Justin Klinefelter, Evening MBA student and manager of Sourcing and Contracting at Swedish Hospital in Chicago, knows what it’s like to be on the front lines of COVID-19.
- By
- August 13, 2020
- Career Impact
Booth Student Justin Klinefelter Pivots to Keep Staff Safe at Swedish Hospital
The moment Chicago confirmed its first positive case, Justin's entire job transitioned to sourcing and managing personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensure his staff remained safe. Here, he talks about his recent pivot, how he juggles his demanding schedule, and how Chicago Booth has impacted his career.
Why did you decide to pursue an MBA?
I fell in love with the mission of Swedish Hospital, which is a small, community based safety net hospital—and up until its 2020 merger with NorthShore, was an independent organization for 125 years. I began my career at Swedish managing contracts and was very fortunate to get promoted to a leadership position. After an honest self-assessment of my current skills, I realized I had gaps of knowledge and experience that were needed if I wanted to maximize my impact in the organization and the community it serves. After doing some research, discussing it with my wife, and talking to colleagues and mentors, I realized it was the right time to pursue my MBA.
Why did you choose Booth?
During my undergraduate experience at North Park University, many of my professors talked highly about Booth and their experience there. During the research and application process, I engaged with a number of colleagues, Booth alumni, and current students. It became clear that the relationships they had built, the quality of the faculty, and the flexibility of the curriculum separated Booth from the other schools under consideration. It was also reassuring that I wasn’t the only one to think this way; during my application process, Booth was recognized by US News as the top MBA program in the country, adding to their growing list of awards. By the time I received my call from admissions, Booth had clearly become my #1 choice and it was impossible to say no.
Tell us about your role at Swedish Hospital
In my current role I get to wear many hats; I negotiate agreements for contracted services, capital equipment and medical implants, manage a variety of projects, and assist on ad hoc assignments for our executive team. I enjoy going to work each day knowing that I will always experience something different and hopefully learn something new. A lot of my work entails trying to reduce costs or find the balance between price and quality for a given piece of equipment or service. The cost constraints that exist in the market have only grown since the first COVID wave. The majority of my time is spent building relationships and solving problems with different stakeholders in the organization, including department heads, nursing leadership, members of the executive team, and many of the physicians themselves. When I am able to build those relationships and gain their trust, I have realized it leads to increased collaboration and often vastly improves the outcomes of the projects I lead.
"I can tell you wholeheartedly at this juncture in my career, the fact that I played such a critical role in providing that protection to our staff, is what I point to as the accomplishment I am most proud of."
— Justin Klinefelter
What impact has your experience at Booth had on your career?
Booth has taught me so much over the last 2+ years and has had a huge impact on my career. My Consumer Behavior and Managerial Decision Making class taught me both how and why people think the way they do. This additional insight allowed me to approach situations differently, realize where others are coming from, and adjust my conversations to better appeal to them and their goals. This has improved not only the outcomes of the projects I lead but also leaves the other parties feeling they were heard and achieved their goals for the project.
Professor Ginzel’s Negotiations class was hugely influential. I spend a large amount of my time negotiating with not only vendors but also coworkers. Whether it be for capital equipment we are trying to buy for the hospital, managing large projects that encompass several departments and stakeholders, or trying to standardize medical supplies and implants across the organization. I use what I learned in class each and every time I sit down with a vendor, departmental leader, or executive to ensure we maximize the value of the deal for all parties involved.
In a recent example, during COVID I was using skills I learned at Booth on a daily basis. I was running regressions during the pandemic to better predict future demand for critical PPE items such as masks, gloves, and isolation gowns. I was helping the organization to better understand the impact policy changes and purchasing decisions would have on usage rates and inventory levels. Utilization for these items skyrocketed during COVID, some by over 50x, and demand was fluctuating constantly. It was difficult to predict how many units we would need to purchase to keep the hundreds of nurses, physicians, and support staff safe and protected. The tools that I learned at Booth gave us a much better framework from which to estimate future needs and we were able to source accordingly.
How did your job change after COVID began?
Before COVID, my job was almost exclusively working on integrating Swedish Hospital with the NorthShore Health System. The moment Chicago confirmed its first positive case my priorities changed, and my job transitioned to the sourcing and management of PPE for my organization. The major companies and distributors were overwhelmed by the spike in demand, which caused hospitals to source from unknown vendors, many of whom had no experience in the medical field.
This led to huge variability in delivery times; whereas a normal shipment might be two days pre-COVID, we found delivery times extending out to six to eight weeks. It also meant that the quality of the products became much less certain and the number of different unique identifier codes for various products we had onsite grew dramatically. In addition to this, and honestly just as important, I partnered with Infection Control, Infectious Disease physicians, our executive team, and nursing leadership to develop protocols and communication to make the best use of the PPE we had available and to ensure we kept our staff on the front line safe.
We were extremely fortunate and through an incredible team effort, we never ran out of a single PPE item. Based on speaking with other organizations and from stories we heard in the healthcare industry, that unfortunately happened far more often than you would expect, including in the Chicagoland area. Despite the 70 or more hours per week focused solely on this one task, it was incredibly rewarding to know that our staff, who were putting their lives on the line to take care of our patients and community, were as safe as they could possibly be. I can tell you wholeheartedly at this juncture in my career, the fact that I played such a critical role in providing that protection to our staff, is what I point to as the accomplishment I am most proud of.
How did you juggle work and school during this time?
Pre-COVID I would say that I was successful at balancing the work, life, and school, but Spring Quarter of 2020 was extremely tough for me. My life for those three months revolved almost exclusively around PPE and the various other projects we took on to ensure our staff's safety; it was hard to come home and turn my focus to school lectures or homework. At the end of the day, I had to prioritize my time and unfortunately with everything on the line at work I wasn’t able to spend as much time on school work as I had in previous quarters.
My wife has been fantastic in terms of encouraging me to focus on school to ensure I am getting the most out of my Booth experience, even when it’s at the expense of work around the house or spending more time with her. Without her support, I would definitely not get the same amount of knowledge or value from Booth.
My advice for current or future students would be to focus on compartmentalizing your life and to be purposeful on how you allocate your time. If you’re choosing not to focus on homework, you need to separate that from your mind and be fully present with your friends or family. Similarly, when it’s time to focus on school, homework, or group projects, it’s important not to think about what else you could be doing instead.
You graduate this December, what was the highlight of your Booth experience?
There are several different answers I could put here, but I loved the LAUNCH process and thought it did a fantastic job setting students up for success. I launched summer of 2018. I realize now that most people want to enjoy the summer and wait to begin classes in the fall, so my LAUNCH class was very small, about 27 people. Those three days and nights of building relationships and getting to know every single person entering the program was a great way to start Booth and make connections. I consider many of the students I met at LAUNCH to be not only good resources that I’ve relied on over the last two years at Booth, but more importantly great friends!
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