Celebrating 75 Years of West Tennessee Healthcare

Episode 50: Pocket Change Podcast

Summary

Key Takeaways

• WTH serves 600,000 patients in West Tennessee.
• Rural healthcare is essential to our community, and WTH prioritizes this need by providing services to these patients.
• They recently acquired their eighth hospital in Henry County.
• Prescott's best financial advice is to live within your means.

Learn more about West Tennessee Healthcare at wth.org.

To learn more about Leaders Credit Union or how to become a member, visit leaderscu.com.

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Full Transcript

Shea:

Hey, this is Shea.

Carrie:

And this is Carrie.

Shea:

Welcome to the Pocket Change podcast.

Carrie:

Where you'll learn better ways to spend, save, and invest, and take control of your financial journey. So today, we have been a unique opportunity to highlight one of the most well-known organizations in our community.

Shea:

Yeah, they've been around even longer than Leaders, more than 65 years.

Carrie:

I know, 75 years in our community. So I'm excited about this.

Shea:

They're all throughout West Tennessee, helping support the community, our health, and our well being, and so we're excited to welcome them today.

Carrie:

We're excited to welcome our guest, Tina Prescott, President and CEO of West Tennessee Healthcare. Welcome to Pocket Change, Tina.

Tina Prescott:

Thank you so much.

Carrie:

Thank you. We're so excited to have you with us today. Can you tell us a Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey with West Tennessee Healthcare?

Tina Prescott:

With West Tennessee Healthcare, I started when it was Jackson Madison County General Hospital in 1996 as a surgical ICU nurse. I had a passion for the surgical patient, and we eventually were involved in the trauma program as well. Got to do a lot of fun, adrenaline-packed care for patients and just love taking care of those patients and their families and helping them through that journey of an ICU patient. Got into the management side of things pretty early on, a couple of years in, and got to be the manager and director of that unit eventually, and finished my master's in business at Union and just looked for an opportunity to use that MBA within the healthcare system. I was given the opportunity to serve as an administrator in Camden. We had taken on that hospital as part of West Tennessee Healthcare at that time; just a huge time of growth for the health system then. I really can't believe they gave me a chance to be an administrator of hospital, but it was probably one of the ways that I grew the most as a leader because I had the medical staff, I had that advisory board there, and loved that hospital.

Tina Prescott:

It was definitely a family. That's really one of the things that's really a hallmark of West Tennessee Healthcare. We feel like we're a work family, even though there's over 8,000 employees now. We try to focus on the fact that it's a work family. I spend more time with my work family most days than I do my own children. It's been a great opportunity. I was aked to come back to Jackson as a VP of Hospital Services in 2007 and served as a CNO there and then Chief Operating Officer for the system, and then most recently as the President and CEO.

Carrie:

That's wonderful.

Shea:

What drew you to the healthcare profession?

Tina Prescott:

I always had a real love for math and science. I think I really had some wonderful teachers. Grew up in Middleton, Tennessee, and that high school level, had some great chemistry, biology, math, all kinds of math, wonderful interactions there and learning. Just had that affinity for the sciences and thought about medicine. Quite honestly, just really didn't see the track there for how I could get to that goal and thought What could I do in medicine? That's where nursing just came to me and was accepted at Union and got to attend Union University, and they have a wonderful nursing program and was able to graduate from there with my bachelors in nursing. I just fell in love with nursing, really at Union, and had an affinity for taking care of people, I think, is the main thing. When you have that heart for caring for others in those times of needs, I think you find your path somehow in that world of health care.

Carrie:

That's wonderful. I do think it is a passion that is instilled in you, and it just takes you places. I know that culture is very important in your organization. Can you tell us a little bit about the culture that you're trying to build?

Tina Prescott:

Yeah! I've worked there for almost 29 years, and from the moment I started, the culture has been about love and respect for people; whether that person is the patient that you're caring for in front of you, or that family, or that visitor, or your teammate, the person that you're working with. It's love and respect for people. I think that when we get that right, if we can stay true to love and respect for people, the rest of it falls in place. We try to focus on that. Health care is definitely difficult. It was difficult in 1996, but I think post-pandemic, it's even more difficult for our teams to really hang in there and do their best every day. I don't lose sight of the fact that people come into that world of health care and there's stuff they have going on in their own personal lives, and they set it aside for that period of time to really delve into other people and give to other people. So, I feel like we need to take care of each other so that we can take care of the patients in front of us.

Tina Prescott:

That's been part of the culture that's been there at West Tennessee Health Care. I know, almost 29 years, and I know it's before then as well.

Carrie:

That's wonderful. So 2025 is a big year for West Tennessee Healthcare, turning 75. So big celebration of 75 years. So can you tell us a little bit about the growth?

Tina Prescott:

Yeah. Like I mentioned, it started off as the Jackson Madison County General Hospital. We have since grown into just recently brought on our eighth hospital in Henry County, and we've had tremendous growth there with our outside hospitals. We've also had tremendous growth in the clinic world, where we have primary care and specialty care clinics across this whole region. I think that it's one of those things where that biggest hospital, of course, is right here in Jackson, but we reach out across West Tennessee with those hospitals and clinics and outpatient services across the region. One service that we definitely have reached out with post-pandemic is our Behavioral Health service. The provision of mental health services in those communities is really a passion of ours going forward, making sure we're given that same level of service and commitment to the service that we do on the Acute Care space, in the Clinic space, in the Outpatient space. We're trying to meet all the needs of the patients that are in the region, We're almost to 600,000 patients or 600,000 people outside of Shelby County in West Tennessee. It does take that group of 600,000 plus people. We feel like when we reach out into those services, when you need that cardiovascular care, that very, very specialized orthopedic cardiovascular, or neurosurgery, et cetera, all the sub-specialties, we can function well as a system if we have those in Jackson, but we're reaching out across the region to care for those patients in those settings.

Shea:

People may call it Jackson General, but it's really a whole system of Pathways, and Sports Plus, and all the different divisions like you're mentioning. It's a huge system with a lot of support and services for our whole community.

Tina Prescott:

Definitely.

Shea:

It's definitely grown from just that one flagship hospital to now eight hospitals.

Tina Prescott:

To celebrate that with 75 years, one thing I'm proud of for that 75 years. We stand on the shoulders of so many leaders and so many wonderful leaders that have really built that for 75 years. They've done such a good job of not only growing what our region has access to, those specialty services, but providing rural health care is a huge thing to be doing these days. It's very hard to do health care in those rural settings. We should be proud of that, that we reach out in rural areas. We were able to provide those really specialized services in Jackson, for that whole region, and that we do it with our financial sustainability right there at the forefront of what we do. We're proud of that to be that safety net health care system that does it without tax support. The community, I think we should be really proud that we're doing that. We stand on the shoulders of people who have been very good with their stewardship and financial sustainability goals, and we continue that.

Shea:

Yeah, that's huge about being able to sustain that growth. You mentioned leaders and the leaders that West Tennessee Healthcare has had. Of course, we were all saddened by the loss of a longtime leader and former President and CEO, J.R. Ross of West Tennessee Healthcare. Tell us about his impact and legacy. If you need a minute, we'll take a minute.

Tina Prescott:

Yeah, that's... Grief hits you at different times. I apologize.

Carrie:

That's okay.

Tina Prescott:

He is definitely missed. That's the understatement, probably, of the century. We miss him. J.R., the legacy that he will provide to that health care system, it's so hard to just put it into a short sentence, but I do think that when I try to boil that down is J.R. Was a friend to everyone. He really embodied that verse of a friend loveth at all times. He was that way with everyone, whether it was the patient in front of him, or if it was the team that he was leading, or any visitor or family or anything like that. He just tried to treat people as friends and love on them; tried to meet the need of whoever was in front of him and really make a difference in their lives. That was his life motto, "meet the need and make a difference". That's incorporated into our culture as well. That's what we do every day. We're not there just to meet the need. We really want to make a difference in our patients', families', and visitors' lives. I think that will be his legacy as we look back on what he did for that health system.

Tina Prescott:

He had a huge focus on people and the person in front of him.

Shea:

It should be our motto here, at West Tennessee Healthcare, everywhere, meet the need and make a difference. That's great.

Carrie:

I love that. Thanks for sharing that. So I know that you all do so much for families across West Tennessee. Do you have a recent story that you might want to share about that?

Tina Prescott:

Sure, I'm very proud of the access we provide. As we've grown as a system over these 75 years; grown from one hospital into the system of hospitals, this network of clinics and outpatient centers and things that. What we are growing toward and have made a lot of progress in is where we want people, when they meet us for that first time, hopefully in a primary care clinic where we're helping prevent disease and make sure that people are living healthier, but when they do get sick, that wherever they meet us, we can make sure that they have access to the care they need, whether in their local community, first and foremost. We always try to keep our patients in those local communities if possible, but if they need services, we want to be able to get them to where they need to be. That might be Jackson, might be another one of our sister hospitals in Dyersburg, Paris, et cetera. One story that just touched my heart recently was one of our patients sharing; it was a heart reunion of sorts, our heart patient reunion, and a patient shared how he had met us first in the Dyersburg Emergency Department. Came in; ended up he was having a heart attack, so some chest pain, ended up being a heart attack.

Tina Prescott:

Those physicians were in that ER team. He just bragged on them and was so thankful for the they gave him. Then they got him to Jackson to our heart surgeons. He then told stories about how wonderful that heart surgeon was, and then his partner in covering for him, and then the cardiovascular ICU team, the nurses on the floor, the housekeeping staff, our environmental services team. He talked about our physical therapist and how they motivated him to get him up walking and things. He was so appreciative and so excited to come back and thank everyone for the care provided. I think that's what we sometimes lose sight of, is this huge team of people that pull together every single day and that it makes such a difference in those patients' lives. So, proud of that, and that's just an example of how the system works, right? Wherever you meet us, we can get you to where you need to be within that system for care.

Carrie:

So important.

Shea:

Yeah, and I can attest to the great service. We had a baby just a few months ago, and our second born at Jackson General. So, of course, great care and great nurses and delivery staff. So, it was fantastic. A lot of our listeners may not know that in 1983, back and even before that, Jackson General had a credit union in the hospital, Jackson General Employees Credit Union, and it actually merged forces with leaders. We were known at the time as Jackson Madison County Teachers Credit Union. I think our name reflected the fact that we served leaders in the community. It was nurses and health care workers. It was teachers and doctors and educational professionals. Tell us about what that partnership means because we've been involved with West Tennessee Health Care for about 40 years.

Tina Prescott:

You have, yeah. I remember as a new employee, having those options at our annual enrollment for benefits. We've always seen Leaders right there. That's how employees see our partnership, first and foremost, at orientation. We appreciate the partnership with Leaders. I remember as we moved from a paper check into a direct deposit situation where we were like, "Okay, all the checks are going to be direct deposited." That's where I remember hearing the most about the partnership at that time during my employment to say, Leaders Credit Union is the one who's going to make sure that if you need that checking account, they're the ones that are going to step up. I've seen that grow where we do see you a partner in the financial well-being. We want to take care of our employees, too. We feel like that we do try to offer different benefits, and so Leaders is that partner in that and how we offer them some financial well-being and education and access to the things that we have through the partnership. Very appreciative.

Shea:

You all are helping the community be physically well and mentally well. We're wanting to help employees, but also the community be financially well. It's a great partnership.

Tina Prescott:

It is.

Carrie:

We're very grateful for our partnership with you guys.

Tina Prescott:

Yes, we are as well.

Carrie:

Of course, now that we're talking about finances, this is a financial podcast. We did want to ask, what was the best financial advice you've ever been given?

Tina Prescott:

I laugh when people talk about Dave Ramsey because I feel like I was raised by Dave Ramsey a little bit. My dad was definitely one who taught us, he taught us about living within your means, right? Then when you want something, it's working hard to pay for that. I think that's where a lot where a lot of my work ethic came from is just seeing how hard my parents worked to save up for things that we wanted, they wanted for us, working hard to do that and living within your means. Just because you want it doesn't mean you can just immediately get it. That's instant gratification, right? It's not always the smart financial decision. I'm very proud to say that he was a wonderful counselor on that financial side. I also had really the insight of a pharmacist when I was working in the surgical ICU who was all about retirement. If there was downtime or something, I remember him just really educating all of us as we were hanging around, waiting on something. We talked about retirement, and he talked how he was planning for retirement. I was probably 23, 24 at the time, but it hit me.

Tina Prescott:

It's like, I need to start planning now. If I start planning now, he was talking about how that money would just grow. It struck a nerve with me, and I started making sure that I was optimizing what West Tennessee Healthcare was offering. Don't leave money on the table. If they're matching a 403(b), you put that in there. He was very instrumental on the retirement side of just a casual conversation with a group of nurses and our clinical folks hanging around and talking about stuff. Very grateful.

Shea:

Yeah, that's important.

Tina Prescott:

It was a great advice.

Shea:

It's important to just have those people behind your back just to motivate you and encourage you to take those financial decisions. It's good. Since this is the Pocket Change podcast. We always ask our guests, if you had any extra change in your pocket or pocket change, what would you spend it on?

Tina Prescott:

I think I would give it away. I don't know. I think I'd donated. I just have that heart for charity and things like that. We've got a lot of things that we do. I would probably give it to our Hope and Healing Foundation within the healthcare system. We're really focused on trying to do some things with a hospice house and our employee fund. I mentioned earlier where we want to take care of each other so that we can take care of all the patients. Well, that's one of the things we do. We try to take care of our employees when they hit these hard times and maybe a house burns or something happens within their family. That employee fund comes through for our employees and making sure. I'd probably give it to that.

Carrie:

Great idea. Well, we thank you so much, Tina, for being with us today.

Tina Prescott:

You're welcome. I'm very honored to be here today and get to talk about the healthcare system. One of my favorite things to talk about.