Kristine Rucker, DHA, MBA, MPH

I actually attribute my success to my mother. I came from very humble beginnings, and my mother really showed us as a very young child what it meant to put your heart into something and to never give up. Because of all of her sacrifices, I saw her rise from being just at the very base of an organization to becoming the regional vice president of her particular organization. Because I saw her overcome all those triumphs, and she always had good employee engagement, it really meant a lot to me. That's why one of the reasons that I actually went into healthcare was because once I found my passion, I told myself, well, you know what, if your mom could do it with minimal resources, surely you can do it with all the education and experience that you've acquired over the years. Serving as a role model and being able to see other people grow and become up-and-coming leaders, because I've had a significant impact in reaching back and sharing my experiences and helping motivate them and get them into the right roles - seeing the patients on the outside of that, actually seeing them improve their health outcomes, that is what has continued to drive me, saying not only am I in the right field, but I'm actually being able to give back.

One of the things that I can remember early on as an up-and-coming leader was to always have active listening skills and making sure that you're actually hearing what the ask is. Because we always have insurmountable goals, but you can achieve them as long as you take it one step at a time, and then you actually communicate all the way down to the front line what that goal is. That is one of the reasons why I even think that strategy has been one of my primary wheelhouses, because I'm like, you can't align with strategy if you don't know what's going on at the front line. And then you can't impact the front line unless you share with them what the strategy is. So really serving as a conduit and being able to be a translation and make sure that we're all striving to achieve that goal, moving forward together in that same direction, I think that that has been really key.

I would say don't stop and believe in yourself, and make sure that you surround yourself with the proper resources and the proper motivation. Early on, as a young leader, I always found myself surrounded by really strong mentors in the field, and in addition to getting into the right programs like the American College of Healthcare Executives, and then also aligning myself up with other people in which I envision to be. I tell people you can't be what you can't see. So you have to be in the room in order to see it, in order to be it. Putting yourself, striving to be your very best, giving your all, and always putting yourself in the next role. I've always gotten promotions over the years because I was in that role while I was already in the other role. I always stepped above and beyond, always took on extra tasks, I always tried to really align with the corporate vision, and then more importantly, lessons learned. I love lessons learned because I don't want somebody else to make those same mistakes that I did, and I know they're going to make mistakes, but I want to be the person to help them overcome those mistakes because I know what I have to do to overcome them. What I see as a gap is people reach their pinnacle and they're like, well, I made it, and they have to figure it out. And I don't think that way. To me, I say because I made it, now I have to reach back and help those other people overcome those obstacles. So I would say to those individuals to just always strive to be your very best and put yourself in the next role even if you're not there. You always have a seat at the table.

I would say that the biggest challenge is making sure that we spread throughout - going from the healthcare system and then into patients' homes, sometimes there's a slight disconnect because they're not quite sure where we lap. We're able to really explain to patients that we are an extension, not a replacement of their primary care physician, but we're an extension of that model. It's probably one of the biggest barriers we've had to overcome, but we've been able to really do that in an effective way because we collaborate with the practices and with our partners in order to share improved outcomes of having - taking off the heavy lift, providing that white glove service, and helping the physician monitor their blood pressures in between the visits. We're actually helping them prevent hospitalizations and preventing them from going back into the emergency rooms.

A couple of values stand out to me. I think that integrity is very key. You always have to have integrity. I think that another core value would be honesty and transparency, as appropriate. Of course, there's some things that you cannot share, but when you can share those things, I think that you should have strong communication skills and communicate what you can in an appropriate manner. The other one that I would say that I always keep top of mind is collaborative. I think that having collaborative partnerships across levels and across the organization is very key in order to meet organizational goals.