This year, after more than two decades of service to Inspira, Betty Sheridan is retiring from her position as chief administrative officer for Inspira Medical Centers Elmer and Vineland. In preparation for Sheridan’s retirement, Lydia Stockman is stepping into a newly created position: senior vice president, chief administrative officer for Inspira Medical Center. In this role, Stockman will oversee all acute care services across Inspira Health’s hospitals, as well as health centers in Bridgeton and Woodbury.
“Betty and I already work together on a lot of our programming,” said Stockman. “This new role will present an opportunity for more clinical integration and standardization across the network, with a central leader to guide our strategy and vision.”
Stockman will collaborate with Sheridan to strategize the forthcoming reorganization of acute services, allowing Sheridan to share meaningful insights from her decades-long experience serving Inspira’s patients—especially those in the Vineland and Elmer communities. “Each community in South Jersey is different,” said Stockman. “While we’re working toward clinical integration, we still want to meet the needs of each community’s population and their providers, aligning and providing services where they make the most sense.”
Leaders in each hospital will all report to Stockman, who is looking forward to engaging and interacting with even more physicians across the region. While she has already implemented some best practices at Mullica Hill, she is also excited to learn about what has been working best for Vineland and Elmer, as well as Salem Medical Center, an affiliate of Inspira Health.
In her new role, Stockman aims to focus on staff stabilization, quality of care and patient experience. “We’ve added so many new positions across the network in the past year, from pharmacists in our emergency departments to a staffed discharge lounge to a significant number of nursing and assistive personnel,” she said. “Now, we need to focus on retaining that staff by making sure they’re doing meaningful work, they feel supported and safe, and they have the tools they need to do their jobs.”
Providing safe, quality care is not a new goal for Inspira—Elmer, Mullica Hill and Vineland all earned “A” ratings for the Fall 2022 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade—which is why Stockman looks forward to working together across the network to continue to deliver high-quality care. “The bar is raised every year, and we must continue to build on our HRO tools and do our best in communicating with teams to keep delivering the best care possible to our patients,” said Stockman.
Stockman is also focusing on continuing to improve the patient experience at Inspira’s acute care facilities through multidisciplinary teamwork, expanded community access and community education.
With experience in large academic medical centers and health systems, Stockman acknowledges the importance of partnerships. “My background is in nursing, so I always try to marry the clinical side with the business side of programs. Success in growing clinical services always requires teamwork between the physician and nursing leaders and the ancillary teams.” Stockman is excited to bring the hospital campuses, as well as health centers in Bridgeton and Woodbury, in closer alignment to further elevate patient safety, clinical quality and the patient experience.
