A time for opportunity: a hospital with virtually no nursing shortage and a 24-year record of net positive income? We must be dreaming. Could such an organization exist?

Healthcare Financial Management, Feb, 2004 by Leonard J. Dryer, Jr.

I make it a point to ask managers, "Can I come spend an hour in your department and hang out, just so I know what's going on?" Last year, I was up in the bone marrow transplant unit, and they were actually doing a transplant at the time. You think, "Wow. That's what I'm working for."

ABOUT LEN DRYER

Len Dryer has been with The Children's Hospital since 1982, serving as CFO since 1990. He holds an MBA from the University of Colorado at Denver.

ABOUT THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

The Children's Hospital is a 236-bed private, not-for-profit pediatric healthcare system that was founded in 1908. It has 10,000 inpatient admissions and 340,000 outpatient visits per year. U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked it "One of the Nation's Best Children's Hospitals" for more than a decade.

DRYER ON PRODUCTIVITY

Our director of managed care and director of patient financial services offer a class for all our managers called "Revenue 101." It's designed to educate clinical and nonclinical managers in our organization about the healthcare marketplace. We also offer Accounting 101 and Finance 101 for nonfinancial managers.

We think these classes broaden the managers' understanding of the healthcare environment outside the areas of patient care. They encourage managers to make decisions that benefit Children's, such as those that increase efficiency, by presenting information about issues such as productivity and flexible budgeting.

Leonard J. Dryer, Jr., senior vice president and CFO of The Children's Hospital, Denver, is proud to answer in the affirmative. In this interview with hfm, Dryer discussed how Children's is able to retain its nurses, why the hospital is moving to a new campus, and why he thinks hospitals should embrace some of today's health care challenges.