Recognition seems to naturally follow Lucille Janatka.
The president and CEO of MidState Medical Center in Meriden has been honored numerous times for her work, and MidState itself has received accolades, both locally and nationally, for its patient care, work environment, and community outreach, under her leadership.
Two members of MidState’s board of directors said Janatka is the one of the top executive-level manager they’ve ever seen.
And still, there was Janatka on the day of Feb. 23, dishing out ice cream to MidState’s staff during an employee event.
“Lucille’s got it all together,” said MidState Chairman Lloyd Nurick. “She not only knows her stuff, she feels things the right way.”
Since Janatka took over at MidState in 1999, the facility has turned a profit each year, Nurick said. However, he quickly adds the former nurse has learned how to balance the financial responsibilities with patient and employee concerns.
“Her goals and focus are correct,” Nurick said. “She knows she’s running a hospital and the focus of a hospital is care. She is very much into high-quality care.”
To obtain that level of care, Janatka, who was named one of the Top 25 Women in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare Magazine in 2009 and is a member of the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, was tasked with continuing the transition of the staffs from the old Veterans’ Memorial Medical Center, which had two distinct campuses operating from a previous merger.
Those two hospitals were closed and reopened under the MidState banner in 1998. She also realized early on that she needed to raise both the profile and community involvement of the staff, she said.
“Oftentimes, the particular event creates the leader,” Janatka said. “When I came, a lot of healing needed to be done in the community…It really was about building brides and opening lines of communication.”
Last year, the Greater Meriden Chamber of Commerce honored MidState with its Shining Star Award for dedication and commitment to the greater Meriden area.
“She is a leader to be admired,” said Cindy Russo, vice president of patient care services. “She uses a very participatory style of management. I think she gives people the opportunity to step up to the plate … she built a culture in which the entire employee base feels as though they are stakeholders.”
“I’m very respectful of people and what they bring to the table,” said Janatka, who oversees more than 1,200 employees at MidState. “If you respect what people bring to the table, you have a better product in the end.”
Part of that culture, said Nurick, is something called non-punitive correction. When assessing a problem, Janatka looks at the entire situation to find the root cause.
“You assume it’s the system and not the person, and you go back to see if [the mistake was caused] by something systematic. As a result, people aren’t afraid to say they made a mistake,” Nurick explained.
That helped MidState earned the No. 16 spot in the nation on a ranking of the best small and medium sized companies to work for in America in 2005 by the Great Place to Work Institute and Society for Human Resource Management. The Connecticut Nurses Association awarded it an Excellence in the Work Place Award in 2006.
Janatka, for her part, talks about the “customers” of the hospital and sees herself more as a mentor to the staff than as a top executive.
“I consider myself to be a servant-leader,” she said. “I consider my job as really serving the staff. Whatever tools they need, it’s my job to make sure they have them.”
Janatka also works hard at preparing her staff to progress in their careers. “MidState has really developed executive management (during her tenure), not just in Hartford Healthcare, but for other hospitals as well,” said Larry McGoldrick, who just finished a two-year term in January as chairman. “Lucille has guided MidState very, very effectively.”
Janatka also holds the title of senior vice president of Hartford HealthCare, Mid-State’s parent company.
She credits much of her administrative development to Ted Horwitz, MidState’s previous CEO. Horwitz tutored Janatka during her tenure at the Meriden-Wallingford Hospital before she left in 1990 to serve as vice president of Greenwich Hospital. Janatka replaced Horwitz when he retired. “He was very inspirational in my career,” Janatka said.
It was Horwitz who encouraged Janatka to set a high bar for herself.
“At one point, he asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I thought I wanted to be a chief operating officer,” Janatka said. “And he said, ‘why not the CEO?’ Don’t settle for something less than you can be.”
During her tenure, MidState has undergone three major expansions, including the opening of a new emergency room in 2010 that has cut wait times.
“We’ve very patient centered,” Janatka said. “There are times we have competing philosophies (i.e. budget versus patient care), but if we just focus on what our key goal is, which is excellent patient care,” the hospital financials will be fine.
McGoldrick says Janatka possesses a rare combination of management skills.
“I differentiate being a leader from being a manager,” said McGoldrick, who has more than 40 years of business experience. “Some people are good leaders and some are good managers. It’s really a unique thing when someone is very good at both. She’s very good at both.”
Name: Lucille Janatka
Occupation: President & CEO, MidState Medical Center and senior vice president of Hartford HealthCare
Location of Business: Meriden
You should know: In 2003, MidState was the first hospital to win the Connecticut Breakthrough Quality Award and in winning its second Press Ganey Success Story Award in 2008, MidState ranked in the 98th percentile for physician satisfaction. Janatka, who has a bachelor’s in nursing degree from St. Anselm College and a master’s in nursing degree from Boston College, was awarded the Strong, Smart & Bold Award by Girls Inc. in Meriden for her community leadership role, and was given a Regent’s Award – Outstanding Connecticut Healthcare Executive, in 2005 by the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). She is also a fellow with the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Favorite coffee spot: In her kitchen nook, looking out at the woods at her Woodbury home.
