18 | lifestyle & arts sunday breakfast ■ by david sweet Tom McAfee’s introduction to his chosen profession was as painful as it was defining. When he was 15, his father, William, suffered a heart attack in front of him and died. “It was a catastrophic event that had a profound impact in my life,” says McAfee, president of Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital (NLFH), about the tragedy that prompted him to eventually become involved in healthcare. “I recall very specifically the people involved in caring for him.” Since joining NLFH’s 160-acre campus in 2006, where he oversees a 201-bed hospital along with hundreds of doctors and nurses, McAfee’s impact on the century-old institution has been broad. He led an affiliation with Northwestern Memorial HealthCare, which has brought new physicians (including the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute) to Lake County and cut purchasing costs. And he launched the construction of a new facility, due to be completed in 2017, to replace the brick building that has served patients since World War II.
“It’s a sophisticated project beyond maybe building a submarine. There are so many moving parts — the needs of a radiologist and a general surgeon are vastly different.” | Tom McAfee “It’s probably one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I’ve ever been involved with,” says McAfee, who has built several cancer centers in both Philadelphia and Ohio. “It’s enormously complex. It’s a sophisticated project beyond maybe building a submarine. There are so many moving parts — the needs of a radiologist and a general surgeon are vastly different.” Two nationally known architectural firms, HGA and Pelli Clarke Pelli, worked on the designs, which were approved by the Lake Forest City Council earlier this year after 18 months of discussion. “The No. 1 priority for us in the design was safety,” says McAfee. “But it’s not just the physical design — a community like Lake Forest takes great pride in the architecture and the aesthetics.” Once it’s completed, the $378 million complex will feature
He helps hospital become the picture of health
a 400,000 square-foot hospital with an additional 100,000 square feet of medical office spaces. The new building will have five interconnected pavilions, each three stories. Outdoors, a stretch of grass — prompted by McAfee’s enjoyment of how Lake Forest High School holds graduations on its front lawn — can host celebrations and events, while walking, hiking and fitness trails are designed to promote good health. Hired to run a building where employees and visitors routinely walk by patients’ rooms to reach their destination and where physicians must navigate tunnels and sidewalks to visit their peers in the outlying 800 and 900 buildings, McAfee says it didn’t take long to realize the hospital needed a new facility. “This is well-equipped from a technology standpoint, but it’s not positioned to provide contemporary healthcare,” says McAfee of the aging structure, whose purpose after 2017 is unclear. Tom McAfee After his father’s death in 1979, McAfee moved from upstate New York to
Centerville, Ohio and graduated from its high school. While earning a bachelor of science degree at Wright State University, McAfee served as a hospital orderly, confirming his desire to enter healthcare. He later added a master of hospital and health administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati. McAfee spent a decade at the Cleveland Clinic Health System, both as a senior executive for operations of the 431-bed Hillcrest Hospital and as vice president of Cleveland Clinic’s East Region Oncology Service. Recruited to the then-Lake Forest Hospital, McAfee was most impressed by the board of trustees who hired him. “I enjoyed Cleveland. The board is why I came,” he says. “For a young CEO, to work with that kind of talent … their mandate was we want the hospital to be positioned for long-term success.” With a partner ranked No. 6 in the country and a new facility positioning the institution to achieve that mandate, what’s left? McAfee says there’s plenty of work to be done. “A fundamental philosophy is continuous improvement,” he notes. “Then we’re hitting the mark.” Despite busy days and evenings that leave little time for hobbies (“I’m a horrible golfer — that’s evidence I’m spending enough time here”), McAfee is as committed to healthcare as the first day he knew he wanted to join the industry. “There’s no more honorable profession to be part of than healthcare. The letters I receive — and I receive them all the time — we have a profound impact on people’s lives,” he says. “How illustration by barry blitt could you have a better job?”
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