Decades Interview with Jillian Springer '07, M'10

Jillian Springer '07, '10
Cardiovascular Service Line Executive
Sutter Health Valley Area
San Francisco Bay Area, CA

Jillian Springer '07, '10 opted for a career in health care because it was something she “could be passionate about every day.” Graduating from Trinity with a degree in business administration (finance) in 2007, she chose Trinity’s HCAD Program because she felt challenged and inspired by its central mission of helping people help people.

“Having a career in health care administration would allow me to connect back to purpose on a daily basis," she says. And connect she did.

For almost a decade, Jillian has been at the forefront of modernizing and improving health care. As an Administrative Resident at California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) in San Francisco, a Sutter Health affiliate, she experienced unions, a hospital rebuild process and Joint Commission, all within the context of a larger health system that serves 1% of the nation’s population. She also led CPMC’s preparation and successful visit response for the California Department of Public Health’s pilot Patient Safety Licensing Survey and became a Certified Lean Workshop Leader during the year.

A promotion to the role of Manager for Neurosciences challenged her with responsibility for CPMC’s stroke, epilepsy, EEG, Alzheimer’s and dementia and neurology telemedicine programs areas, as well as an ophthalmology clinic, diagnostic center and residency program. In that position, she built a telemedicine program that covered an area from the Oregon border to California’s San Joaquin Valley, oversaw an operational turnaround where she discovered and addressed serious issues, including anti-kickback and start violations and employee feuds and layoffs.

“This experience taught me that not everyone is engaged in doing what is right,” she says, “and that doing what is easy can sometimes get in the way.”

She also encountered “the opportunity and challenge of a lifetime.” When the hospital received a $21 million endowment gift for an Alzheimer’s and dementia program, Jillian was charged with developing, opening and operating it. Her responsibilities ran the gamut from managing construction, creating a charge master, developing policies, and hiring and training staff, to meeting expectations of the donor family.

She was also one of only 25 selected annually from across the Sutter Health System for its prestigious, nine-month internal Leadership Academy. A year later, Jillian was part of a small group of leaders tasked with revamping the annual Sutter Health President’s Award with a focus on partnership and innovation. After winning an organization-wide vote, her stroke telemedicine program won the inaugural first place award.

When a telemedicine company tried to recruit her, CPMC “re-recruited” her to lead its telehealth efforts as Regional Director for Sutter Health’s West Bay Region, as well as to continue leading their Ray Dolby Brain Health Center (RDBHC). She also led pilot programs in cardiology, pediatrics and neurology telemedicine and launched CPMC’s research and education components for the RDBHC.

A move to Sutter Care at Home (SCAH) as Valley Area Regional Director of Hospice Operations presented a new set of challenges. Encountering an unprecedented number of high-level executive departures, Jillian, at one point, was covering three layers of leadership simultaneously. Still, she managed to turn the financially troubled region around.

Last fall, Jillian became Cardiovascular Service Line Executive for Sutter Health’s Valley Area, responsible for strategic planning and clinical integration of that service line across all Sutter Health Valley hospitals, medical foundations, medical groups and private practices. She says the most rewarding and stressful aspects of the job are the same: “building trust with multiple stakeholders and finding common ground where little or none existed before.”

After only 45 days on the job, Jillian kicked off her region's participation in its new Bundled Payment for Care Improvement (BPCI)-Advanced Pilot for two clinical episodes: Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) for Inpatient and Outpatient.

“We decided to participate at three hospitals with private practice and Sutter Health medical group doctors,” she says. “We will work to improve quality as a collective group and will be rewarded, or not, as one so this is a great step in the direction of clinical integration through a mechanism that supports aligned incentives. This new pilot allows us to come together and tackle challenges across the continuum of care so that each of our PCI patients served in the Valley Area receive the highest quality care from start to finish.”

Currently just back to work after maternity leave—her son was born last November—Jillian and her husband, Justin Borsuk, who received a degree in communication from Trinity in 2004, are “enjoying our incredibly animated, happy boy.” When time permits, they enjoy hiking the canyon and nature areas behind their East Bay home, sampling the wonderfully diverse food in their neighborhood, and visiting family and friends.

“I always look back and think how Trinity's undergraduate and HCAD Program taught me how to learn in a way that prepared me for the real world,” Jillian says. “My goal as a leader is to motivate, challenge and inspire others to do the work that is required to support the health of the community where I live.”