All In

When Mike Packnett retired in December, 2022 from his 16-year position as CEO of Parkview Health, he had nothing but praise for the man he knows as a great friend and co-worker who would be filling his shoes.

“Rick Henvey and I have served together for 23 years and I am so grateful to him for his friendship and leadership,” says Packnett. “Parkview wouldn’t be where we are today without him and we could not have a better person to serve as our next CEO.”

For Henvey, transitioning from his role as president of healthcare operations under Packnett has been an honor as well as a humbling experience.

“What has always appealed to me about Parkview is the people. We’re extremely fortunate to have a very strong and robust physician group, and the very best clinical and support staff. The people at Parkview share a family feel and culture,” says Henvey. “Mike and I go back 23 years when we worked together at Mercy Health in Oklahoma. I had an opportunity to follow Mike here in 2006 when he came to Parkview. It wasn’t a hard decision to follow a dynamic leader like him. In Oklahoma, we were very successful in changing the culture around patients, physicians and co-workers and we’ve been striving to do the same thing here. I was all in from day one.”

Before working with Packnett in Oklahoma, Henvey’s journey in the health care industry took him to several large cities: Dallas, Denver and San Antonio. Admittedly, he knew very little about Fort Wayne before moving here, but quickly grew to love and serve the community.

“Fort Wayne has become our home,” he says. “It’s a great place to live and raise a family. I like to say the weather is great… six months out of the year. My wife, Karyn, and I love everything about northeast Indiana. Some say that people down south are really friendly, but I don’t think it compares to the friendly and caring community we see here every day.”

Henvey volunteers his time on numerous nonprofit and business-oriented boards of directors, including the Regional Chamber of Northeast Indiana, Trine University, the Northeast Indiana Boys and Girls Club, the Indiana Chamber and the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership.

“I don’t have a lot of spare time, but when I do it’s spent with family. Karyn and I have been married for 34 years and have two sons. One is in Dallas and the other is here in Fort Wayne. He and his wife just had a beautiful baby girl, Penelope. She is six months old and simply talking about her brings a smile to my face.”

Henvey says he likes to do things in threes. So, his priority list as he officially became CEO on January 1 has three items on it: advancing physician leadership, continuing to improve quality of service and enhancing digital/virtual health capabilities.

“With advancing physician leadership, we use a dyad model in which you take a strong physician leader and a strong administrative leader and pair them together to oversee service lines, hospitals and most of our operations. A great example of this is cardiologist Dr. Ray Dusman and myself. In my previous role at Parkview, Dr. Dusman and I worked side-by-side leading the organization in a variety of areas. He has served as our chief physician executive since 2013 and has been instrumental in the expansive growth of our physicians and providers from 360 to now 1,200. Moving forward, Dr. Dusman is now serving in an expanded leadership role as our president of physician and clinical enterprise, with full oversight of health care delivery across the region and taking our physician leadership to the next level.” 

When it comes to continuously improving quality of service, Henvey says Parkview has always been highly regarded locally and nationally.

“Being ranked among the top 10 in the country for quality of service is what we strive to do and have done multiple times in multiple areas over the years, and we’ll continue to make that a priority. That’s who we are and what we’ve become to the community. It’s also why so many people choose Parkview for care. We’re seeing more and more people from outside the region making Parkview a destination point, especially when you look at our cardiovascular and orthopedic services, and certainly with oncology at the Packnett Family Cancer Institute.”

In terms of enhancing digital and virtual health capabilities, Henvey says that even though we are moving past the pandemic, they will remain a prominent option for patients.

“It’s all about creating more flexibility in accessing care for patients of all ages. We can be much more efficient in our communications using digital and virtual technologies. This will be key for both patients and providers as we move forward, and we are dedicating ourselves to making it happen. There’s also an internal strategy that we can explore for our 15,000 co-workers, and optimizing our digital tools to communicate with each other.”

While Henvey is focused on these three priorities, he also acknowledges that none of them can be successful without also focusing on talent.

“It’s never been more important to have the right people in the right roles performing the right work at the right time. Our culture is key to our ability to retain and attract talented co-workers. We are fortunate to have a solid and committed executive leadership team in place who shares this commitment and helps drive our brand promise of excellent care for every person every day. The members of this team have served Parkview for a number of years, and are a great group of people to lead and continue to advance the organization moving forward.” 

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