This Women’s History Month, Advantus Health Partners would like to highlight two essential people on our team, Angie Baltz and Michelle Wall.
Angie Baltz’s career in health care began in 2007 when she became a Clinical Engineer. Since then, Angie’s goal has been to use technology in a way that helps front-line caregivers dedicate more time to their patient care responsibility.
Angie’s approach to Clinical Engineering is very strategic. She works closely with partners across 50 acute care sites to manage medical equipment maintenance and service. Angie also works toward standardization processes to ensure sound processes and quality patient outcomes.
Michelle Wall has been a leader in health care since 1998. Her roles have grown from Director of Radiology to System Director of Capital Planning, which she fills today. Michelle is also a dedicated academic. She has been an Adjunct Professor at the Mercy College of Ohio since 2017,and is personally pursuing a Doctorate in Health Administration.
Michelle operates a strong Capital Planning program for Advantus. The vision of Capital Planning is to seek and realize value. Her efforts include an aggressive approach to negotiating or renegotiating contracts, creating tools to prioritize capital replacements, standard capital asset identification, and capital quote requisitioning. Her goal is to create a system-wide standardization of capital assets.
Both Angie & Michelle work with clinicians and hospital staff daily in their respective roles. However, they collaborate with many parties due to the critical maintenance and large budget each oversees in their positions. A great testament to their teamwork and communication was and continues to be showcased through the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2020, the NY Times headline read, “There Aren’t Enough Ventilators to Cope With Coronavirus.” Angie and Michelle quickly understood how this would be detrimental to our communities and promptly took action. They met with Respiratory Therapists, Clinical Leadership, and Incident Command across BSMH to understand the variety of products utilized and identified what disposables worked with each one. Since early 2020, Angie and Michelle have coordinated the redistribution of approximately 1,420 ventilators across BSMH, based on market needs. When Virginia sites are hit hard, Ohio and Kentucky transfer equipment, and vice versa.
Advantus Health Partners is a better and stronger organization for having dedicated and passionate talents like Angie and Michelle. Their contributions to the business are far-reaching, and their commitment to individuals’ well-being and health is building healthier communities.
Thank you, Angie and Michelle!