2008 Health Care Heroes
Labyak envisions ‘much more than hospice’ for patients
Tampa Bay Business Journal - by Margaret Cashill Staff Writer
Media
Mary Labyak, president and CEO of The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast and this year’s Non-Acute Care Professional category winner, has a vision for her organization. “We hope to be the center of thought, action, deed and community mobilization,” she said.
Labyak was among the founders of the Hospice, which began in 1977. In the earliest years, quality end-of-life care was not widely available. The Hospice was started to create a safe, humane environment for people facing their final days.
While the founding of the Hospice coincided with the beginning of a national hospice movement, the Hospice has always been a step ahead of its contemporaries in other cities. Labyak is constantly expanding the concept of hospice by adding new programs and forging unprecedented relationships.
“We are much more than hospice being delivered to dying people,” she said.
A social worker by training with a background in administration, Labyak was named program director of the Hospice in late 1980. About two years later, she became president, a position she holds to this day.
The company had a small budget, a staff of mostly volunteers and about 25 patients when Labyak began. Today the organization serves some 2,500 patients daily, ranking it among the largest nonprofit, community-based hospices in the world, with more than 1,300 employees and 3,000 volunteers.
While the Hospice has endured challenges — such as a fire that ravaged the central offices in 1989 and the media attention surrounding the Terri Schiavo case in 2005 — it is still best known for its accomplishments, not its hardships.
The wide range of educational, outreach and care programs that Labyak has made available have broadened the public’s notion of hospice care. Her commitment to helping underserved populations is evident in many of these programs.
In the earliest days of HIV/AIDS, when misunderstanding and prejudice were rampant, Labyak instituted programs to support people diagnosed with the disease. Today, the AIDS Service Association of Pinellas Inc. is one of several resources for education, advocacy and counseling related to HIV/AIDS available through the Hospice.
Another mission of Labyak’s is to provide hospice services pertaining to diverse age groups. This can include counseling the parents of a stillborn baby, providing hospice to the nursing home, as well as working with young people, either treating children with advanced illnesses or counseling children whose loved ones have died.
In Labyak’s view, it’s critical to reach people across their lifespan.
“We are trying to raise a next generation who are less frightened,” she said.
Labyak has also geared her efforts toward education. The Hospice Institute of the Florida Suncoast, a practice-based resource center, was founded in 1994 to provide training and research and to share its information with hospices. In 2000, the Hospice formalized a research and education partnership with USF, creating the Center for Hospice, Palliative Care and End-of-Life Studies.
In 1997, Labyak helped launch Suncoast Solutions, a software design and distribution company that services hospice, palliative care and home health agencies across the country. Most importantly, its profits support the Hospice.
Labyak said she plans to continue to partner with hospices, nursing homes and ALS centers in the community going forward, “so wherever people are, they can benefit from what we have learned through the years.”
She intends to create a standard of customer service and to enhance care through technology, possibly by linking families long distance.
“We are interested in not just how to use technology but how to use technology to create human touches,” she said.
FINALISTS
• Betty Oldanie brings more than 18 years of hospice experience and more than 40 years of nursing, clinical supervision and education experience to her role as VP of planning for the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast.
In addition to serving as ethics and compliance officer and HIPAA privacy and security officer, Oldanie handles legal, information management and third party payer reimbursement issues, among others. She recently led an effort to document quality standards for the Hospice, founding Employees Striving for Service Excellence, better known as the ESSEX team. A seasoned advisory board member, advisor and delegate, Oldanie is well versed in issues pertaining to Medicare benefits, knowledge she shares eagerly so patients can improve their care.
• After 25 years with All Children’s Hospital, Barry Pendry, administrative director for development and rehabilitative services, has instituted many of the hospital’s premier specialized programs for children, including an outpatient feeding therapy program that draws patients from out of state.
His decades-long relationships with foundations, including the Sertoma Speech and Hearing Foundation of Florida, have resulted in services that continue to this day, such as the hospital’s outreach locations, known as the Speech-Language-Hearing Centers. Pendry also directs the audiology, speech-language pathology, occupational therapy and physical therapy departments within the hospital.
mcashill@bizjournals.com | 813.342.2463
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