New president ready to care for Butler, Clarion hospitals, staff
Overseeing hundreds of nurses over her 13 years as a chief nursing officer has Karen Allen feeling well-prepared to be president of two regional hospitals, thanks not only to her professional experience, but to her personal connections as well.
Allen, who was appointed president of Butler Memorial and Clarion hospitals in January, following the merger of Butler Health System and Excela Health, said she is now tasked with keeping a healthy staff who help keep Independence Health System “vital and vibrant to the communities.”
“Today, I was out on the floor, ran into one of the workers who said, 'We heard there is a rumor there are more layoffs coming in October,'” Allen said. “I said, ‘That is not true, we're not looking at that right now. I can't promise there will never be another layoff, but we're not looking across the system to say where can we get savings in labor. We did that and now we're looking at how do we grow.”
Allen has been employed at Butler Memorial Hospital since 2004, and said she is excited to work in the new role. Over the past decade, Allen has served as the director of Surgical Services, assistant vice president of Patient Care Services, vice president of Critical Care/Ancillary Services, chief nursing officer and chief experience officer.
While she now meets with even more members of the health system’s administration, Allen said she still spends a majority of her time in the halls of Butler Memorial Hospital.
“I think it prepared me very well because I know operations very well; I know the finance operations because nursing is a huge piece of operations,” Allen said. “Throughout my career I have had oversight of almost every single department in this hospital. I think finance, IT and marketing are the only departments I haven't had oversight over.”
Butler Health System and Excela Health officially merged Jan. 1, creating Independence Health System. The system announced July 20 the appointment of four health care leaders to its executive team.
They are Carol Fox, MD, FAAFP, chief medical officer; David Rottinghaus, MD, president of Physician and Provider Network; Allen, RN, president of Butler Memorial and Clarion hospitals; and Brian Fritz, president of Frick, Latrobe and Westmoreland hospitals.
Allen said the restructuring of the health system’s administration was a result of the merger, which created new leadership needs.
“We work as a team; we meet every week as an executive team and Ken (DeFurio) is there,” Allen said. “We have a lot more population that we serve now as a system, which gives us a lot of advantages.”
Ken DeFurio, president and CEO of Independence Health System, said Allen was an obvious choice to head up Butler Memorial and Clarion hospitals.
“Karen Allen is one of the most respected and experienced health care executives I know,” DeFurio said. “She has deep experience in all facets of hospital operations and patient care.
“When I needed someone to take the helm of Butler Memorial and Clarion hospitals, there was no question that it should be Karen.”
The new leadership structure at the health system requires good communication, which Allen said can lead to, and has led to, improvements in operations at all of the system’s hospitals.
“I think we're better together,” Allen said. “All of our leaders are engaged with their counterparts from Westmoreland County and learning from each other. What we're finding is there's pockets where best practice in certain areas is occurring here and we can share that with Excela's side, and best practices at the Excela locations can be shared here.”
In addition to sharing best practices with one another, the hospitals, now separated only by county lines, can provide different types of care to patients who can more easily stay within one health system for their care.
“Some of the high-end thoracic surgeries that we don't do at Butler, we can transfer them to Westmoreland now, where we used to transfer them to Pittsburgh,” Allen said. “What we're finding is the new size of the population could actually support additional services we don't currently offer, so we're excited about new services we'll be offering.”
Allen also said the health system is being careful with its spending.
Independence Health System laid off 53 workers in late June, and DeFurio wrote in an email to employees that 226 positions have been cut since January, beginning at the executive level.
Tom Chakurda, chief marketing and communications officer, said June 28 that the layoffs were a reflection of the health system’s “ongoing and necessary initiatives to address and overcome the economic challenges” facing Independence and the health care industry as a whole.
“I think the merger created some synergies where we could have this many people doing this service instead of this many people across the entire system,” Allen said. “It's also a matter of we have to be very diligent with our finances. We manage those finances responsibly so that we can continue to offer the services to the community.”
Allen said the day-to-day operations at Butler Memorial and Clarion hospitals haven’t changed much since the merger. While the health system’s name is different, the mission has remained the same.
“A focus on growth, a focus on quality, a focus on what services can we add now and offer to our communities that we used to not be able to offer,” Allen said. “Same focus on providing a great experience. We have to stick with that for our staff and patients.”
Allen also commended the staff at her hospitals for their work during the highs and lows of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she and other administrators are trying to rebuild staff morale after the pandemic took a toll on numerous hospital workers.
“We want to make sure this is a great place to work, because we need people to be able to care for our patients,” Allen said. “We're still working on helping staff to feel better after the pandemic and helping them feel confident that their jobs are safe here.”
