Business Women Awards 2019 | INDUSTRY LEADER, HEALTH CARE SERVICES
Crista F. Durand, Newport Hospital
NEWPORT HOSPITAL PRESIDENT Crista F. Durand, credited with a turnaround in recruiting, fundraising and community outreach at the hospital while expanding its emergency room, built her successful medical-administration career through networking, professional curiosity and a team-oriented management style.
“Crista Durand is among the most dynamic, compelling and effective leaders I’ve had the pleasure to work with over my long career in health care,” said Dr. Timothy J. Babineau, CEO of Lifespan Corp., which owns Newport Hospital.
Babineau said Durand’s impressive accomplishments at Connecticut health care institutions persuaded him to recruit her to lead Newport Hospital in 2014.
Durand joined Connecticut-based Community Health and Homecare as a staff accountant in 1994, two years after earning a bachelor’s degree in financial management from Salve Regina University in Newport. Durand attributed the early success to her networking skills. The finance director at Community Health and Homecare was a friend of the family, she said. When he moved to another position in 1995, she landed his job, she said.
When mentoring young professionals, Durand said, “One of the things I impress upon them is to network.”
Within three years, she had implemented a pay-per-visit home health aide compensation program, payroll merger and reengineered the department, saving the company $600,000.
When Community Health and Homecare was integrated into Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam, Conn., she participated in seven merger teams, leading three. It was her first experience with hospital administration, “So that was a big leap for me,” Durand said.
Hospital administration ended up being her calling. She earned an MBA at Nichols College in Dudley, Mass., in 2001, the same year she was named chief financial officer and senior vice president at Day Kimball.
She helped develop and execute the hospital’s strategic plan from 2001-2005, increasing net revenue of $30 million, expanding programs and market share, and earning high customer-satisfaction scores.
In 2009, she took a job as vice president of strategic planning, marketing and business development at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, Conn., developing the hospital’s strategic plan, annual business plan and master facility plan.
Since starting as president at Newport Hospital, Durand’s list of accomplishments “has continued to grow beyond my expectations,” Babineau said.
In five years, Durand launched a community newsletter and lecture series, recruited 60 new physicians and led the hospital’s first capital campaign in 20 years to fund expansion of its emergency department and intensice care unit, Babineau said.
Durand said her approach to teamwork and planning has been shaped by her passion for sports, particularly her experience playing basketball at Salve Regina.
“Basketball was really my passion, although I’m not very tall,” Durand said. She said she appreciates the lessons basketball taught her about teamwork, now that she is also “coach” of her business team. “It really helps you be versatile in both of those roles,” she said.
While working to establish trust within the community, Durand said, it was important for hospital staff to engage with the neighborhood, volunteering on local boards and hosting focus groups. That engagement has helped the capital campaign, which is about $700,000 from its $12.5 million goal to fund expansions of the emergency room and ICU.
Peter Capodilupo, a board member of the Newport Hospital Foundation, pointed to the accolades the hospital has earned under Durand, from its five-star rating for overall quality from the national Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to receiving the Press Ganey “Guardian of Excellence” award for inpatient rehab services four times.
“I’ve been a member of the business community for many years, and have worked with many business leaders, but I’d have to say that Crista’s communication skills, [and her] ability to present and organize information, are really the best I’ve ever seen,” said Capodilupo, who is also chairman of OceanPoint Financial Partners, the holding company of BankNewport.
“I would say it was a whole lot of hard work and grit,” Durand said.
