Davidson chosen for enterprise leadership role

Paulette Davidson, current chief operating officer of the Bellevue Medical Center, will assume the new role of chief human capital officer for the clinical enterprise.

For the last 18 months, Tadd Pullin, senior vice president, marketing and planning, has served in this role on an interim basis.

“I had an important realization early on this role must encompass 100 percent of an executive’s time,” Pullin said. “It’s a critical role in the development of our culture and to help unify the organization.”

In choosing Davidson for this role, which involved an external and internal search, Pullin says leadership wanted to follow a trend seen in other global, leading companies looking beyond a traditional human resource model for their organizations.

“We are looking at this more creatively,” he said. “As we build our new culture, which involves establishing our values, how we do business and performance expectations, we have to look at how we onboard, evaluate, reward and exit people in order to hardwire our expectations. It’s going to be a lot of work.”

Deb Istas

Bill Dinsmoor, CEO of the clinical enterprise, said Davidson is the right person for the job. “We need someone who is familiar with operations, who leads by example, has a strong leadership style, very strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. That is Paulette. She gets things done.”

Deb Istas, current executive director for Neurological Sciences and Orthopaedics, will transition into the role of administrative leader for Bellevue Medical Center.

“Deb has 35 years of health care experience and really understands hospital operations,” Davidson said. “She has broad experience leading outpatient and inpatient settings. She will be a great fit.”

Davidson has been meeting with Istas daily and introducing her to members of the Bellevue community.

“Paulette has done a great job developing relationships with the Bellevue community and earning their support,” Istas said. “Bellevue Medical Center is now established in the community, so our focus will be to continue to develop relationships and provide new health care opportunities for the community.”

Developing new business is nothing new to Istas, who developed our dialysis services in the early 1980s, which expanded to serve patients in both Nebraska and Iowa. She went on to develop the neurological sciences service line and five years later, orthopaedics, both of which are very strong today.

“This is a natural fit for me,” Istas said.