Recently, 22 of our managers and operations directors completed the Advancing Leaders Program (ALP), a partnership with Mountain Park and Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions. This external leadership training provided Mountain Park staff with tools to maximize productivity and collaborate together as a team.

“When organizations grow as much as Mountain Park has in such a short amount of time, they need to be efficient and sustainable in how they prepare their leaders and mangers,” said Anielka Contreras, Assistant Director of Executive Education at the College of Health Solutions. “We help organizations prepare for the growth and challenges that come with it by providing leaders with a curriculum that is crafted toward a specific organization.”

Over the years many Mountain Park employees who began their professional journeys in non-managerial positions were promoted from within because of their hard work and drive.

“By providing our staff with career development opportunities and tuition reimbursement, we are encouraging them to grow their career path,” Chris Rossini, HR Director said. “This gives the employees  a goal to strive for.”

The Advancing Leaders Program was comprised of face-to-face and online sessions that focused on interpersonal impact, business and financials, and leadership and change. Learning topics included conflict management, traits of an organization and process management. The goal was to not only help our leaders grow but to advance the organization as a whole by learning about today’s competitive healthcare environment.

“We talked a lot about the background of the healthcare industry, in addition to history and effective tools for organizations,” said Mary Jo Lancaster, our Care Coordination Manager and an ALP participant. “Early on, we were placed in small groups and every team chose a project to work on.”

Each team brainstormed ideas and solutions that would positively impact Mountain Park, such as employee satisfaction, project management and customer service skills. The groups focused on collaboration and gave participants an opportunity to work on real-life situations that Mountain Park was looking to improve.

To date, key parts of the projects have been implemented. One in particular came from Mary Jo’s group.

“We developed a workshop for our Customer Service Representatives to help them with various aspects of their jobs,” Mary Jo shared. “Parts of our project are also being used in our Medical Assistant Orientation and will be implemented into an onboarding a workshop for our CSRs.”

After nine months, our leaders were able to strengthen their skills and knowledge in topics key to the roles they play at Mountain Park. Additionally, they worked together to develop new ideas that will help Mountain Park provide better care for our patients and staff in the long run.