Veteran Orange County hospital executive Julie Miller-Phipps wasn? expecting a hard hat to be part of her daily job attire.
But the executive will be donning just that for the next few years.
Miller-Phipps, a senior vice president and Orange County executive director for Kaiser Permanente, will be overseeing construction on one of the largest projects coming on line in Orange County: a $560 million, 262-bed hospital with 10 operating rooms in Anaheim that is set to get under way in late August or early September.
? feel like I? in the construction business,?Miller-Phipps said. ? should have taken blueprint reading when I was in my graduate program.?
Miller-Phipps, who? been in her current job for seven years and has spent most of her entire 32-year career with the Oakland-based not-for-profit Kaiser, was one of five OC executives and entrepreneurs honored at the Business Journal? 15th annual Women in Business award luncheon May 21 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.
??e been really humbled by the whole experience,?Miller-Phipps said about the luncheon. ? just take my whole team in my pocket with me because I? just a reflection of what they?e been able to accomplish. It? been an amazing last year.?
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Rendering of Kaiser Anaheim: $560 million project set to open in 2013 |
Miller-Phipps is in charge of the operations of OC? largest health maintenance organization with 392,000 members, a group medical practice, medical office buildings and a home health agency. She? responsible for 5,500 staff members and doctors and has an operating budget of $696 million.
And Miller-Phipps will get a shiny new hospital to run come early 2013, when Kaiser Anaheim opens. The hospital is set to replace Kaiser? aging facility on Lakeview Avenue that? been around since the mid-1970s.
Kaiser? Anaheim hospital, Miller-Phipps said, ?ill be for all intents and purposes, an identical copy?of its year-old Irvine hospital on Sand Canyon Avenue, but it will have a different campus layout.
She said she expects getting Kaiser Anaheim built will be easier than building the Irvine facility, since it? her second go at the process.
?here? a little less anxiety this time about what to expect and what to look for,?she said. ?he hardest part is making sure that I? still focusing the right amount of attention on operations and not getting so much of my time taken up with that project.?
Last year, Kaiser opened the centerpiece of its $400 million complex in the Irvine Spectrum, the 150-bed hospital on Sand Canyon. That was the first entirely new hospital built in OC since Irvine Regional Hospital and Medical Center opened 19 years ago.
Irvine Regional closed in January.
Kaiser-Sand Canyon, Miller-Phipps said, ?as been a big help?in providing more services to South County and driving membership growth in Kaiser. The health plan has picked up 6,400 new members so far this year.
?t? a big beautiful building, so it? very visible,?she said.
As for what will happen to Lakeview once the new Anaheim hospital? opened, Kaiser is working with its board and evaluating what it could possibly do with the site after it opens, Miller-Phipps said.
?e may tear down and rebuild. We may sell it off. We may sell off a portion,?she said.
Kaiser could consider building a primary care office on the site because it has a significant number of members in North County.
Both of Kaiser? hospitals are part of the organization? ?emplate program,?which it developed in conjunction with the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, California? hospital regulator, to speed the permit and review process for its new hospitals.
Kaiser Career
? really, really believe in what our organization is doing,?Miller-Phipps said. ?t makes it a joy to come to work because the medical management partnership within Kaiser Permanente is absolutely the right way that medicine should be practiced.?
Miller-Phipps, 52, holds a bachelor? degree from California State University, Fullerton, in sociology, and a master? degree in healthcare administration from the University of La Verne.
She began her healthcare career in 1977, when she worked in the materials management department of what then was Canyon General Hospital in Anaheim.
Kaiser acquired Canyon General in 1979 and Miller-Phipps worked her way up the ladder, including taking a management job in the organization? finance department.
She also opened up Kaiser? medical center in Riverside and has worked at four different hospitals within the organization.
Miller-Phipps didn? come from a traditional hospital executive background and has no nursing or clinical experience.
That doesn? faze her.
? feel like once you hit a certain level, you can provide leadership, no matter what,?she said.
It? important to ?lways (get) out in front of enough of your staff frequently and often so they can develop a trust in you and that they can start to share your vision,?she said.
Leaders, according to Miller-Phipps, must provide vision, direction, mentoring, coaching and problem-solving.
?hose are not things that require a clinical degree nor do they require a man to do,?she said with a chuckle. ?one of this is rocket science. I try really hard to hire great people and really mentor and coach them, based on my experience and my passion, and then I get out of their way and let them do their jobs.?enews_Column=0
