Carrie Owen Plietz, FACHE: A Profile of ACHE's 2021–2022 Chair

It is mid-December, and as seen over a video call, the late afternoon sun is streaming into the new office of Carrie Owen Plietz, FACHE, at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan & Hospitals in Oakland, Calif. One month into her new role there as president of the Northern California Region, Owen Plietz beams a bright and easy smile as she describes her new role and how she arrived at where she is today. 

In this position, Owen Plietz will oversee all of Kaiser Permanente’s care delivery and health plan operations in Northern California, which provide fully integrated care to more than 4.5 million members through 21 hospitals and 259 medical offices. Kaiser Permanente has a 75-year heritage of delivering high-quality, affordable healthcare to its patients, members and the communities it serves.

On March 11, she will also assume office as Chair of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Although she is beginning both new leadership roles against the challenging backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, she is enthusiastic about both opportunities and optimistic about the future.

Owen Plietz is no stranger to leading on multiple fronts. Before joining Kaiser Permanente, she spent nearly five years with Wellstar Health System, Marietta, Ga., as executive vice president and COO for the organization’s hospital division. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations of the system’s 11 inpatient hospitals, multiple outpatient centers, nursing homes, and other facilities and services, Owen Plietz was responsible for the integration of six new acute hospital campuses into the system.

She accomplished this in under three years while also improving the patient experience and employee trust and engagement, according to F. Kenneth Ackerman Jr., LFACHE, former president of the Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, Pa., and chair emeritus and senior adviser with Integrated Healthcare Strategies, part of Gallagher Human Resources and Compensation Consulting. 

Ackerman has known Owen Plietz since 2010 when she received the Robert S. Hudgens Memorial Award for Young Healthcare Executive of the Year—an honor he also received in 1975. They are also both members of the Healthcare Executive Study Society, and between that group and ACHE, they see each other at meetings two or three times per year. “She’s very focused on the patient and really cares about people. There’s no quit to Carrie, and that’s part of what people like about her,” he says.

During her 25-year career, Owen Plietz has demonstrated time and again that when she commits to something, she is in it for the long haul.

A Passion for Patient Experience
Although both of her parents had careers in healthcare, Owen Plietz discovered her passion for the field of healthcare leadership during a class she took her freshman year at James Madison University. 

While working as a patient advocate at a local hospital—her first job in healthcare—Owen Plietz developed an interest in improving the patient experience. That time spent with patients and families during some of the most difficult and wonderful times in their lives helped her recognize the benefit of holistic care. “You can see that thread throughout the rest of my career, and my passion around quality and consumer experience,” she says.

“She is committed to excellent patient care, and she doesn’t pretend to know what she doesn’t know,” says Kenneth R. White, PhD, RN, FACHE, University of Virginia health professor of nursing emeritus, who taught Owen Plietz when she was in graduate school.

White also credits her for encouraging and mentoring young professionals, supporting women in leadership roles, and being committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. “We have a responsibility as professionals to support the next generation. I know she’s done that,” he says.

Owen Plietz derives satisfaction from leading teams faced with a challenge, and in achieving a goal or, even better, exceeding it.

As CEO of Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, Calif., from 2011 to 2016, she led the organization to achieve IBM Watson Health’s 100 Top Hospital Everest Award for demonstrating the fastest improvement over a five-year period across a balanced scorecard. The balanced scorecard improvement also garnered the medical center a spot on IBM Watson Health’s 100 Top Hospitals list for three consecutive years, the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals list five years in a row, and Leapfrog A’s for patient safety all five years.

“It was a privilege to see the excitement of the team around not just providing better care, a better experience to our patients and better team member engagement, but that they were acknowledged externally when compared with thousands of hospitals,” she says.

“Carrie is one of those unique people who, no matter what she does, inspires the people who are involved to become better,” says Nicholas R. Tejeda, FACHE, group CEO, The Hospitals of Providence, El Paso, Texas. He and Owen Plietz met several years ago when they were both working at different health systems in Northern California.

ACHE: A Career Cornerstone 
Since joining ACHE initially as a Student Associate and then as a full Member in 1995, Owen Plietz says the organization has contributed “tremendously” to her success. Although she appreciates many things about ACHE, she truly values ACHE’s Code of Ethics and its commitment to integrity and to lifelong learning.

Owen Plietz considers ACHE a cornerstone in her career. “One constant along the way in my career is ACHE. No matter where you are in your career, whether a student, a young professional, a Fellow or a senior executive leading 80,000 employees—which is where I am today, your ACHE colleagues are always there to help serve as a trusted partner and ready-to-listen sounding board.”

For example, she found it very helpful to speak with other ACHE colleagues from across the country during the pandemic about lessons learned. “It allowed me to take those lessons—true, real-time lessons—and deploy them very quickly.”

She is proud of how ACHE is evolving to meet the needs of its members, especially during the past 12 months as the organization pivoted from offering in-person events to virtual education, including the upcoming Congress on Healthcare Leadership. She credits ACHE with its creativity around different membership models and its Choice program, which offers professional development tailored to individual organizations’ needs.

As Chair of ACHE, Owen Plietz says one of the key things she will focus on is “continuing that level of innovation and resilience for our members as we all transition into the new normal or the next normal post COVID.”

Leading Through the Year Ahead 
It is Owen Plietz’s willingness to do whatever is asked of her that stands out most to Rulon F. Stacey, PhD, FACHE, director of graduate programs in health administration at the University of Colorado, Denver. “We are fortunate to have Carrie leading ACHE at a time when we need both wisdom and kindness in this country,” says Stacey, who has known her for more than a decade.

White also believes Owen Plietz is the right person to serve as Chair as the organization, and the healthcare profession, continue to face the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. “She has been a very good leader in times of uncertainty, and she will rely on her core values and what being a healthcare executive is all about.”

Maureen Bisognano, HFACHE, president emerita and senior fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, who has known Owen Plietz for over eight years, says she is a great example of a leader who possesses the three “Qs”: IQ, EQ and CQ. “Her managerial experience and knowledge are vital for the challenges we face today. Her EQ, emotional quotient and empathy, show in her designs for patient and staff experience. Her CQ, curiosity quotient, always leads to new ideas and exploring new ways to work.” 

Reflecting on her own expectations for the year ahead, Owen Plietz harkens back to advice she sometimes shares with young professionals: “You don’t have to walk on water, all you have to do is swim across,” and, “Have grace with yourself.”

“As people are working through their post-traumatic stress of 2020 and such divisiveness, we have to have grace with each other,” she says.

As the healthcare field emerges from a year unlike any other experienced by most executives today, it will take a leader equipped with the three Qs to lead the profession through today’s challenges, and to shine a light on the opportunities of tomorrow. Owen Plietz is, by all accounts, just the person for the job.

Lea E. Radick is a writer with Healthcare Executive.