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My career spans hospital CEO leadership, enterprise strategy, and multi-hospital…
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Michael J. Mulkey posted thisI once learned that the hospital I was leading might be sold. Nothing was final. There were more questions than answers, and I wasn't in a position to share what I knew. I'll admit, my mind went everywhere. What would happen to the hospital? The employees? The physicians? The community? And if a sale happened, I knew senior leadership wasn't exactly the safest place to be. Then I had to go back to work. People still needed decisions. Patients still needed care. The hospital still had to run. In my office, I kept our Mission, Vision and Values handwritten where I could see them. I'd done that for years because I wanted them in front of me when hard decisions showed up. There were days when sharing what I knew would have taken some of the weight off me. But what would I really have been sharing? Not facts. Possibilities. I would have been handing that uncertainty to hundreds of other people when there was nothing they could do with it. So I waited, kept leading and protected the confidentiality I had been entrusted with. The sale never happened. All of those scenarios I'd played through in my head went away with it. The weight of carrying them didn't leave quite as quickly. I still believe in transparency. But that experience changed how I think about it. Sharing what you know matters. Knowing when you actually know enough to share matters too. Sometimes leadership means carrying uncertainty without making everyone else carry it with you.
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Michael J. Mulkey reposted thisMichael J. Mulkey reposted thisPink Out is this Thursday. Join us and learn about new technology coming to Willamette, hear from our providers, and learn about the Willamette Valley Cancer Foundation patient support program. See you there!
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Michael J. Mulkey posted thisFor several months, one of our outpatient services was growing by double digits. We were happy about it. More patients were choosing us, and that meant more access to care. Eventually I asked the department director a pretty simple question: Why are we growing, and can we repeat it? The answer was, "We don't know." That got my attention. We dug into it and learned that one of our local competitors had lost its contract with an imaging provider. We hadn't created the growth. The market had moved patients toward us. Meanwhile, our staff was stretched. Physicians were stretched. And because we hadn't seen it coming, we were reacting to demand instead of preparing for it. That changed the conversation. We adjusted staffing and operating hours around what was actually happening in the community. Some of those hours eventually extended into weekends to make sure patients could get the care they needed. I still believe growth is worth celebrating. But I became a lot more interested in understanding where it came from. Patients don't care which organization won or lost a contract. They care whether someone is there when they need care. Sometimes a good number is telling you that you're doing something right. Sometimes it's telling you that something changed around you. A leader needs to know the difference.
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Michael J. Mulkey reposted thisMichael J. Mulkey reposted thisWe’re proud to see Shannon’s extraordinary compassion and service highlighted in a recent News-Register feature, “Stopping By: Serving with a Gentle Heart.” The story beautifully captures what so many of us already know: Shannon leads with kindness, serves with humility, and makes a lasting difference in the lives of patients, colleagues, and our community. Congratulations, Shannon, on this well-deserved recognition and thank you for the heart you bring to everything you do. 💙 https://lnkd.in/gaqJvGgs
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Michael J. Mulkey posted thisI’ve learned to be careful when someone tells me a hospital is “busy.” Busy compared to what? I started asking that question more often as a CEO. Not because I didn’t believe people. Usually they were right. They were working hard and feeling the pressure. But “busy” doesn’t tell me where the problem is. I saw this clearly in the operating room. We had prime-time minutes available in an OR each day. Once I started thinking about the day that way, I stopped asking whether the OR was busy and started asking what was happening to the minutes. That is a very different question. And over time, I realized I was applying the same thinking to almost everything else. When someone says we need more staff, I want to understand where the work is. When a service line needs more capital, I want to understand what constraint the capital actually removes. When we say we need to grow, I want to know where the patient is going today and why. When a project is a priority, I want to see where it shows up in the calendar, the budget and somebody’s accountability. I’m not suggesting everything important can be reduced to a number. Healthcare will cure you of that idea pretty quickly. But I have learned that vague language creates room for vague management. Words like busy, strategic, aligned and urgent can make a room feel like everyone agrees when we may not even be talking about the same problem. One of my jobs as a leader is to keep asking questions until the problem becomes specific enough that the organization can actually do something about it. That has probably become one of the simplest ways to describe how I think: I try to turn adjectives into questions.
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Michael J. Mulkey posted thisI used to put a lot of value on moving fast. I'd worked around incredibly smart people in environments where "grow, fast" was just the pace. When I moved into senior leadership, I wanted to prove I could build a strategy and get it moving. I did exactly that. But the team wasn't coming with me. My first reaction was frustration. I thought we had a good plan and couldn't understand why people weren't getting behind it. Then I started listening. The problem wasn't that people couldn't keep up. I had gotten ahead of them. I had spent so much time thinking about where we needed to go that I hadn't spent enough time understanding where the team was starting from. So I backed up. We changed some things. I explained more. I listened more. Eventually the work stopped feeling like my strategy and became something the team owned. Some of those systems were still being used after I left. That taught me more than getting them implemented quickly ever could. I thought slowing down meant losing momentum. Looking back, I hadn't created momentum yet. I was just moving fast.
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Michael J. Mulkey posted thisI’ve had to hand things over to the leader coming in behind me more than once in my career. It was always a strange exercise. You spend enough time leading people and you develop opinions. You know who challenged you, who made things easier, who frustrated you and who surprised you. Over time, I learned not to hand those opinions to the next leader. There were things that absolutely needed to be passed on. Commitments we’d made. Risks. Work that wasn’t finished. Things that mattered to the patients we served. Those were facts. My experience with someone was different. People respond differently to different leaders. Someone I struggled with might do really well under the next person. They deserved that chance without my experience becoming their starting point. So I passed along what the next leader needed to know. I tried to keep my verdicts to myself. And eventually, I had to put the pen down. The work wasn’t mine anymore. It might change. Some of it probably would. That was always the uncomfortable part of handing something over. It was also the point.
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Michael J. Mulkey posted thisWe were diverting ambulances about 280 hours a month. It was a real problem, and I had a young ED director who needed to fix it. My first instinct was to spend more time in the ED and help get it done. I knew I could move things faster. But that wouldn’t help a new director learn how to lead an ED through something like this. So I gave that director the goal and the authority to work through it. Patient safety was the line we wouldn’t cross. Everything else gave us some room to try things, make adjustments and learn. During our Code Surge drills, I started noticing that delegation was hard for that director. There were people and resources available, but they weren’t always being used. That’s where I stepped in to coach, not take over. I remember saying, “When I come to the desk, put me to work too. I can turn over rooms. Let the nurses stay with the patients.” Over time, we went from about 280 diversion hours a month to 6. The number mattered. Keeping ambulances available in the community mattered. But so did how we got there. That director didn’t need me to solve the problem. That director needed the chance to learn how to solve it.
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Michael J. Mulkey shared thisThe best ED group in Oregon. Busy hospital with the best teams in place and some of the Pacific Northwest’s best view and best wines in the surrounding area. For a physician, I would very highly recommend looking into this!Michael J. Mulkey shared thisOur ED group is #hiring. Know anyone who might be interested?
Michael J. Mulkey commented on a post
4w
And that sir, is a GREAT lesson in leadership!
Michael J. Mulkey replied to a comment
1mo
Chris Bell Thank you! I was glad they told me. If I’m asking people to speak up when I miss something, I have to make sure my response gives them a reason to do it again.
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Michael J. Mulkey reacted on thisMichael J. Mulkey reacted on thisMeaningful progress in healthcare begins with collaboration. I recently had the opportunity to meet with Holly Jeffreys, Texas State Representative candidate and member of the Northwest Texas Healthcare System ACO Governing Board, to discuss the evolving healthcare landscape and the needs of communities throughout the Texas Panhandle. These conversations are critical as healthcare leaders, policymakers, and community stakeholders work together to address challenges, strengthen rural healthcare, expand access to care, and improve outcomes for patients across our region. I am grateful for the opportunity to exchange perspectives and strengthen relationships that support the future of healthcare in the Panhandle. Together, we can continue advancing solutions that ensure quality, accessible healthcare for all Texans, especially those in rural and underserved communities. #NorthwestTexasHealthcareSystem #HealthcareLeadership #TexasPanhandle #RuralHealthcare #CommunityHealth #HealthEquity #AmarilloTexas #LeadershipMatters #HealthcareAccess #RuralTexas
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Michael J. Mulkey reacted on thisMichael J. Mulkey reacted on thisFlu season is here, and getting vaccinated is one of the easiest ways to help keep yourself and those around you healthy.
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Michael J. Mulkey reacted on thisMichael J. Mulkey reacted on thisPink Out is this Thursday. Join us and learn about new technology coming to Willamette, hear from our providers, and learn about the Willamette Valley Cancer Foundation patient support program. See you there!
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Michael J. Mulkey reacted on thisMichael J. Mulkey reacted on thisYesterday, I had the privilege of opening the Vizient Connections Summit 2026, which brought together a record 6,100 people from across healthcare, from the bedside to executive leadership, around a fitting theme: impact. In healthcare, impact is ultimately measured by what changes for the better, for the people who provide care, for the patients we serve and for the communities that depend on us. I spoke about the pace of change facing our industry and why technology has to earn its way into healthcare. It should solve a real problem, make work better for caregivers or improve care and outcomes for patients. Following my remarks, I had the opportunity to sit down with Vizient President and CEO Byron Jobe to discuss what leadership requires in this moment, including how we navigate constant change while keeping people at the center of transformation. It was a meaningful opportunity to reflect on what impact looks like in practice and what it will take to lead through the changes ahead. Thank you to Byron and the Vizient team for the opportunity. #VizientSummit #Impact #CommonSpiritHealth #HumankindnessLivesHere
Experience & Education
Volunteer Experience
Projects
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Enterprise Growth and Organizational Turnaround
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Trauma System Expansions
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Enterprise Growth and Organizational Turnaround
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Capital Expansions - Multiple Service Lines
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Enterprise Growth and Organizational Turnaround
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Multi-Hospital Strategy Deployment
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Enterprise Growth and Organizational Turnaround
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EMS Strategic Growth
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Enterprise Growth and Organizational Turnaround
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Market Share Turn Around - Multiple Service Lines
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Value-Based Care & Population Health
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Led WVMC to #1 national ranking
Directed QIP performance at 115%
Oversaw $200M SDOH funding through YCCO governance
Languages
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English
Native or bilingual proficiency
Organizations
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Labor & Workforce Leadership
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SEIU (Nevada) CNA (California) ONA (Oregon) Collective bargaining, contract negotiation, and dispute resolution Workforce realignment, retention, and culture rebuilding post-contract
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