“Buzzworthy Businesses” is a unique and cool talk show that showcases individuals and companies in the community that are making a buzz and giving back. Our goal is to interview guests that are doing great things in their business and in their community. Today our host, Chris Budihas, spoke with Rob Deininger.
Rob Deininger
CEO of AdventHealth East Florida Division
Website Address: https://www.adventhealth.com/
Short company description:
At AdventHealth, our mission of Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ reaches well beyond our facilities. As one of the largest faith-based health care systems in the United States, we’re deeply rooted in the communities we call home, and we never stop striving to make them healthier places to live.
With more than 50 hospitals, thousands of facilities and 100,000 team members, we’re a nationwide connected network of whole-person health care.
From the mountains of Northwest Georgia to Chicago’s western suburbs to the front range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to Florida’s coasts and many places in between, we’re committed to caring for the unique needs of every community we serve.
About the CEO:
Rob Deininger oversees the strategic direction, development and execution of key strategies that support the total network of care and help build influential relationships with key constituents, community partners and consumers. He also serves as the primary executive for the East Florida Division’s partnership with HealthFirst in Brevard County.
After 13 years as a commercial airline pilot, Deininger joined AdventHealth in 2008. Throughout his time with the organization, he has served in progressive leadership roles, including president and CEO of AdventHealth Fish Memorial. During his time there, Deininger helped to grow and expand services through a new hospital-based, offsite emergency room and a 140,000-square-foot expansion of the hospital campus, which opened in April 2021.
He has also previously served as vice president of operations for AdventHealth Orlando and vice president of research operations. Notably, Deininger served as system incident commander for AdventHealth’s pandemic response team. Most recently, he served as market CEO for the AdventHealth Central Florida Division’s quaternary hub, comprised of AdventHealth Orlando, AdventHealth Winter Park, AdventHealth for Women and AdventHealth for Children.
Episode Transcript:
Chris Budihas:
Welcome to Buzzworthy Businesses. I’m your host, Chris Budihas. Joining me here in the studio is Rob Deininger with AdventHealth.
Rob, how are you?
Rob Deininger:
I’m great. It’s nice to be here, and nice to see you this morning.
Chris Budihas:
Good to see you. Thanks for coming in.
So, AdventHealth. Tell us about AdventHealth. What is AdventHealth? Where are you guys located?
Rob Deininger:
Well, AdventHealth is a little bit new to the Jacksonville metro market.
We’re one of the largest healthcare systems in the state of Florida. We’re faith-based, not-for-profit. We have about 35 hospitals across the state of Florida and 55 across the country, spanning nine states.
So we’re a large system. We go as far west as Colorado, north to Wisconsin, and we’re also in Texas and Georgia. We cover a lot of the United States in those other eight states.
But Florida is the home of our company and where we have our most significant presence. I get the pleasure of leading what we call the East Florida Division, which includes all of our facilities in Lake, Sumter, Marion, Volusia, Flagler, St. Johns, Clay, and Duval Counties.
Chris Budihas:
You must be busy.
Rob Deininger:
It’s a busy job, but I have an amazing team of 13,000 team members who work every day to take care of our patients.
Chris Budihas:
That’s great.
What kind of services? Is it a full-service hospital?
Rob Deininger:
We run a network of full-service acute care hospitals. We also run an ambulatory network that includes urgent care, primary care, specialty care, imaging centers, lab centers, and all the services you’d expect from a full-service healthcare system.
Chris Budihas:
That’s great.
You’ve talked about this growth. It’s amazing watching the medical industry. Of course, if you superimpose that with the generations and the size of those generations, a lot of our baby boomers have now reached an age where they might need more medical care. I’m an old Gen Xer, so I’m getting up there too.
The demand is probably pretty high in Florida.
Rob Deininger:
Florida is a high-growth state, period. A lot of that growth is in a population that has a high demand for healthcare services.
Our challenge is: How do we keep up with that growth? How do we continue to deliver high-quality, faith-based, compassionate care to communities that continue to grow and grow and grow?
Chris Budihas:
Yeah.
We’re here in downtown Jacksonville, and I see Baptist and some of the other healthcare systems around.
So, AdventHealth… maybe there’s some competition. I imagine your value proposition is high-quality, faith-based care. Is that what sets you apart?
Rob Deininger:
You’ll never hear me talk badly about any of the competition in this market. I think the state of Florida is blessed to have really great healthcare.
I do think we’re different.
I think we start with the fact that we’re faith-based. Clinically, I think what makes us the most different is that we focus on whole-person care, which means we take a mind, body, spirit approach that recognizes when someone is ill, more often than not, there’s something else going on in their life that needs to be addressed as well.
Chris Budihas:
I like that, and that’s so true today.
You hear so much now about social determinants of health. You hear about the impact of mental health on physical health, and you believe there’s a spiritual component as well.
When you put mind, body, and spirit together, I think that’s really what differentiates you from most other healthcare providers.
That’s wonderful. It really is all interconnected when you get right down to it.
It’s funny. My doctor, because I was in the military—not saying anything bad about military medicine—but when I got out, he said, “My goal is to keep you healthy. I want to be proactive with your health and make sure we keep you at your best. Then, if you do have an incident, accident, or another issue, we address those problems.”
I like that methodology that you have there at AdventHealth.
You guys have a lot of things coming up. Is there anything new? Breaking ground? New facilities?
Rob Deininger:
We’re really excited because we’ve been in Flagler County on the East Coast for a long time. Up to this point, that’s been our furthest north presence.
Next week, we’re going to open our first off-site emergency department in St. Johns County, off State Road 207 near St. Augustine.
We’ll also have another groundbreaking later this year for a second location in St. Johns County.
It’s natural growth for us as we see opportunities where our mission and the community’s growth create an opportunity for us to deliver care.
Chris Budihas:
You didn’t start off in this industry. You were doing something else before healthcare.
Can you tell us a little bit about your backstory?
Rob Deininger:
You didn’t start in your industry either.
Chris Budihas:
No, I didn’t either.
Rob Deininger:
We both started somewhere else.
I started with a first career in aviation. I came out of college and flew commercial airlines for 12 years.
In the five years following 9/11, there was a lot of unrest, chaos, bankruptcies, mergers, acquisitions, and all of that. It was a very difficult time.
I made the decision to leave the aviation industry and was fortunate enough to be hired by what is now AdventHealth.
I was able to leverage many of the things I had learned in aviation, including cockpit resource management (CRM), conflict resolution, checklists, and standardization.
A lot of things that were second nature in aviation 20 years ago were just beginning to move into the healthcare space.
I was hired to help bring some of those practices into healthcare, and I’ve been extremely fortunate to grow with the organization.
Now I get to lead a great team.
Chris Budihas:
That’s wonderful.
Obviously, you’ve taken that experience and built it into what you’re doing now. You could be doing other things, but obviously you have a passion for what you’re doing.
Rob Deininger:
I do.
One of the things I love most about my job is that, even as a CEO who’s absolutely not a clinician, I wake up every day knowing I get to make a difference in the lives of people across the communities we serve.
That’s something not everybody gets to say about their job.
Chris Budihas:
I can definitely see that connection.
I tell my three adult children all the time to pursue the things in life that make them happy. If you can turn your passion into your occupation, life is pretty good.
Sometimes that makes you wealthy. Sometimes it doesn’t. But you’re happy.
I think we all know people who go to work every day and aren’t very happy.
Rob Deininger:
I love my job.
You and I both work hard. But when you’re working hard at something that’s connected to your passion, your faith, and your mission, it’s still work, but it’s a different kind of work.
Chris Budihas:
As we wrap up, is there anything we left out? How do people find out more about AdventHealth?
Rob Deininger:
You can always visit AdventHealth.com.
We have amazing resources on our website.
If you drive up and down I-95, you’ll see our billboards and banners.
One thing I want people to know is that when AdventHealth moves into a community, our goal is to be there forever and become part of that community.
I look at the communities we’re in today and ask, “How would this community be different if we weren’t in it?”
You’ll see us involved in schools, the business community, the public sector, and actively engaged in all of those areas because we want to be part of the neighborhoods and communities we’re in.
Chris Budihas:
I love that.
You’re not just a service provider.
Especially in healthcare, it’s something you don’t think about until you really need it. Then having a community partner that’s willing to help makes all the difference—not only for your own health but for your family’s health as well.
Rob Deininger:
Healthy communities are an important part of having a stronger community.
I tell people that a great community is made up of great schools, a great business community, and great healthcare.
If you have all three of those, you’ve got a really strong head start.
Chris Budihas:
True trifecta.
Rob, thanks for coming on and talking with us about AdventHealth. I appreciate it.
Rob Deininger:
Great to meet you. I look forward to serving the Jacksonville and St. Johns County communities over the coming decades.
Chris Budihas:
That’s great. I look forward to seeing your expansion and how you’re going to continue helping our community become healthier.
I appreciate it.
Rob Deininger:
Thank you so much.
Chris Budihas:
Thank you.
And folks, thanks for joining us for another episode of Buzzworthy Businesses. Take a look at what AdventHealth is doing. Connect with Rob and myself on LinkedIn. We’d love to continue the conversation.
We’ll see you next segment, and live with gratitude.
