the summer, we were able to get back to business. We’re being challenged again ”“ since around Thanksgiving, our Covid numbers have been up. But we’re managing.
There have been reports from around the country of hospital staffing shortages involving doctors and nurses. Is this an issue that Norwalk Hospital is facing?
It’s true for all hospitals. We are looking to partner with local colleges to try to create career ladders for their students so they know that when they start their programs, they will have an opportunity of employment with Norwalk.
At the risk of sounding negative, are there areas at the hospital that are in need of significant improvement?
Well, we’re looking to make the patient experience match our overall health quality, which is why we’re embarking on a large expansion ”“ the largest in our history, with a new four-floor patient pavilion. We’d like to modernize our rooms and provide greater resources for staff. We’d like to upgrade our maternity offerings ”“ not the health quality outcomes, because they’re already superb, but the patient experience being with us.
What kind of a timeline are you looking at to have the all of these goals reached?
Within five years, we should be opening up the new patient pavilion. It’s a bit of a Herculean jigsaw puzzle, where we have to raze a couple of the oldest buildings in our facility ”“ but what do you do in that midterm when you don’t have that space any longer? And then we have to construct something without being disruptive to the existing facilities. So, it’s quite complex. In addition to building a new patient pavilion, we’ll be refurbishing all of the existing facilities as well for patients.
In addition to your elevation to board chairman, the hospital added several new directors. What kind of people are you looking for to join the board of directors?
That’s an excellent question. I think it’s essential that we have a board that is representative of the communities that we serve. And we’re doing better on that over time, and we should continue to focus on that. Geographically, demographically, just be as representative as possible.
We hope that the conversations at the board level will be well informed and constructive, so we’re looking for people with different professional backgrounds, whether it’s marketing, health, organizational, educational, legal ”“ we”™re trying to think about that broad breadth of professional and community experience that is really important to ensure that the board can be as productive as possible.
