Tom Huebner on Feb. 14, 2018. File photo by Bob LoCicero/VTDiggerTom Huebner, who died Wednesday at Massachusetts General Hospital at age 71 following a brief illness, served many roles across Vermont’s health care system, taking a human-centered approach and offering a visionary path forward for improving health care access, former colleagues recalled. In addition to leading Rutland Regional Medical Center for almost three decades, Huebner was instrumental in helping to steer Springfield Hospital through bankruptcy and served as champion of numerous health care initiatives in Rutland and beyond.Huebner moved to Vermont after growing up in Chappaqua, New York, and working for 15 years in the medical field in Massachusetts, becoming a transformative leader for Rutland Regional Medical Center over 28 years, according to Huebner’s obituary.Judi Fox, the hospital’s current president and chief executive officer, and Huebner both began working at the medical center in May of 1990 and he was approachable and a valuable mentor and sounding board for her as her career advanced, she said. Huebner was a positive “disrupter,” Fox said, in that he was not afraid to have hard conversations in order to improve health care systems in the state. “He had a great passion for Vermonters, and felt that every Vermonter deserved access to high quality care,” Fox said. “He wasn’t afraid of putting some creative options or considerations on the table, and did so in a way that was very disarming to his colleagues, and one that really allowed for lots of engagement around the table.”He was a strong supporter of behavioral health, psychiatric services and substance use disorder treatments, and worked to improve community health access during his time at the Rutland Regional Medical Center, Fox said. He spearheaded an opiate addiction center called the Westridge Clinic, the development of a six-bed ICU psychiatric unit and the creation of assisted living facilities, the Gables and the Meadows in Rutland, according to Fox.She added that Huebner early in his leadership role at the hospital recognized that Rutland had a swath of private, independent specialists. Huebner worked to bring practitioners into the hospital to build a “multi-specialty clinic practice” so Rutland could retain health care providers and ensure area residents had access to the care they needed, she said. Across the state, other health care leaders described the impact of his collaborative leadership style and forward-thinking approach to challenges such as transportation gaps in the health care system. Stephen Leffler, president and chief operating officer at University of Vermont Medical Center, said in an emailed statement that he first met Huebner while working infrequent night shifts at Rutland Regional Medical Center. Leffler said he was impressed that Huebner took the time and care to check in with him and remember his name and his family. Leffler, who would later serve on the Rutland Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees, said Huebner taught him to navigate difficult decisions and celebrate successes when leading a community hospital. “Healthcare in Rutland and the whole state of Vermont is better because of Tom’s leadership,” Leffler said in the email. “He leaves an amazing legacy and a big shadow.”Chadd Viger, the chief executive officer of Recovery House in Rutland County, also first met Huebner when he worked at Rutland Regional Medical Center. Huebner made the rounds in the hospital to meet everyone he could, and Viger said he was in awe as an employee of Huebner’s ability to openly communicate and show care to everyone working, regardless of their role. “Seeing how he carried himself as a leader helped me inform the way that I lead today. He was very much supportive of his employees, and he was very much a patient-centered leader,” Viger said.Gov. Phil Scott tapped Huebner in 2018 to oversee the Springfield Hospital when it faced tumultuous financial challenges. Huebner was able to use his expertise to steer the Springfield Hospital forward and restructure processes for success, said its current Chief Executive Officer Robert Adcock in a statement. “Tom was a true professional with a comprehensive and deeply-rooted understanding of Vermont’s health care system,” Adcock said in an emailed statement. “Tom met with hospital leadership monthly to review our progress, and his advice on various matters during the pandemic and beyond was invaluable.”While Huebner retired as chief executive officer of the Rutland hospital in 2018, he continued to offer guidance to various volunteer health care-related nonprofit boards, still serving on five when he died. In his role as chair of the Brattleboro Retreat’s board of trustees, Huebner helped guide the facility through challenges like the Covid-19 pandemic and flooding events in Vermont. He also helped develop more inpatient and outpatient capacity to serve adults, children and the LGBTQ+ population, said Steven Cummings, the retreat’s chief executive officer.Cummings noted that Huebner recognized long delays in transportation for patients between emergency rooms and the retreat and helped build relationships and negotiate ambulance service contracts to help patients and providers. “The faster we can get those patients into our care, the better, and unfortunately, those patients sometimes had to wait a long time,” Cummings said “He really helped us, and really every other hospital in the state, solve that problem.”Cummings said Huebner mentored him as he adjusted to his role leading the Retreat. Huebner’s visionary perspective “really helped (him) see further down the road as a leader,” he said. Huebner had challenges with speaking and other health concerns toward the end of his life, but remained an energetic and passionate leader during Board conversation, according to Cummings. “His ability to run a board meeting in a really fantastic way, despite that challenge, was really just amazing,” Cummings said. “I felt like he was able to really guide us so effectively, despite that challenge, and you could tell he had the respect of everybody that we interacted with.”Huebner focused on building bridges between individuals and within the health care system, said Tom Borys, chief executive officer and chief financial officer of OneCare Vermont. Huebner served as the vice chair of the OneCare board, and he and Borys were both members of the Brattleboro Retreat board. Echoing Fox and others, Borys said that Huebner valued investing in preventative care and care coordination to improve the state’s health care system.“I don’t use this word often, but I really think Tom is just a hero, one of those people that dedicated their lives to our communities, and he did it through health care,” Borys said. “There’s a long list of people who are carrying on the work with his spirit within them.”Read the story on VTDigger here: Tom Huebner, health care ‘hero’, dies at 71. ...read more read less