What’s Your ‘Why’?

From bedside to boardroom, leader’s goals never waver

Twenty minutes into her first shift as a bedside nurse at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit in 1984, Veronica Hall (MSM ’99, MBA ’02) saved a life.

Passing by a room, she spotted a man who stood up and showed classic heart attack signs. She ran in and caught him before he fell. As she held him, she realized he wasn’t breathing. After summoning assistance, she ran for the crash cart. He was taken to the intensive care unit, recovered and came back to thank her for saving him.

“That first week, I was hooked on being a Henry Ford Health System employee for life,” says the 35-year employee.

Now as president of the 877-bed Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, a post she accepted in late 2018, Hall continues to help patients, their families and the staff – but on an administrative level. As president, she oversees the Level 1 Trauma Center, its 53-acre campus and its employees, leading the hospital and developing strategies to improve health care, grow a skilled robust staff and be a generous community partner.

Prior to the presidency, Hall held a dual role as chief operating officer for Henry Ford Hospital and chief nursing officer for Henry Ford Health System, overseeing more than 4,000 inpatient and outpatient registered nurses at six hospitals and more than 35 medical centers. Before that, she served as a nurse on several units, a head nurse (nurse manager) and the quality director.

Advanced Degree Alters Course

None of those latter promotions would have been possible with-out her Walsh education, Hall believes. While receiving a Bachelor of Science in nursing from Oakland University, she followed a mentor’s suggestion to return to school, attending Walsh. She earned a master’s degree in management with an HR focus in 1999. She followed that with an MBA in 2002.

“I thought, how could I do my degree differently or better?” she asks. “And how do I position myself for the future? I went and talked to the chief nursing officer, and she said nurses need to understand the business side of health care.”

Hall chose Walsh because it offered evening classes – a necessity, since she was working full time as nurse manager of a 69-bed intensive care unit. She also liked that the instructors were working professionals with quality credentials and real-life experiences.

“Walsh had such a great business reputation,” she says. “I knew I could learn accounting, I could get into labor costs and supply costs there, the cost of creating errors and the cost of quality. Every class was a good one.”

She uses her Walsh lessons every day, she says. One of her professors told her, “You have to understand who holds the keys” in business situations.

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