Mountain Valley featured at the Association of Hospice and Home Care Leadership Conference

Mountain Valley President & CEO Tracey Dobson shares the organization’s approach to culture at the AHHC Leadership Conference

What does workplace culture have to do with the care patients and families receive? At Mountain Valley, we believe the answer is: almost everything.

That was part of the message Mountain Valley President & CEO Tracey Dobson, MSN, RN, shared recently at the AHHC Leadership Conference. Tracey joined Dan Dunlop of Jennings Health to present Culture Is the Brand: How Healthcare Organizations Can Attract, Retain, and Inspire Their Teams.

The presentation focused in part on one of the most significant challenges facing healthcare organizations today: attracting and retaining talented people. But Tracey’s message went beyond recruitment and retention. She shared something we have learned through our own experience at Mountain Valley: when you intentionally create a culture where people feel valued, trusted, supported and heard, patients and families ultimately benefit.

Great care begins with great culture

Hospice and serious illness care are deeply human forms of healthcare. Our team members enter people’s homes and lives during some of their most vulnerable moments. They are asked to listen, understand what matters to each person and family, manage complex needs and simply be present when presence may be what matters most.

Doing that work well requires clinical expertise. It also requires compassion, judgment, time and the freedom to respond to the person in front of you. That is why culture matters.

At Mountain Valley, we have worked intentionally to create an environment where team members know their voices matter. We want leaders to listen. We want people to feel trusted to use their experience and judgment. We want team members to know they can ask for help and that someone will be there when the work feels heavy.

One phrase we use is “See the need, take the lead.” It reflects our belief that the people closest to a patient or family should feel empowered to respond when they see an opportunity to make the experience better.

Culture is something we practice

During the conference presentation, Tracey emphasized that culture isn’t something an organization can simply write on a website or hang on a wall. It is created through what people experience every day. It shows up in whether people are listened to. It shows up in how leaders respond when someone makes a mistake. It shows up in whether team members have the time they need to care for a patient rather than feeling pressured to move on to the next task. And it shows up in whether people know they are valued as human beings, not simply as employees.

As Tracey has said, culture is fluid. It is something we have to work on every single day. That also means we will not always get it right. Building a strong culture requires listening, learning and sometimes having candid and uncomfortable conversations. It means being willing to ask what is working, what isn’t and what we can do better.

The patient feels the difference

Ultimately, our focus on culture isn’t about creating a great place to work simply for the sake of being a great place to work. It is about care.

When team members feel supported, they are better able to support others. When they feel heard, they are more likely to listen. When they are trusted, they can focus their energy on what a patient or family needs rather than simply checking a box. And when people know that their work matters, they can bring more of themselves to the people they serve. That connection between culture and care was at the heart of Tracey’s message at the AHHC Leadership Conference.

For more than 40 years, Mountain Valley has been privileged to care for patients and families across our communities. As we continue to grow, our challenge is not simply to preserve our culture, but to keep practicing it, strengthening it and learning from one another. Because behind every conversation about workplace culture is something much more important: the experience of a patient and family who have entrusted us with their care.

At Mountain Valley, Every Moment Matters.