Dave Nall, VP Human Resources/Strategic Development

"I was at an event with my wife in the 90s and met Bill Heath, CEO of Saginaw General Hospital at the time. My wife previously babysat for their children. The two of us were talking, and he found out I was in healthcare. I described my job role to him, and he's like, 'Oh my gosh. We need that at Saginaw Gen.' That conversation evolved into my initial role at Saginaw General as Director of Organizational Effectiveness.

When I came to Saginaw Gen in 1994, it was a small niche organization—a women's and children's hospital for the most part. They had just built Saginaw General North, what we know as Mackinaw Campus today. A little-known fact is if you look at it from the air, the design of the building is like a compass, and there's a point on the facility that faces north.

We analyzed the healthcare landscape in the area and realized we couldn't continue forever as a small hospital and needed to find a partner to continue providing services long term. The leadership team sent out a request for proposal (RFP) to a few medical centers including St. Luke’s Hospital, our main competitor across the street.

The Board had their final meeting where they were going to make their final selection in the RFP process. The team of directors at Saginaw General were absolutely convinced the merger was going to take place with St. Mary's Hospital across the river.

Bill Heath, our CEO at the time, instructed us to call into our voicemails that night and listen to his recorded message that would indicate the Board’s final decision on a partner. We didn't have cellphones at the time, so you would go home and dial into your landline and enter your code. Five o'clock, we're checking—nothing. Six o'clock, we're checking—nothing. Seven o'clock, we're checking—nothing. It's getting pretty late.

I think it was eight or nine o'clock that the very exhausted voice of Bill Heath came on and said there's a mandatory meeting tomorrow morning in the Andersen Wellness Room. So, we're like, 'Holy cow, what does this mean? This is big.' We're all at our homes, so nobody can text one another to discuss the message.

We all came in the next morning, and Bill stated firmly, 'The Board met last night, and the decision is to merge with St. Luke's Hospital.' You could have knocked us all over with a feather.

We were very competitive between Saginaw General and St. Luke's. In hindsight, it's ludicrous to think it would have been anybody else. But then, you had two hospitals that were literally right across the street from one another—I think we were just so blinded by the competition back then.

Both organizations were so complimentary. A women's and children's hospital at Saginaw General and St. Luke's was very solid in general medicine and other complementary specialties. So, it's like alright, here we go."

Pictured: Dave Nall with Weather Station, Memento for the Transition Team

Pictured: Weather Station Inscription

"I had a unique role during merger time. From my perspective as an industrial engineer, helping two organizations come together as one was a dream come true.

Before I left Saginaw General temporarily for a role in Bay City, I had a chance to meet Bill Parsons, who was my mirror at St. Luke's Hospital. Bill and I were the first to kind of cross streets operationally and were tasked with putting a transition team together to help establish a mission, vision and values early on for the organization.

I have a wall mounted weather station I keep in our family room at home that was a gift to those of us who were part of the team that helped create these guiding principles.

There were three or so of us from the transition team on a subcommittee that created the 'WE CARE' acronym Covenant HealthCare adopted for its values and still lives by today.

• Working together
• Excellence
• Customer service
• Accountability
• Respect
• Enthusiasm

We've since come up with a couple of sentences to expand on each value, but those were the very words the subcommittee chose for our organizational values. That project was fun to be involved with.

I see a lot of parallels between our mission, vision and values. These aren't just words that you see on a plaque in a hallway—we keep them in front of us constantly. We applaud team members when we see demonstrations of them going above and beyond the call of duty and aligning themselves to these ideals.

The 'WE CARE' Values are part of us. They aren't words on a shelf. They are what we do. They are who we are, both as individuals and a collective team."

Pictured: Dave Nall and Covenant Mission, Vision, and WE CARE Values

"An organization's culture is collectively how you work together. What we do at Covenant HealthCare is important, but how we do it is of equal if not greater importance at times. Our values define how we do our work and sets us apart from other organizations. It’s our collective DNA.

Making sure our 'WE CARE' Values stay in in the forefront of our minds and keeping that mirror in front of us is vital, both individually as employees but collectively in our departments and across department lines. Our culture couldn't be more important in terms of how we work together and how we deliver care at Covenant.

We hope there are enough torchbearers with respect to the values that can pass them on to new employees. Our goal is to have constancy, focus and cultural longevity.

The culture here is palpable. Candidates who come here often note there's something in the air here. We're not perfect, but there's a noticeable difference here from other organizations.

There are a lot of extraordinary people on the Covenant Team that understand the significance of what we do. It really is about the privilege of being able to care for people in their time of need.

Many of our meetings start with 'moments that matter.' Before we get to the business that we're about to dive into, we like to talk about the moments that really matter. Employees take time to share peer to peer or patient encounters where team members went above and beyond. You hear so many heroic stories of people doing way above what an average human in their line of work would do.

I love the fact that we take the time to recognize and applaud that. Sometimes when people gather, they tend to dwell on the negative. Mistakes happen, but let's be purposeful about noticing the cool things happening around us. Just pointing out and celebrating those moments is so important.

What you do is key, but who you do it with—that's what keeps you at an organization. It's very challenging work, especially in 2023. Still, being able to do what we do with the people that we get to do it with is such a privilege

—Dave Nall, VP Human Resources/Strategic Development, Covenant HealthCare (Former Director of Organizational Effectiveness, Saginaw General Hospital)

Pictured: Dave Nall, VP Human Resources/Strategic Development, Covenant HealthCare