After celebrating its one-year anniversary last year, the
Parkview Southwest Outpatient Center continues to provide several critical healthcare services in Allen County. The center was built to meet a rising demand for services in southwest Fort Wayne and features a new approach to providing urgent and emergency care that allows patients to come in and be treated at either the urgent care level or the emergency care level, and then be billed accordingly, taking away the guesswork of where treatment should occur.
Parkview Southwest Outpatient Center also features a full lab, imaging such as CT scans, X-rays, mammography, ultrasounds and echocardiograms. They can also perform pulmonary function testing, home sleep studies and treadmill stress tests there. Additionally, the center features primary care offices and a surgery center.
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Parkview SouthwestInput Fort Wayne sat down with Gail Altekruse, vice president of operations, to learn more about her career journey and how the lessons learned growing up in Fort Wayne still apply in her current role leading Parkview’s care teams at the southwest campus.
Input Fort Wayne: What got you into healthcare?
Gail Altekruse: My mom always wanted to be a nurse. She never got an opportunity to pursue that career, but she always wanted me to do something in healthcare. And so, as I got older, she pushed me toward science and math.
She also always wanted to make sure that I was thinking about being a working woman as I grew up, which was really kind of groundbreaking for that time. My dad was an entrepreneur, so he always wanted us to go to college.
Then, in high school, I was given the opportunity to volunteer at Byron Health Center in the
physical therapy department, and I was hooked. Physical therapy just checked all the boxes for me. I got an opportunity to work one-on-one with and teach people.
Evidently, I made it look attractive because I have a daughter who's a physical therapist as well. And so, it truly has been kind of a calling.
IFW: Tell us more about the journey to your current role.
GA: I was always kind of looking at what's the next thing? How can we make this better? I took advantage of as many things as Parkview was willing to train me on. And the other piece, that was kind of a skill that my dad taught me, was when the door opens, walk through it.
So, I just have had this progression of going from supervisor to manager, then manager to director, director to system director, and then that system director to VP. It's taken 20 years, but when the opportunity presents itself, you just have to say yes.
IFW: What do you enjoy most in your line of work?
GA: One of the things that my parents imparted to me was a deep love for the community that I live in.
I was always told that, whatever community you live in, or that you're a part of, you need to participate and raise the level of that community whenever you can. And that's kind of the way I feel here. That's what I love about Parkview. We participate. We are part of the community that we live in.
And, you know, there's not a lot of health systems that are like that. We are driven by the people that we live with. And I just find that extraordinarily special. And that's why I'm still here. I love what I do and I love our mission.
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Gail Altekruse, vice president of operations at Parkview SouthwestIFW: What prompted you to settle in Fort Wayne?
GA: Life changes being what they were, I left Fort Wayne. The joke was, at one point in time I could practice from Canada to Cuba because I had a license in every state.
I came back to Fort Wayne in 2001. Parkview was getting ready to build a new hospital called Parkview North (
Parkview Regional Medical Center). And that's when I came back to Parkview. Knowing then that, you know, I had all this experience behind me
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IFW: How would you describe your approach to leadership?
GA: My leadership philosophy is to let your experts be experts. Do whatever you can to facilitate their work. It's that old Walt Whitman saying that says to be curious before you become judgmental. When I say, so help me understand, dot, dot, dot. It's kind of like, uh oh, Gail's asking questions again. But, that's changed my leadership style. When I was in private practice, I was kind of a benevolent dictator. I had to completely change that style as I moved through Parkview.
IFW: Does your relationship with the community affect how you lead?
GA: Yes, I think it does. I want the people I work with, and those I mentor, to remain in our community, so I work at helping them achieve their career goals here, instead of moving away to fulfill their goals. We have so much to offer here, and I want the people who are talented, skilled, and ambitious to stay here and make our community even more vibrant.
IFW: What do you most value about Fort Wayne?
GA: I love our hometown feel. The way we have world-class services and offerings, yet have safe communities where families can thrive. We embrace the past and celebrate our legacies, like the Historic Fort Wayne, Johnny Appleseed Festival and Three Rivers Festival. And we still have wonderful new offerings, like Sweetwater Sound and Promenade Park.
IFW: Are there any groups you're involved with that give you a further sense of belonging within this community?
GA: I have volunteered at the Historic Fort Wayne, am a member of the Visit Fort Wayne- Destination Accessible Taskforce, and am a mentor for SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) of NE Indiana. I serve on the advisory committees for Trine University and Manchester University physical therapy programs and volunteer at Turnstone’s athletic tournaments when I can. I also love to take advantage of the great Fort Wayne Parks and Rec facilities– taking classes at the community center and playing in a golf league at Shoaff Park.
IFW: Is there anything else you'd like to add that speaks to your connection to the community?
GA: “There’s no place like home…”