Linda White’s rise to CEO of Deaconess Health System began and continues with her commitment to put patients...

First and Foremost
By Kristen Lund • Photo by Jerry Butts

The man lay on a frame bed that allowed staff to turn him from a prone to supine position, “kind of like a pancake,” White recalls. “I would sit on the floor — I know I wasn’t supposed to do that — when he had his face to the floor. I’d feed him because he had no use of his arms. I just remember feeling a lot of empathy for his family and his predicament.”

White’s deep compassion for that man and for countless other patients made her realize she was born to care for others. After graduating from Indiana State University with a mathematics degree, she initially worked as a computer programmer for a health clinic. The job appealed to her logical side that had been nurtured since childhood by her family of engineers. But surrounded by healthcare professionals, “in the back of my mind,” she says, “I always had the thought of, ‘I wonder what it would be like to be a nurse.’”

That thought would propel White’s career in a new direction, leading her to Evansville for nursing school and then launching her long-running career with Deaconess Health System. From a floor nurse to nursing administrator to, finally, president and CEO of the health system, one lesson, says White, defines her journey: “Put people first.”

White’s passion for people is evident one November morning as she makes the rounds through Deaconess Hospital. She navigates the units as easily as the rooms of her own home. For White, sometimes Deaconess is home. During the January 2009 ice storm, she didn’t leave the hospital for three days as she confronted a dizzying number of dilemmas: how to transport employees to work, how to keep the power on, how to make sure supplies were flowing in and out of Deaconess facilities.

In the Cardiovascular Care Center, White picks up a piece of scrap paper that’s fluttered onto the floor unnoticed. Down the hall, a man pushes a cart of cleaning supplies toward her and hollers, “Ms. Linda White!” as she approaches. She greets him by name — Stephen — and inquires how he likes the unit to which he recently has been assigned. He grins and gives her a thumbs-up.

Passing through trauma, neurology, and intensive care units, White greets person after person. Some volunteer their questions and concerns. In the Trauma ICU is what the staff calls a “COW,” a computer on wheels. The attending surgeon and nurses point out to White that the machine must be plugged in at all times, or it powers down. Her brow furrows. “That defeats the purpose of a computer on wheels,” she says. “That doesn’t seem right. Let me look into that.” She jots “COW” on a piece of paper and carries it with her as she walks back into the hospital’s winding corridors.

White has been employed with Deaconess Health System since 1974, but health care wasn’t her first career. The Terre Haute, Ind., native is the eldest daughter of Elizabeth and the late John White; her father, who passed away in 2001, was an engineer and owner of a design and consulting business. Her brother, Steve, two years her junior, remembers his big sister as a speech champion and math whiz. “Her math skills were way ahead of the times,” he recalls. And while she was highly competitive — “She would race me to get the newspaper” — she was “nice competitive, you know what I mean?” he says. “She’s not win at all costs.”

That the siblings would attend college was never in question. (Steve now is a mechanical engineer in Terre Haute; White’s younger sister, Carolyn Trueblood of Columbus, Ind., is a nurse practitioner and implementation specialist for healthcare-related computer software.) After high school, White enrolled in engineering courses at Purdue University, convinced that her abilities in math and science made the career a natural fit. But in her first week of class, the 17-year-old college freshman found she was the only female student in a lecture hall of 500 men. “It was unheard of for a female to be an engineer,” she says. “It was intimidating at that time.” Although her father was at the forefront of the movement to admit women to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, his alma mater and a renowned training ground for engineers, “there were not supporters to say, ‘Stick with it,’” she recalls.

White changed her major to applied mathematics, transferred to Indiana State University, and took a job as a computer programmer at a Terre Haute health clinic after graduation. She excelled in learning computer languages and developing mathematics-based programs. Still, something was missing. “I think it was the people aspect,” she says, “having a sense that you’re helping others.”

Nursing, she decided after observing activity at the health clinic, would be a better fit, so she applied to a prestigious diploma program: the Deaconess School of Nursing in Evansville. (Since then, hospital-based diploma programs largely have been replaced by college- or university-based courses.) White was impressed by the hospital’s long history, which began in 1893 when the Protestant Deaconess Association bought a home at Mary and Iowa streets and converted it into a 19-bed hospital. In 1899, they built a three-story hospital and established the training program that would become the Deaconess School of Nursing.

In the early 1970s, the original hospital was demolished and rebuilt. The main Deaconess Hospital campus now covers 20 city blocks, and it’s part of a system of six hospitals (Deaconess Hospital, Deaconess Gateway Hospital, The Women’s Hospital, Deaconess Cross Pointe, HealthSouth Deaconess Hospital, and The Heart Hospital), the newly minted Deaconess Clinic, the Chancellor Center for Oncology, a preferred provider organization, and multiple joint ventures. Deaconess Health System now is the Tri-State’s largest employer, employing nearly 5,500 people.

But three decades ago, what most impressed the prospective nursing student was the staff’s “compassionate and caring spirit,” she says. “Yes, those are words. But with my own eyes, I saw those words executed.”

Confident the career and the school were a match, White contacted Deaconess. “I already had missed the application deadline,” she says. “But the Deaconess School of Nursing was so accommodating.” In one whirlwind month, White applied, was accepted, moved into a dormitory on the Deaconess Hospital campus, and began nursing school. Every weekday, she and her classmates walked through an underground tunnel connecting the Health Science Building to the hospital, arriving by 6:30 a.m. The next three years were filled with intense clinical rotations and coursework at the University of Evansville.

White graduated as a registered nurse from the Deaconess School of Nursing in 1974, and in 1976, she also earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Evansville. Her career switch shocked her family of engineers. But they soon realized, Steve says, that “she was in an occupation where she just fit in perfectly.”

After completing Deaconess’ diploma program, White landed her first job in health care: a nurse analyst at Deaconess Hospital. “Think of an industrial engineer with a nursing slant” is how she describes the job, which required her to analyze functions of the nursing profession — workflow, job priorities, and more — from a scientific point of view. She also worked as a medical-surgical floor nurse, caring for patients and discovering the depths of her own compassion. She soon transitioned into her first administrative position, a staff specialist, and her clinical background heavily influenced her. “I think the nursing background keeps me grounded with the highest priorities,” White says. “It’s about people.”

Jim King, president of ProgressiveHealth, has known White for a decade but strengthened their relationship when his company began working with Deaconess to establish a rehabilitation joint venture at the main campus. King saw White’s philosophy in action during last winter’s ice storm. “In some situations, she found local hotels or places in the hospital for the employees to stay,” he recalls. “You would think that a hospital would do something like that, but what you wouldn’t think is that the CEO of the hospital is on the scene coordinating that.”

Once, when the joint venture was nearing completion, White led King on a tour of the hospital. “Everyone we walked by, she not only knew his or her name, she knew the spouse’s name; she knew that person’s children’s names,” King recalls. “She’d run into a nurse, and she’d say, ‘Sally, how are you? How’s your husband, Bill? Is your son enjoying Arizona State?’

“It’s not just looking at a name tag. She knew people. She knew what was going on in their lives. She conveys a genuine amount of concern when she talks to people. I think that’s just rare in leadership.”

White’s down-to-earth approach to leadership carried her up the ladder at Deaconess. She held positions including assistant director of nursing, director of medical/surgical nursing, vice president of nursing, vice president of patient care, and chief operating officer of Deaconess Hospital. Her ascent doesn’t surprise Dr. William Penland, an Evansville ophthalmologist and chairman of the board of directors for Deaconess Health System. Penland met White 15 years ago, immediately noting she was “hardworking, polite, and easy to talk to,” he says.

In 2002, White was summoned to the office of Tom Kramer, then president and CEO of Deaconess Health System. Members of the Deaconess board of directors asked if she would accept their offer to name her president of Deaconess Hospital. “I looked at them and said, ‘Me?’” she remembers. Her surprise came from the fact that she “had not planned that career path at all,” she says; White had enjoyed overseeing the hospital’s day-to-day activity as its chief operating officer. Assuming the position of CEO would mean more long-term, “big picture” strategic work. Although the offer was unexpected, says White, her acceptance “opened up a whole new horizon.”

Another milestone came two years later. After Kramer retired, White was named president of the health system. She was the first female to assume the position in the organization’s long history. Five years later, under White’s leadership, the health system has celebrated the opening of Deaconess Gateway Hospital, a merger with Welborn Clinic to form Deaconess Clinic, and most recently, the ongoing implementation of EPIC, a medical records system. Her dedication to leading the health system is unmistakable, say her colleagues: “It’s interesting to get an e-mail from Linda at 9 p.m. on a Saturday,” notes Penland, “telling us what the week’s going to be like at Deaconess.” Still, White says she hopes her proudest moment is yet to come. Her brother, Steve, thinks there’s plenty of time: “I don’t think retirement is in her vocabulary,” he jokes.

These days, White’s alarm clock goes off just before 4 a.m. every day. She ties her sneakers and heads outside for an hour-long, admittedly “very, very slow” jog around Evansville’s North Side, arriving at the hospital between 6:30 and 7 a.m. After long days at work, White often attends charity dinners or functions several nights a week. Her passion for the community earned her the city’s ATHENA Award in 2001, and she has served on the board of directors for organizations such as Leadership Evansville, the Ark Crisis Child Care Center, the Boys and Girls Club of Evansville, and more. (She’s been known to do most anything for a good cause, whether it’s taking the stage at Evansville ARC’s Really Big Show or donning full clown regalia to welcome guests to Deaconess’ circus-themed Party of the Year.) “It’s a balancing act,” she says. “Some days you feel like a juggler, and there are 50 balls bouncing.”

What keeps White grounded, she says, is making the rounds through the hospitals, connecting with staff and patients. On that morning in November, the staff is abuzz over the health system’s new clinical information system, EPIC. Transitioning to electronic medical records throughout the health system has been on Deaconess’ strategic plan for years. “Until now, that connectivity was done via paper and faxing and scanning,” White says. “It just was not as safe as what we know EPIC will be.”

Throughout the hospital, White asks several doctors and nurses how they’re adjusting to the new system. In Trauma ICU, Angie Kiegel, a Deaconess registered nurse of three years, affirms that EPIC “feels safer”: When she scans a patient’s armband and then the medication dosage she’s about to dispense, the system immediately flashes an alert if something is awry.

One of White’s last stops is to visit Doris Moore, an Evansville patient. Around 8:30 p.m. the previous night, Moore — in good spirits despite the IV stand by her bed — realized her dinner tray had not arrived. “It was no big deal, nothing at all,” she says, but the staff quickly fixed the error, and White arrived in Moore’s room to apologize personally. This morning, she chats with Moore about her condition and about her satisfaction with her medical care; she asks if anything could have improved her hospital stay. Moore can’t think of anything, but she smiles broadly, clasps White’s hand between hers, and thanks her. “This,” White says as she leaves Moore’s room, “is why we do what we do.”

— Louis La Plante contributed to this story.

Unassuming Artist
One of White’s little-known hobbies is painting (her piece “Mixed Colors” is pictured). Three of her brightly colored watercolor paintings hang on the walls of her office, and her oil paintings are on display at Deaconess Gateway Hospital. “I have no artistic talent,” White claims. “I sit on the floor, usually in my pajamas, and throw paint on a canvas. It takes about three weeks to dry because it’s so thick.” She signs her paintings “Annie Mik”; the pseudonym combines the names of her niece, Anne, and nephew, Mike. “No one will ever know,” she jokes. “And now I’ve told everyone.”