Healthcare mission drove Lynne Barnes to MHA program

A year of retirement felt like enough for Lynne Barnes, the longtime healthcare administrator.

After finishing her four-decade career at Carle Foundation Hospital as president, Barnes soon found herself auditioning for her newest challenge: directing the Master of Health Administration degree program in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois.

It was the third interview she’d ever taken, after her first Carle interview and her high school gig at the pastry chain Mister Donut.

Today, at 70, Barnes has “lots of energy, that’s a blessing,” she said. “I was ready to do something different.”

As the newest director of the six-year-old MHA program, Barnes brings an invaluable trove of administrative experience she hopes to impart to future healthcare leaders.

Barnes’s appointment officially began Aug. 1 when she succeeded two-year interim director Laura Rice.

“I’ll give them everything I’ve got, in terms of investing the program and helping it to grow in the ways that the university wants to see it grow,” Barnes said. “I want to see this program rise in the ranks of status.”

Raised in Catlin, Ill., Barnes was hired by Carle Health in January 1977 straight out of college as the system’s first occupational therapist. She went on to direct several departments and held numerous administrative roles before finishing her Carle career as president of the Urbana hospital.

“Throughout her career, Lynne has served the community and distinguished herself as a leader in healthcare innovation,” said Kim Graber, head of the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health. “Her background in clinical operations and occupational therapy, along with her distinguished experience as president of Carle Foundation Hospital, will provide graduate students in health administration with unrivaled leadership.

“Lynne has boundless energy and will help take our program to the next level.”

Barnes will continue to teach as a part-time clinical professor, a role she’s held at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2007. A frequent community volunteer, Barnes is board chair of the Stephens Family YMCA and Experience Champaign-Urbana, and previously served as a member of the United Way of Champaign County and Urbana City Council.

Barnes oversaw the growth of Carle Foundation Hospital’s therapy programs and clinical operations, leading the flagship location in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic before retiring in February, 2022.

“Everything I’ve done there is such a joy,” Barnes said. “I love healthcare, because all the time we’re just serving people, and serving people who are in a vulnerable situation.

“Nobody wants to have to go to the hospital. And I love the opportunity to serve people in that way and make that experience as palatable and positive as it can be under their circumstances. That is a joy.”

Barnes earned her bachelor’s degree in the emerging field of Occupational Therapy from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 1976, later obtaining her master’s degree in public administration from UIUC in 1988.

The MHA program was established in 2017 and accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health in 2019.

The opportunity to educate the next generation of healthcare leaders compelled Barnes to take the MHA directorship. She will work to develop the department’s new online MHA program and strengthen its position in the graduate landscape.

“The support has been terrific,” Barnes said. “I have no doubt we will be able to achieve these goals. I enjoy teamwork and I have already experienced that it is ‘all hands-on deck’ to continue to improve and optimize our educational opportunities for our students.

“After decades of working in healthcare, it’s really exciting for me to have the opportunity to impact the careers of future healthcare leaders.”

A gutsy start

Growing up the youngest of three, 30 miles east of the University of Illinois campus, Barnes said attending the U. of I. was basically inevitable.

Interested in taking a hands-on role within healthcare, Barnes enrolled in the new Occupational Therapy degree program, which sought to train physicians who could help patients with physical and sensory problems to regain their independence.

The program was run through the University of Illinois-Chicago, but the 10-student cohort studied on the Urbana-Champaign campus.

Upon graduating, Carle Hospital put out an ad for its first occupational therapist position. Half of Barnes’ class applied for the job, she said.

“The [physical therapy] director had a hard time figuring out who to hire,” Barnes said. “And he laid our resumes out on the table at home and his wife—who was the emergency department director at Carle—said, ‘Well, just pick the one that had the highest grade-point average.

“And I got the job.”

Barnes hit the ground running in Carle’s relatively small therapy department, back when the hospital only had about 150 beds.

I remember thinking, ‘I love this, I want to be a part of it.’ I’ve always had the desire to lead and share the enthusiasm and passion I have for whatever it is I’m doing. And I had that opportunity at Carle.”

Soon, her success led to a promising offer: work on her Ph.D. while teaching future occupational therapists on the UIC campus.

But Barnes went straight to administration and leveraged a proposal of her own. If she were to get a promotion, she’d grow her own occupational therapy department and stay at Carle Foundation. It worked.

“I was kind of gutsy, I had only been there a couple years,” she said.

Barnes quickly found an affinity for the business side of healthcare, growing the therapy department by about 60 employees before being promoted to Carle’s director of therapy.

Soon, the current CEO of Carle Healthcare, Jim Leonard, came to her office and asked if she’d like to be a vice president of the hospital.

“I was all about therapy, I was very focused on what I did,” she said. “But whether I could translate my leadership skills to other departments was unknown. They thought maybe I could, but they were taking a chance on me.”

The decision led to years of multifaceted administrative work for the Urbana hospital, while the system continued its growth trajectory, adding a handful of new hospitals across Illinois.

Barnes’ attention stayed fixed on Carle Foundation, where she took pride in handling complaints from patients and families in vulnerable situations.

“To me, a patient who’s had a complaint and had it successfully resolved is more loyal than a patient who’s never even had a problem. I’m competitive, and I like to win back people,” Barnes said.

“I love the atmosphere and culture of Carle, of always striving to fix things and make it better and push ourselves so we could be noted for having the best care around.”

Mission-driven healthcare leaders

While still at Carle, Barnes found a new passion bubbling up alongside her administrative duties. She took joy in passing on her knowledge to both peers and students.

Along with becoming teaching faculty at the College of AHS, she’s become a professional life coach, dispensing career advice for those inside her field and outside of it.

For the present and future students of the MHA program, Barnes wants to pass on the idea of healthcare as a mission-driven calling, not just a job.

“They’ve got to learn facts about what it’s like to run a healthcare system, but they also need what I would call the characteristics that make the kind of healthcare leader that you want. I try to blend them, and share with them the need for energy, for enthusiasm, the need for passion,” Barnes said.

With MHA embarking on the brand-new construction of an online degree, and the spotlight on healthcare after the COVID-19 pandemic, Barnes has high-minded goals for the future of the program.

“By the time I’m done, my goal is this place will be more well known and people will be clamoring to get their graduate degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign MHA program,” she said.

“That’s going to take work and it’s going to take connectivity, so I’m hoping I can use some of my healthcare connections to be able to get the word out.”

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