Kristi Gylten, MBA
Director, Hospitalist Service,
Rapid City (S.D.) Regional Hospital
Question: What motivated you to join the Administrators Task Force (ATF)?
Answer: I wanted to have the opportunity to meet and network with my peers, and to be a part of developing resources and a place “on the map” for hospitalist administrators. The Administrators Task Force is bringing awareness to the administrative and business side of hospital medicine through the eyes of the hospitalist administrators.
Q: Has your participation on the task force helped out your group?
A: My group has benefited through the access and utilization of the available tools and resources to evaluate my own program, including tools like dashboards, job descriptions, patient communication, and marketing materials. The ATF has increased my awareness of the resources available, clinical and operational, to hospitalist groups, including my own.
Q: How is the ATF helping hospitals improve healthcare overall?
A: I believe the task force has its pulse on how healthcare could ideally be provided in the future. And, to me, it is extremely exciting to be part of the team that will help design the future of inpatient medicine and, in part, the continuum of care.
As hospitalist administrators, you have a close and collaborative relationship with the inpatient providers. And I think that because of that relationship and the fact that they live and breathe inpatient medicine, you are able to engage your team in improving many aspects of healthcare.
Q: What do you like most about your job as an administrator?
A: I like the wide variety of opportunities and challenges the role presents: human resources, contracting, recruitment, marketing and public relations, customer satisfaction, quality, and financials. The list goes on. No one day is like the previous, and it’s never dull. And most of all, I enjoy the challenge of strategizing and planning for the future of providing healthcare.
—Brendon Shank