Skip to main content
Subscribe
  • Sign Up Free
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Current News
    • Providers
    • Insurance
    • Government
    • Finance
    • Technology
    • Safety & Quality
    • Digital Health
    • Transformation
    • ESG
    • People
    • Regional News
    • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Patients
    • Operations
    • Care Delivery
    • Payment
    • Midwest
    • Northeast
    • South
    • West
  • Blogs
    • AI
    • Deals
    • Layoff Tracker
    • HIMSS 2023
  • Opinion
    • Breaking Bias
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • From the Editor
  • Events & Awards
    • Awards
    • Conferences
    • Galas
    • Virtual Briefings
    • Webinars
    • Nominate/Eligibility
    • 100 Most Influential People
    • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
    • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
    • Excellence in Governance
    • Health Care Hall of Fame
    • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
    • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
    • Top Innovators
    • Diversity in Healthcare
      • - Luminaries
      • - Top 25 Diversity Leaders
      • - Leaders to Watch
    • Women in Healthcare
      • - Luminaries
      • - Top 25 Women Leaders
      • - Women to Watch
    • Digital Health Transformation Summit
    • ESG: The Implementation Imperative Summit
    • Leadership Symposium
    • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
    • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
    • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
    • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
    • Top 25 Diversity Leaders Gala
    • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
    • - Hospital of the Future
    • - Value Based Care
    • - Hospital at Home
    • - Workplace of the Future
    • - AI and Digital Health
    • - Future of Staffing
    • - Hospital of the Future (Fall)
  • Multimedia
    • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
    • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
    • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
    • Sponsored Video Series - Checking In with Dan Peres
  • Data & Insights
    • Data & Insights Home
    • Hospital Financials
    • Staffing & Compensation
    • Quality & Safety
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Data Archive
    • Resource Guide: By the Numbers
    • Surveys
    • Data Points
  • Newsletters
  • MORE+
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Jobs
    • People on the Move
    • Reprints & Licensing
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. People
March 24, 2018 12:00 AM

Sister Mary Jean Ryan

Putting quality of care on the C-suite's agenda

Paul Barr
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print

    At the beginning of her career in healthcare, Sister Mary Jean Ryan was neither a nun nor all that interested in working for a hospital.

    Ryan, who ended her career as an international leader in the movement to improve quality in healthcare, was trying to decide what to do after high school, having grown up in the tiny Wisconsin town of Cuba City. “I had no idea what I was going to do until a good friend of mine said, 'I think I'm going to St. Mary's for nursing school,' and I said, 'Well that sounds like a good idea. Maybe I'll do that too,' ” Ryan recalled.

    Selected career highlights

    1959: R.N. diploma, St. Mary's Hospital, Madison, Wis.

    1960: Enters convent of Franciscan Sisters of St. Mary 1967: B.S. in nursing, St. Louis University 1974: Master of Hospital and Health Administration, Xavier University 1986-2011: First CEO, SSM Health 2004: No. 7 in Modern Healthcare's 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare, behind John Ashcroft, then U.S. attorney general, and ahead of Tommy Thompson, HHS secretary Appeared seven more times on the list 2007: Author, On Becoming Exceptional: SSM Health Care's Journey to Baldrige and Beyond 2011-16: Board chair, SSM Health 2014: Baldrige Foundation Harry S. Hertz Leadership Award

    She didn't know what she was getting into. More than 60 years later, the former health system CEO and healthcare quality pioneer was named as a 2018 inductee into the Modern Healthcare Health Care Hall of Fame.

    Ryan said her experience of earning that registered nurse diploma was integral to her success. “It was the most important three years of my life,” Ryan said. The basic tenets of care she learned at St. Mary's School of Nursing in Madison, Wis.—which was linked to a hospital in the SSM Healthcare system, where she eventually was CEO—would stick with her throughout her career.

    She said the school's strong clinical and nurturing culture made the experience an important one. Older students acted as strong mentors to her and her classmates, and though they did not get the training in care plans or in other subjects like history or psychology that a college nursing student would, “we knew how to take care of people.”

    Ryan eventually would get a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing, from St. Louis University, an experience that reinforced her belief that so-called “diploma nurses” were sometimes underestimated by the healthcare field. “We could nurse circles around some of those women who were in their original baccalaureate program,” Ryan said.

    Later, Ryan also earned a master's degree in hospital and health administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati. But her first big step after working about a year as a nurse was to enter the convent, becoming a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary order. “I admired greatly one of our sisters. I decided that if I was going to take care of people the rest of my life I'd like to do it as she was doing it, so I entered the convent in 1960.”

    Another Catholic healthcare leader, Sister Carol Keehan, CEO of the Catholic Health Association, said that it was Ryan's inclusive nature that led her to stand out in the industry. “There are many, many people who will tell you that Sister Mary Jean was the key person responsible for them moving from modest positions into leadership roles,” Keehan said. Similarly, Gayle Capozzalo, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health and one of two people who nominated her, said that Ryan was a person that other healthcare leaders could and did learn from, and she was active with the influential Institute for Healthcare Improvement and in quality circles in general.

    There's no simple way to chart the path of an RN from a small Wisconsin town who eventually became a top CEO authority on hospital quality; in 2002 Ryan led SSM to become the first healthcare organization to earn the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Ryan's career didn't follow the usual routes. But some of the highlights that Ryan identified offer clues as to the type of person she was and is.

    One of the stops along the way included a stint on the night shift at a South Carolina hospital when forms of segregation were still in effect, including in the maternity ward where the newborns were cared for. “We weren't breaking rules, but a great story that we have is (about) the nursery,” Ryan said. “Because there wasn't that much to do at night, they would put white babies in with the African-American babies, and then separate them again in the morning. And as far as we know, nobody ever suffered any kind of permanent damage from that,” she added dryly.

    Later in her career, as part of her grad school training, Ryan said she had a one-year residency at a for-profit hospital in California that delivered, as she described it, “one of those learnings.” And it was one of those learnings that tell you, “this is what I never want to do,” she said.

    Ryan eventually made her way back to SSM, in an administrative role, where she became known for both demanding a lot from her colleagues but also for supporting them and stirring them to achieve. Chris Howard, chief operations officer for SSM Health, speaks warmly of his years working with Ryan: “Sister Mary Jean is inspirational.”

    Howard continued: “She's driven. A taskmaster and she will proceed to endeavor on a goal until she achieves it. That's just the absolute truth.

    “She is as focused on patient safety and quality as any human being I've ever known,” he said, adding that Ryan remained focused on “ensuring that the rights of all patients, employees, physicians and the community were represented."

    Ryan affected others who she worked with in a similar fashion. When queried about what Ryan might have been good at were she not a healthcare administrator, Paula Friedman, chief strategy officer for SSM, said that “being in a role of service I think is very much rooted in her personality.” Friedman notes, though, that Ryan is not a shrinking violet. “You know she's pretty good at telling people what to do. She's inspirational in a loving but very specific way. And so she'd be a leader of some sort.”

    Ryan's dual roles, working in healthcare and as a nun in the Catholic Church, were deeply intertwined. Anthony Tersigni, CEO of St. Louis-based Ascension, and the other healthcare leader who nominated Ryan for induction, described her as: “One of those rare inspirational women religious who has left an indelible mark on the world. Quiet but determined, she improved healthcare in the U.S. and influenced healthcare quality throughout the world.”

    –Paul Barr

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Send us a letter

    Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.

    Recommended for You
    top innovators
    Meet Modern Healthcare's Top Innovators of 2023
    DocGo CEO Lee Bienstock
    DocGo taps new CEO after Anthony Capone resigns
    Most Popular
    1
    Centene to lay off 2,000 workers
    2
    How health systems are battling price-gouging allegations
    3
    Senate advances bill to temporarily aid hospitals, health centers
    4
    Elevance, Blue Cross Louisiana halt $2.5B proposed deal
    5
    Tower Health to sell urgent care centers, close others
    Sponsored Content
    People on the Move Newsletter: Sign up to receive a bi-monthly, sponsored content newsletter announcing new hires, promotions, and special accomplishments in the healthcare industry.
    Get Newsletters

    Sign up for enewsletters and alerts to receive breaking news and in-depth coverage of healthcare events and trends, as they happen, right to your inbox.

    Subscribe Today
    MH Magazine Cover

    MH magazine offers content that sheds light on healthcare leaders’ complex choices and touch points—from strategy, governance, leadership development and finance to operations, clinical care, and marketing.

    Subscribe
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS

    Our Mission

    Modern Healthcare empowers industry leaders to succeed by providing unbiased reporting of the news, insights, analysis and data.

    Contact Us

    (877) 812-1581

    Email us

     

    Resources
    • Contact Us
    • Help Center
    • Advertise with Us
    • Ad Choices
    • Sitemap
    Editorial Dept
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Code of Ethics
    • Awards
    • About Us
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Modern Healthcare
    Copyright © 1996-2023. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Current News
      • Providers
      • Insurance
      • Government
      • Finance
      • Technology
      • Safety & Quality
      • Digital Health
      • Transformation
        • Patients
        • Operations
        • Care Delivery
        • Payment
      • ESG
      • People
      • Regional News
        • Midwest
        • Northeast
        • South
        • West
      • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Blogs
      • AI
      • Deals
      • Layoff Tracker
      • HIMSS 2023
    • Opinion
      • Breaking Bias
      • Commentaries
      • Letters
      • From the Editor
    • Events & Awards
      • Awards
        • Nominate/Eligibility
        • 100 Most Influential People
        • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
        • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
        • Excellence in Governance
        • Health Care Hall of Fame
        • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
        • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
        • Top Innovators
        • Diversity in Healthcare
          • - Luminaries
          • - Top 25 Diversity Leaders
          • - Leaders to Watch
        • Women in Healthcare
          • - Luminaries
          • - Top 25 Women Leaders
          • - Women to Watch
      • Conferences
        • Digital Health Transformation Summit
        • ESG: The Implementation Imperative Summit
        • Leadership Symposium
        • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
        • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
      • Galas
        • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
        • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
        • Top 25 Diversity Leaders Gala
        • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
      • Virtual Briefings
        • - Hospital of the Future
        • - Value Based Care
        • - Hospital at Home
        • - Workplace of the Future
        • - AI and Digital Health
        • - Future of Staffing
        • - Hospital of the Future (Fall)
      • Webinars
    • Multimedia
      • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
      • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
      • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
      • Sponsored Video Series - Checking In with Dan Peres
    • Data & Insights
      • Data & Insights Home
      • Hospital Financials
      • Staffing & Compensation
      • Quality & Safety
      • Mergers & Acquisitions
      • Data Archive
      • Resource Guide: By the Numbers
      • Surveys
      • Data Points
    • Newsletters
    • MORE+
      • Contact Us
      • Advertise
      • Media Kit
      • Jobs
      • People on the Move
      • Reprints & Licensing