Tod Augsburger, President & CEO of Lexington Medical Center

By Alan Cooper

 

MidlandsBiz:
What is your education and background?

Tod Augsburger:
I was born in rural Indiana and raised in Michigan. I received my undergraduate degree at Michigan State University in finance and spent a couple of years traveling before earning a Master of Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan. After graduation, I worked in Columbus, Ohio for ten years before coming to Lexington Medical Center in 1999 as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

MidlandsBiz:
What were some of your early passions that motivated your career?

Tod Augsburger:
Like many hospital administrators, at one point I thought I wanted to be a doctor. I worked in an emergency department when I was a biology major in undergrad, and discovered that it was not for me. I didn’t have the psychological capacity to handle sick and dying patients on a day to day basis. Nobody in my family was in medicine, so I didn’t know of alternative careers in the field. I thought you were either an ER doctor or a family doctor. I abandoned the idea of working in medicine, decided to major in finance and business, and subsequently worked in the for-profit world for a while.

But I never felt that I was making a difference, so I started exploring other options. A colleague said, ‘Well, you love health care – somebody has to run these hospitals and to do that, they need people with a business background.’  I researched the best universities for degrees in health care administration and enrolled at the University of Michigan. I have been in health care ever since.

MidlandsBiz:
Give a brief history of Lexington Medical Center.

Tod Augsburger:
Back in the late 1960’s, Lexington County community members felt strongly that they needed a hospital on this side of the river to meet the needs of the growing population. From what I understand, the idea was not well embraced by the downtown establishment. There was a feeling that downtown Columbia had good hospitals and that was sufficient. The community forged ahead, passed referendums to help secure funding, and with great community support Lexington Medical Center was completed in 1971. Forty-five years later, there is still tight relationship between this hospital and the community in which we serve. Folks in Lexington County feel as though they have an ownership in this hospital.

MidlandsBiz:
What is your core business?

Tod Augsburger:
We provide quality health services that meet the needs of our community.

MidlandsBiz:
What is the mission of Lexington Medical Center?

Tod Augsburger:
Pretty much the same as our core business. To provide quality health services that meet the needs of our community. We try to keep our mission statement short and concise.

MidlandsBiz:
What role do you see the hospital playing in the community?

Tod Augsburger:
We are here to take care of people and their illnesses. In doing this job, we are the largest employer in Lexington County and the second largest in the Midlands. We partner with our schools and businesses to help make Lexington County and the Midlands a great place in which to live and receive medical care.

MidlandsBiz:
What is the ownership and governance structure of the hospital?

Tod Augsburger:
The vast majority of hospitals in the country are private not-for-profits. Our structure is a slightly different. Lexington Medical Center was founded by an act of the South Carolina Legislature to be a governmental subdivision called a health services district. Though we are a subdivision, we are not funded by taxes. Lexington County Council appoints our board members — all of whom must live in Lexington County. This link to Lexington County government further strengthens our ties to the local community. Our employees participate in South Carolina’s state employee retirement system. There are some for-profit hospitals whose business goal is to maximize profits and distribute them to shareholders all over the country. That is not us.

MidlandsBiz:
What is unique and special about Lexington Medical Center?

Tod Augsburger:
Our ties to the community have allowed us to build a culture where our employees feel very, very strongly about this hospital; that is what differentiates the care you receive here. We will do our best to treat our patients as our friends, neighbors and family. That is terribly important to us. We teach that, coach that, select and hire for that. More often than not, our patients tell us that our employees treated them better than they ever thought they would be treated.

MidlandsBiz:
What are the unique challenges you face as a leader as you try to maintain culture across a growing organization?

Tod Augsburger:
True, we are growing! There are a lot of places that don’t have that challenge.  When I arrived here in 1999, we had approximately 1,500 employees in just a few buildings. Now we have 6,000 employees in 80 locations. Maintaining our culture in the face of rapid growth is challenging, but we do that by who we hire, how we hire, and how we orient new employees to the Lexington Medical Center culture. We also model our hospital culture to new employees and show visible symbols of how we want them to behave as we work to provide outstanding care.

MidlandsBiz:

What are the top trends that arose out of the Affordable Care Act?  How did Lexington Medical Center address these challenges and convert them to opportunities?

Tod Augsburger:
Most people have very little understanding of the Affordable Care Act, and often, what they have heard scares and upsets them. The vast majority of it is not true. The ACA is not a panacea. It does not solve all of the country’s health care challenges, but it is a start.

Prior to the ACA, 17 percent of our country did not have health care insurance. I think that’s unfair. By 2014, that number was down to 13 percent nationally; so, what the ACA did was to increase the volume of patients. In South Carolina, a little more than 200,000 additional people have been able to enroll in health exchanges and get access to health insurance since the ACA has passed. The community may not see the number of uninsured people in our community, but there are a lot of them. Unfortunately, there are another 200,000 people in South Carolina who still have no health insurance because we, as a state, haven’t been willing to adopt the full aspects of the ACA and Medicaid expansion. I’m disappointed that politics are standing in the way of helping the poorest of our state.

From the hospital side, the ACA has required hospitals to put a greater emphasis on quality of care and measuring outcomes while still meeting the increased volume of patients. That is challenging, but I believe a good thing.

MidlandsBiz:
Talk more about your growth and what you are currently building.

Tod Augsburger:
We are adding roughly a 500,000 square foot addition to the back of the hospital, effectively adding about 50 percent more space. Hospitals are not built in increments. We are building infrastructure and capacity that should last this community for 20 years or more.

MidlandsBiz:
What might be some of the unique features that people could see in the new space?

Tod Augsburger:
We are the second busiest deliverer of babies in the state of South Carolina.  As a Level 2 certified nursery, we deliver a lot of premature babies.  In every hospital around South Carolina today, and pretty much around the country, those babies are kept in a typical nursery which means that mothers often have limited access to their babies and have to go home at night. In this new addition, we are building 20 patient rooms for the baby that will accommodate the parents – they will have their own space to spend time with the baby. We think it is an innovative addition to the community.

MidlandsBiz:
There must be a million metrics that speak to your hospital’s performance.  What are the top ones that you watch?

Tod Augsburger:
First, we ask every patient to complete a national standardized survey that we use to improve care. We take the surveys very seriously.

Second, I receive daily metrics of our hospital volumes and activity. I look at it to determine overall areas of growth and where where our constraints are.

MidlandsBiz:
What are your personal passions in and out of work?

Tod Augsburger:
I live in Lexington so I care deeply about this community. For years, my wife taught in Lexington School District One and is considering returning to teaching this year. I love the arts, parks, really anything that improves the quality of life for the local community. I am on the Columbia Museum of Art’s board.

I like spending time on the lake, preferably in a sailboat. And we are members of the Columbia Sailing Club.

I like to travel. My wife and I have raised two daughters and we had the great fortune to be able to travel and show them different parts of the world.  I think that is important.

I am the incoming chair of the Greater Lexington Chamber of Commerce.

MidlandsBiz:
What is your leadership style?

Tod Augsburger:
I am energetic, enthusiastic, and I hope, rather informal, or accessible. I am a strong advocate for what we do and how we do it at Lexington Medical Center. My job is to care for the people who care for our patients.

MidlandsBiz:
What is your favorite business book?

Tod Augsburger:
Leadership on the Line by Martin Linsky is a good one in my opinion because of its emphasis on change.

MidlandsBiz:
What are you reading now?

Tod Augsburger:
I am a voracious reader of fiction — especially thrillers. I just finished Stephen King’s Finders Keepers.

MidlandsBiz:
What are you most proud of at Lexington Medical Center?

Tod Augsburger:
I am most proud of the way our employees take care of our patients. They do an amazing job. I can’t go anywhere without patients telling me that our staff is wonderful. That is what I am most proud of.