This blog post is part of a series titled Taking the Lead: An Inside Look at Eskenazi Health's Leadership. Different leaders throughout Eskenazi Health will be featured, giving an inside look at their work roles, backgrounds, passions and even hobbies. We hope you enjoy learning about some of the exceptional leaders Eskenazi Health is proud to employ.

An accomplished and results-oriented leader with more than 19 years of health care management experience, Patrick L. Wooten has led many practice initiatives while targeting patient experience at Eskenazi Health. He has also demonstrated his leadership skills in directing a variety of teams while balancing the combination of both clinical and non-clinical staff.

In serving as the director of Eskenazi Health Service Excellence primary care medical practices since September 2015, Wooten provides strategic direction and leadership for process improvement initiatives to drive excellence in service delivery, patient satisfaction and staff engagement.

Wooten started his career journey with IU Medical Group in 1998, the predecessor to the Eskenazi Medical Group, before moving to a role at Eskenazi Health.

The Wooten family roots run deep in the Eskenazi Health system. Wooten’s mother worked at Wishard Hospital for 27 years before retiring in 2005, and his sister has been working for Eskenazi Health for 30 years in health information management.

Wooten graduated with high academic distinction from Indiana Wesleyan University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management, and a Master of Science degree in Healthcare Management. He was named the 2006 recipient of the Indiana Wesleyan University Outstanding Professional Achievement Award for exemplifying leadership, character, integrity, achievement, initiative, cooperation and enthusiasm. He was also featured as “Corporate Brass” in the sixth edition of Who’s Who in Black Indianapolis. He was showcased again in the eighth edition of the publication, which is the nation’s largest annual directory of influential leaders in the African-American community.

In his role at Eskenazi Health, Wooten researches, creates and promotes strategies to optimize the patient experience. More specifically, he directly observes the patient experience and service excellence processes at all primary care locations and develops specific curriculum and materials to support annual training for all providers. He also identifies, monitors and reports monthly metrics representing patient experience outcomes, and he provides one-on-one and team/health center coaching for providers and staff to improve service delivery.

Since his arrival at Eskenazi Health, Wooten, who is fluent in American Sign Language, has appreciated the opportunity to cultivate improvement programs and concepts to address the unique needs of our vulnerable population, utilize resources and engage a wide array of stakeholders.

Besides teaching, volunteerism and family, Wooten enjoys stretching his legs on long walks over flat terrain or interval training over varied terrain. He believes nature is so much prettier than a gym.

Wooten would like to be remembered for his unwavering passion to serve the underserved population in an organization where he was born, serving the same community where he grew up, and teaching where he earned his post-secondary education—of which our Eskenazi Health tuition reimbursement provided support. He believes this is truly a reflection of connected seasons.