Defining Women as Hospital Administrators; PHNS Survey Reveals Lifestyle, Attitudes of Women Hospital Leadership.

DALLAS -- Today's female healthcare executive has ascended to administrative ranks through nursing, spends her free time reading mysteries and romance novels, and balances her career by ranking family time as the number one activity outside the hospital work environment.

Those are some of the findings of a survey conducted by PHNS, a Texas-based healthcare services company that specializes in helping hospitals enhance healthcare through technology and improved business processes. They recently surveyed 150 female hospital CEOs across the country.

"Our earlier survey uncovered the rise of women hospital administrators and CEOs, and a high percentage of these executives were nurses first in their careers," said Richard Kneipper, co-founder and chief administrative officer of PHNS. "We were curious to learn how their similar career paths have affected their attitudes and approach to issues such as patient safety, privacy, technology and healthcare's future."

PHNS discovered some differences between the female hospital executives and their male peers.

Female healthcare executives, like their male counterparts, believe patient safety is the number one priority in healthcare today. However, a large majority of women CEOs believe improved safety will occur through improved relationships, training, culture and communication in the workplace. This is a notable finding in an environment where most IT companies tout their software or hardware solutions as the magic wand that will provide all the answers on patient safety.

"The women who were surveyed supported solutions that were collaborative, self-imposed, and focused on changing culture, not just computers, to make healthcare safer," said Kneipper. "We are hearing many calls from Washington to jumpstart an improvement in safety through new capital expenditures, but the female executive is saying that it is not a panacea solution."

"Even though we are an IT company," said Kneipper, "We agree. You can't improve quality, safety, and confidence by changing computers and software. That's not how change happens. Instead, it occurs when there are changes in attitudes as well as aptitudes."

More than 90% of responding female hospital CEOs believe that information technology is one of the many tools that will play a major role in promoting patient safety, versus the less than 9% who viewed IT as the single most important tool.

The PHNS survey also began to reveal the personality of today's female CEO.

According to the survey, these leaders seem to have learned the art of balance in their lives. More than 40% spend spare time with their husbands, families, grandchildren and friends. Following family time, (nearly one-third) say they read mystery novels in their down time.

"That caught our attention, but, after consideration, it makes sense," said Kneipper. "Like patient care, mysteries are not predictable and they present problems to solve. Every nurse or former nurse is a problem-solver. For example, she (or he) may be looking for clues to a patient's pain, and it takes innate listening skills to find the clues that will help bring resolution for a patient. Nursing can be a 24-7 mystery."

The survey also seems to prove that the American readers' preoccupation for romance novels stretches into the female healthcare ranks. After mysteries, the survey revealed a passion for the passionate when the execs said they favored romance novels.

"To me, it's the same characteristic as the lure of the mystery novel," said Kneipper. "Both fiction types are tidy, optimistic, thoughtful, and they resolve problems. That's the same approach, we think, that is being taken by today's emerging female healthcare CEO."

Finally, the survey discovered another commonality among the CEOs. They like to walk. The survey showed that, for relaxation, these women walk, hike, jog, take the dog around the block, and, in general, like to move their legs. Only a handful listed golf as an outside activity.

Regarding the "meaning" of the results, Kneipper had one comment. "The female hospital CEO is poised to have an enormous impact on healthcare in both the short and long term," said Kneipper. "We believe the values and beliefs represented in this survey will, in fact, be the universal guiding principles for patient safety and patient care for a number of years to come."

About PHNS

PHNS provides information technology, health information management, coding, transcription and receivables management services to approximately 160 hospitals. PHNS offers hospitals a unique way to improve business processes through creative and innovative technology solutions that maximize people, platforms and technology.

Please contact Suzanne Gentry at 214-706-6000 or [e-mail] to obtain copies of the survey or to schedule an interview. For information on PHNS, visit http://www.phns.com.