It was 2007 and Stephany Nihipali Vaioleti got her first taste of what it meant to run a hospital when she stepped in as interim administrator at Kahuku Hospital. With nearly a decade of serving patients as a social worker under her belt, she knew the ins and outs of the facility like the back of her hand. The hospital was in trouble, facing funding challenges that threatened the end of essential services for the 26-mile rural region it served. With a strong desire to help the community she cared deeply for, Vaioleti accepted the role of COO in 2008, and three years later became CEO.
When the hospital became an affiliate of the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, the move that allowed it to remain open, Vaioleti’s first priorities were to forge strong community and internal relationships and to assist with this critical restructuring. She guided the hospital’s rebranding as Kahuku Medical Center (KMC) and focused on reducing its financial vulnerability, thereby improving access to health care for 18,000 Ko‘olauloa and North Shore residents as well as one million visitors a year. And since KMC had been designated as a Critical Access Hospital in 2002, increasing utilization and maximizing reimbursement from insurance companies were also crucial objectives. “As an organization, we knew that the only way to go was up, so we hunkered down and got to work,” Vaioleti says.
Today in the role of CEO, Vaioleti guides organizational management, board relationships, fund development, strategic planning and community partnerships—all the while overseeing 180 employees and physicians. From handling compliance issues to researching innovative new technology, there’s a constant barrage of decisions to be made. Much of her time is spent working to counteract the challenges of running a rural medical care facility: remote location, small size, limited workforce, physician shortages, waning financial resources and looming Medicare and Medicaid payment cuts.
Vaioleti’s achievements include successfully implementing electronic health records (EHR), recouping $1.6 million from the federal EHR incentive program, guiding the expansion of hospital services to include primary and computed tomography (CT scanning), adding a primary care clinic and growing emergency room visits by more than one-third from 2011. Her hard work has not gone unnoticed. In 2015, KMC earned the Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval for Hospital Accreditation, the nation’s highest standards for safety and quality of care. Under her leadership, Kahuku Medical Center was also named a Top 20 Critical Access Hospital by the National Rural Health Association, with a patient satisfaction rate of 93 percent.
Vaioleti feels her efforts to build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with physicians, employees and the community are the most important aspects of her daily grind. “In order to do my job well, I have to constantly find new ways to connect with people,” she says. “I want to become the most thoughtful communicator possible and help unleash the human potential in everyone around me.” She regularly practices Rounding for Outcomes, a quality-assurance process involving feedback from patients, physicians, staff and other key stakeholders. “By asking ‘how are we doing, and what can we do to be better?’ we’ve been able to experience spikes in both patient and employee satisfaction,” she says.
One element that Vaioleti feels is integral to the hospital’s enduring success is the drive to serve others and be an agent of change. “I really feel my work is a calling, and because I have been given much, there is a responsibility to give back,” she says. “Every day, I’m humbled and honored to serve my community. It’s an incredible feeling knowing I’m making a difference.” One of her favorite reads, The Leadership Challenge, describes the kind of leader she aspires to be and stresses the importance of always ensuring your core values align with the organization’s values.
Her professional accomplishments are many—she’s a William S. Richardson School of Law graduate, an Omidyar Fellow, a Pacific Century Fellow, a Native Hawaiian Health Scholar and a Thomas C. Dolan Executive Diversity Scholar—but at the end of the day, Vaioleti’s goal is to honor her family’s legacy and to be an exceptional role model for her two daughters. When she was growing up in La‘ie, her parents founded a local American Youth Soccer Organization program and organized Police Activities League basketball to encourage quality time together and create sports opportunities that were lacking in that community. “I discovered at a young age that hard work, perseverance and community service paved the way to learning about teamwork, leadership and being proactive,” she says. “I’ve always emphasized to my girls that it’s important to be self-sufficient. I want for them to be kind to themselves, others and our world.”
svaioleti@kmc-hi.org
