What do health care and a business or leadership degree have to do with one another? According to Viterbo alumni, Chet Doering (BSN ’10, MBA ’12, DNP), Jenny Jackson (BSN ’06, MBA in HCL), Laura Kloss (MBA) and Lindsey Preston (BSN ’13, MASL ’16), everything.

Gundersen Health System and Bellin Health in Green Bay, Wisconsin, merged Dec. 1, 2022, and have since become Emplify Health. With the values of empathy in caregiving, continuous learning, and active innovation, it is no surprise key leaders within Emplify Health hold graduate degrees in business and leadership from Viterbo University.

When speaking about the merger, Doering, Jackson, Kloss, and Preston commented on how the graduate degree they obtained from Viterbo, specifically in business and servant leadership, helped them with strategic planning.

“As we are coming together as a new entity, we also have a new mission, vision, values, and strategic plan. How as leaders do we execute the plan? How do I communicate that plan to my team members. I feel like I have an advantage because I have been doing some of the work already due to the education I received through the Viterbo MBA program,” Kloss shared.

All have their Bachelor of Science in Nursing—three of them from Viterbo. They started as nurses on the floor and moved into leadership roles. All made the decision to receive their degrees in business and leadership from Viterbo through the MBA, MBA in Health Care Leadership, and Master of Arts in Servant Leadership programs.

Kloss shared, “There’s a profound shift from being a nurse and caring for patients and the role of a leader. It was a significant shift for me when I went through the program.”

From working hands on with patients to taking more managerial roles leading teams, each found their graduate degree helped them lead with a servant-first mentality.

Kloss said, “What I appreciated was the in-person courses as a young professional with a family to have conversations about how you show up. Yes, I learned the business pieces, but they instilled the human aspect of leadership in the MBA program. I want to make sure my team’s voices are being lifted and shared to different levels of leadership.”

Doering said, “How do you seek stillness in an extremely fast-paced industry like health care? If you give yourself the gift of contemplation before making a big decision, you can be more empathetic and thoughtful in conversations.”

Jackson added, “It’s also making a conscious effort to listen to understand people and what their perspective is. I have many conversations throughout the day with many different groups about what their needs, visions, and problems are. You must make a conscious effort to pause, listen to understand, and create space for shared decision making.”

With the components of servant leadership in mind, Preston mentioned how her colloquium project in the MASL helped to transform the organization when she was completing the degree. “In my final project, I looked at instilling servant leadership principles in a nursing process to welcome new patients in our rural facility from Fort McCoy. There are many transient folks that were receiving care, and I looked at what principles, in terms of hospitality, respect, and integrity, we could develop in our processes. It’s one way I can look at work from the day-to-day and say what servant leadership principles are here that might not be as elevated as they could be to get the best results out of people, process, and programs,” Preston shared.

Additionally, Preston mentioned, “The leadership philosophy and the principles of which we are launching from at Emplify Health are in alignment with those of servant leadership principles that Viterbo highly regards. It was validating to hear, and it’s the right space to be in for me.”

The merger has not been the only business and leadership challenge in health care. Kloss mentioned that the COVID-19 pandemic presented new challenges in health care for all stakeholders with hospitals being at capacity and that left health care leaders unsure of how to best provide services to the community. Through the challenges, the drive to serve patients created new avenues of medical care. Kloss and Jackson spoke about how home hospital developments have impacted rural communities by providing care to communities in need.

Kloss said, “We’ve put some innovative practices and models into place. Our Gundersen Home Hospital program we implemented took care beyond the four walls of the hospital and into patients’ homes. It was a challenging project that required new learning. Patients were extremely satisfied with the services we were able to provide. Recently, we have implemented virtual nursing and are expanding throughout the hospital. The MBA program has helped me to take ideas from concept through the approval process to implementation.”

The drive to care for others is at the heart of the nursing profession; however, with their graduate degrees from Viterbo, MBA students Jackson, Kloss, and Doering can see strategic differences across industries and adapt practices from other organizations to their programs.

Doering mentioned, “In class, I sat with individuals from Mayo Clinic, Trane, Gundersen, and Kwik Trip, so we had a multi-industry viewpoint. Our professors encouraged different perspectives, and it was interesting riffing with each other to think about strengths and challenges in industries and it had me thinking ‘could I apply this to health care?’”

Preston emphasized the point by sharing, “There’s a sense of storytelling that takes shape, and you can get something out of a textbook, but when people are in the room learning with you it’s a different experience”.

In the MBA in Health Care Leadership program, which is mostly online, Jackson mentioned what she was learning about leadership was applicable to her role and provided the flexibility for her to be home with her family. “One example of applying what I learned was having a deeper understanding of the financial report at the monthly leader meeting,” said Jackson.

In understanding stories of others, Jackson shared that leading with excellence and empathy for her team requires understanding the individuals who make up her team.

“It is important to know that each person is different,” said Jackson. “What one person on my team needs might be completely different than the others. It’s important to understand how everyone works, so you can give them what they need. We did the DISc assessment, and it helped our team understand our different work styles. That shows empathy because we must know how to meet the needs of others while working towards excellence in outcomes.”

Through understanding each other, you can provide excellence in service to the community while being empathetic to those you lead and serve by clearly communicating expectations.

Preston shared, “We must lay a foundation of understanding for expectations. There’s a lot of research that says if you take care of people, the culture will produce better outcomes. There’s a supportive nature with the checkbacks to develop individuals to talk about what’s been hard.”

Kloss said, “Having expectations and holding team members accountable is important. But the key is how you balance the expectations and still connect with people. That brings the greatest success.”

With empathy and excellence, Viterbo alumni are leading Emplify Health into its new era by integrating service and the needs of the community into the heart of their leadership by implementing knowledge gained from their graduate degrees in business from Viterbo University.