Just three months after leaving speech pathology to assume a sales position, Jill Tabone realized she’d left her heart behind. This experience cemented her decision to resume her career in healthcare, earning her a newfound determination to adapt to the industry’s rapid change and prepare for future challenges.
With a Masters in Speech Pathology and 12 years’ experience as a therapist, Tabone rose to management as Team Leader of the Speech Pathology Department for Sherman Heath Systems. A leading network of medical care facilities in the far Northwest suburbs, Sherman Health Systems offers skilled professionals numerous advancement opportunities. Indeed, therapists with masters’ credentials and extensive field and supervisory experience often earned promotions to higher management positions such as Director of Rehabilitation Services.
"I was a successful, experienced therapist and manager, aspiring to become Director of Rehabilitation Services," Tabone explains. "But I noticed my colleagues with MBAs were earning more promotions, faster. That’s when I knew I needed an edge to take my career to the next level." As Tabone discovered, it had become increasingly clear the skills and know-how an MBA education offers were becoming essential for future success in an industry as complex as healthcare.
Sherman‘s management team had anticipated the need as well, collaborating with Lake Forest to offer an MBA with Healthcare Management Specialization – a program covering the core competencies of the general LFGSM curriculum within the context of the healthcare industry. As an added plus for Sherman and its employees, the program was offered on-site at Sherman’s Elgin Medical Offices facility. In addition to its convenient location, the on-site program allows Sherman MBA students across departments to collaborate on real issues they face on the job, building relationships throughout the organization along the way.
"When Sherman and Lake Forest created an MBA program with a healthcare management specialization and offered it where I work, it was an opportunity I just couldn’t ignore," Tabone says. Three years later, she was among the first class of Lake Forest MBA graduates to receive a Healthcare Management Specialization MBA degree.
Moreover, just two-thirds of the way through the program, Tabone earned her promotion to Director of Rehabilitation Services. "Going from managing five people to sixty within eight different locations," she relates, "I applied the tools I was learning in class right away, and they worked beautifully!" A case in point was a project Tabone and her team implemented in their Operations Management course. "We focused on a group of outpatient clinics I was managing that scheduled by paper and pencil," she recalls. "One clinic with open appointments might send therapists home, not realizing a nearby clinic was struggling to manage an overflow of patients. Additionally, when a clinic’s staff was busy attending to patients, calls at that location might go unanswered."
Tabone and her teammates recommended a networked phone system that rolled overflow calls to the largest clinic that was best staffed to answer calls, and that helped staff to better coordinate scheduling across clinics. The team’s recommendation was implemented almost immediately after they presented the project in class. "The new system already has saved time and frustration for patients and staff alike," Tabone says. "Because I’m passionate about quality healthcare, I’m happy my MBA education offered tools and skills I can actually use and helped me develop the leadership skills I need to keep making genuine contributions on the job."
What’s on the horizon now that Tabone has earned the promotion she’d aspired to before entering the program? "I absolutely love being the Director of Rehabilitation Services." she affirms. "Earning my MBA helped me achieve goals I’d set for myself, yet also opened new doors in my mind. Looking to the future, I’ve learned there’s no limit to the opportunities that lie ahead."