You can hear the excitement in Joseph DeLeon’s voice as he describes the promising future that awaits Texas Health Fort Worth. As President of the hospital, he calls the Jane and John Justin Tower the foundation of that future. Not only will the carefully designed facility incorporate the latest technologies and patient friendly environment, it will also serve as the focal point for the hospital’s burgeoning graduate medical education residency programs.
An interview with Joseph DeLeon, president, Texas Health Fort Worth Hospital and Texas Health Specialty Hospital.
Q: What changes have you seen at Texas Health Fort Worth since you became president of the hospital?
Joseph: Over the 16 years I’ve been associated with Texas Health Resources, I’ve seen tremendous growth in services and facilities at Texas Health Fort Worth. Much of that growth has come from our Emergency Department (ED) with more than 80 percent of our inpatients starting there. Combining our Fort Worth, Willow Park and Burleson EDs, we see more than 165,000 patients annually. Our growth is also a result of our intentional focus on building our capabilities to provide complex care across multiple service lines. The number of penetrating trauma cases (gun shots, knife wounds, vehicle accidents), as an example have grown 26 percent over the past year.
Our need for additional patient care areas has been evident for the past several years. In 2020 and 2021, we’ve been over 100 percent occupancy. Currently, the Texas Health Fort Worth campus encompasses about two million square feet of air-conditioned space. The Justin Tower will add another 400,000 square feet of space. We’ll add 144 beds when the Tower opens in the spring of 2022. There will be shelled-in space for an additional 77 beds. In any town, 200 beds would be a major medical facility. While this is an enormous challenge, the fact that we’ve operated at full capacity for so long and we’ve had an ED that’s been full has kept staff extremely busy. The people that choose to work at Texas Health Fort Worth have always thrived on the energy, the volume of patients, and the capabilities to successfully care the patients, and I believe that gives us a head start on incorporating these additional beds into our overall operations.
Q: Staffing is challenging all healthcare facilities now. How will Texas Health Fort Worth meet the challenge of staffing the additional beds in the Justin Tower?
Joseph: Actually, that’s one of the issues that wakes me up at night. We, like everyone else in the area, already have a nursing and clinical technologist shortage, and the Justin Tower will require an additional 250 team members. Recent expansions and additions within the THR system have demonstrated that healthcare professionals will come to work for an outstanding organization that shares their values about caring for the community. I believe the new Justin Tower will definitely help recruit additional nurses and ancillary staff. Because we are raising the bar on our capabilities to provide care for complex cases, we are already seeing the halo effect in terms of newly recruited staff. The recruitment team at THR is also strongly supporting our efforts. In addition, we are expanding the care team to include licensed vocational nurses (LVNs), a role we haven’t had at the hospital for a number of years. Additionally, we are integrating paramedics in the ED.
Q: How do you think the Justin Tower will enhance the legacy Texas Health Fort Worth has in serving the community?
Joseph: From the moment it was founded almost 100 years ago, the hospital has enjoyed a wonderful reputation in the community with support from community leaders and citizens alike. When I assumed my current role with the hospital, I discovered the commissioning plaque from the original groundbreaking in 1922. I recreated the plaque and placed it at all the entrances as a reminder to all who enter our doors about why we are here. Caring for people is our mission. I believe the greatest impact the Justin Tower will have on the hospital’s legacy is the central role it will play in establishing residency programs to train future physicians. The Justin Tower was envisioned as a surgical tower. The new surgical residency program is only three months old, but we’ve already seen the excitement and positive impact the program is having on patient care. An example is pancreas surgeries. Before focusing our efforts over the last four years on elevating our surgical capabilities, the hospital performed four to five pancreas surgeries per year. Now, we are performing one to two pancreas surgeries each week. Our second residency program, internal medicine, has been approved and we will welcome our first class of residents in July of 2022. We anticipate gaining approval for additional residency programs in emergency services and obstetrics and gynecology in the near future.
Q: How do you see Justin Tower supporting the long-range master plan for the Texas Health Fort Worth campus?
Joseph: The new Tower will enable many great things to happen at Texas Health Fort Worth. But, the building can’t perform surgeries or solve our people needs. It will be a catalyst for enhancing our surgical capabilities and it will provide an environment in which physicians, nurses and others will want to work. We believe with the Tower coming on-line it will propel our trajectory toward being the premier academic healthcare facility in Fort Worth. It will enable us to join the ranks of the top academic-affiliated medical centers in North Texas. We should be able to provide care to patients presenting with virtually any type of complex medical need. The need for residents to leave the area to obtain care elsewhere will be drastically reduced.
Q: How important are donors to the overall success of the Justin Tower?
Joseph: The names of leaders in the community and in business have always been associated with Texas Health Fort Worth. We are seeing this again in the support for the Justin Tower. The strength of those legacy names partnering with us tells the community these leaders trust us to provide the highest level of quality care to Fort Worth, Tarrant County and surrounding areas. Of course, we value their financial support, but the real message is how success breeds success. We truly value the broad financial support the residents of the area have provided to the hospital over the years. When you walk the halls of the hospital, regardless of the building you are in, you’ll see a long list of names of individuals who have generously given their time and money to assure the success of the hospital. Finally, we have always taken pride in the support our employees have provided to major capital campaigns we have conducted to fund construction of new facilities, acquisition of new technologies, and improvement of the experience for our patients and families.
Q: What is your vision for the hospital in five or ten years?
Joseph: My vision is to have a Fort Worth-based robust academic medical center that is training the physicians of the future. We’ve always taken care of the sickest medical patients. Our future includes a comprehensive surgical program that will enable us to care for the sickest surgical patients. We will sponsor sought-after residency training programs for a variety of specialties including surgery, medicine, emergency services and obstetrics. We will do this in a connected fashion across the entire THR footprint of hospitals and healthcare facilities.
Joseph DeLeon joined Texas Health Resources in 2005 as vice president of operations and business development for Texas Health Fort Worth. In 2013 he assumed the role of president of Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth and Texas Health Hospital Clearfork. In 2018, he returned to Texas Health Fort Worth in his current position as president of the hospital and of Texas Health Specialty Hospital. He holds a Master of Public Administration in Health Services Administration degree and a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas A&M University.