By John Wallace
Gregg Jacob, FACHE, MBA, CRA, BSRT, R, MR, LSSYB, is the director of radiology, cardiology at MFM Clinic at the Sky Lakes Medical Center. He recently shared more information about his career.
Jacob said he started his radiology adventure at a relatively early age.
“In high school, I had multiple sports injuries which lead to having imaging studies performed like X-rays and CT scans which intrigued me as I wanted to serve the public in some fashion,” Jacob said. “I was lucky enough to obtain a football scholarship at the Oregon Institute of Technology which also had one of the top imaging programs in the country. It was a good fit after I fractured a vertebra in my spine and then was able to concentrate on imaging as a major.”
His time as a college athlete and being a part of a team is something Jacob uses as an imaging leader.
“Building teams to create one of the nation’s largest imaging companies across the eastern United States along with leading teams to build the world’s largest hospital (at the time) at Parkland Medical Center in Dallas, Texas,” are what Jacob considers his greatest achievement. “Also, re-developing an imaging IT team to assist and re-build the IT radiology infrastructure after a major ransomware attack.”
“Decreased a six-month MRI backlog down to same day in first year of employment,” he added. “Received 100% customer satisfaction score.”
His accomplishments may be a result of the fact that he loves his job.
“I love assembling teams through coaching and leadership to develop ‘best practice’ templates and workflows to improve the services to the community, patients and providers along with trying to break down barriers through increasing partnerships and collaboration with vendors and fellow hospital leaders,” he explained.
He has an open ear when it comes to his leadership style. He says that he is always walking around, listening to the technologists and radiologists (end users) to find out how to make their jobs easier, safer and more efficient to promote improved work-life balance.
Jacob’s leadership style has been influenced by mentors over the years.
“Alan Finley, COO at Conway Regional in Arkansas who provided faith-based leadership and challenged me to produce a 1-, 5- and 10-year professional plan to further increase my career,” is one mentor he mentioned.
Scott Flowers, COO at SJMC in Houston, was another of Jacob’s mentors. He described him as “a good listener” and someone who “tried to help, but mostly was able to ‘talk me off the ledge.’ ”
Achievements and accomplishments are often the result of hard work. Jacob added the following to his acheivements.
“I was able to turn-around underperforming departments to reach and surpass financial, operational goals in record times and increase MRI safety through soliciting national safety experts to provide multiple-day seminars free of charge in Dallas and to the state of Arkansas MRI technologists,” he said.
He also served on National Children’s advisory board and has served as a director of multiple services including radiology, cardiology, non-invasive cardiology, radiation oncology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, maternal fetal medicine, hospital outpatient imaging departments, endoscopy and women’s imaging.
Away from work, one of Jacob’s biggest accomplishments is celebrating three decades of marriage.
Jacob has been married for 30 years to Monica, who is also an imaging professional. She holds multiple imaging registries in MRI, mammography, breast ultrasound and bone density. He has two children, Austin and Ashley.
