Travis Capers, the new president at SSM St. Mary’s Hospital, said it was SSM’s long, rich history in the St. Louis community and its mission to serve that brought him to St. Louis six months ago. Capers came to St. Louis from New Orleans, where he served for four years as CEO of Ochner Medical Center.
The Charleston, South Carolina native became interested in health care because of his mother, who was a nurse. “Her strong passion and desire to serve rubbed off on me,” Capers said. “She was a nurse for over 40 years.”
In college, Capers earned a bachelor of science in business administration and a master’s in hospital administration, both from the University of South Carolina. Capers is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, and has completed the Harvard Business School Executive Managing Health Care Delivery Program.
Capers had an administrative residency at a hospital in South Carolina and then moved to Chicago, where he completed his administrative residency and learned hospital operations at University of Chicago Medical Center as an assistant to the chief operating officer.
“I did that for two years, kind of learning hospital operations, learning how you can help and support and be that servant-leader for employees,” Capers said.
Through that process, Capers became the director of surgery, where he spent two years before joining the executive development program for Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), which initially placed him in Tallahassee, Florida for 18 months.
“I was helping to build a replacement hospital and managing about six or seven other departments and really helping and supporting employees to make the transition from the old hospital to the new hospital,” he said. “We went from 120 beds to 200 beds – and really helping and supporting them in making that change – old equipment, new equipment – very exciting times.”
Capers was promoted to chief operating officer at Southern Hills Medical Center, an HCA hospital in Nashville. His eight-year tenure there working with a strong CEO is what helped him to develop his type of leadership.
“It helped me develop my management style in partnering with our physicians, partnering with our employees,” he said. “It gave me the opportunity to really do what I do now – being visible, approachable.”
That leadership also meant meeting community needs.
“We built programs and services where it was needed – for example, primary care, specialist’s care, cardiology.”
At St. Mary’s, he is also looking at areas for improvement.
“We are on a lean journey, so we are looking at process improvements. So how do we reduce wasted time for our patients?” Capers said. “One of the things we are continuously focusing on is access to care and appropriate care.”
He said that includes access to primary care physicians and partnering with other not-for-profit organizations, including Federally Qualified Health Centers. St. Mary’s partnership with Bridges to Care includes home visits to make sure patients receive the appropriate level of care to coordinate and manage care. St. Mary’s is also working on bringing in new primary care practice in Brentwood near the Galleria.
There are other improvements in the works. Capers said St. Mary’s is bringing in robotic surgery for urological, gynecological and general surgery. Also, the hospital is expanding and renovating its neonatal intensive care unit. “Overall, that’s probably a $15 million project,” Capers said, “and then we are on the cusp of working on expansion of our emergency department.”
He described his management style at St. Mary’s as one of a steward-leader, who knows his purpose, which is to serve others. “I’m there for our employees – don’t ask anything of them that I wouldn’t ask of myself,” he said.
Recently, he donned scrubs and shadowed St. Mary’s custodians. He worked with the housekeeping staff to clean rooms. He has done the same for other departments, like food services. “Rolling up your sleeves, showing you’re no different than anyone else,” he said. “Everyone plays an important part in what we do to serve our community.”
“As far as my vision for St. Mary’s, we have employees that have been here for over 50 year,” Capers said, “so it’s really understanding our culture, promoting our culture and how do we continuously find ways to serve our community.”
