Grad Follows His Heart to Healthcare

The heart wants what it wants, and MHA graduate Cayden Womack listened. 

A one-time human biology major during his undergraduate years, he eventually settled on a business focus. However, he kept hearing that healthcare siren song, so he started a healthcare administration club while still in college. 

That also gave way to two internships with Tanner Clinic, graduation from Weber State’s MHA program and an upper-management role with that same clinic he fell in love with while interning. That internship cemented some key principles that he carries with him now that he’s a practice director over clinics in Roy, Syracuse, Clinton and Murray. 

“I learned that every patient has a story,” he said. 

He considers it his job to help those patients live better stories, ones with less worry, less pain and more positive interactions with the staff at Tanner Clinic. It’s true, at his level, it can be easy to lose sight of that patient level, but he keeps them in mind during his team meetings.

“How can we help our patients know that they are the center of everything we do?” he wonders. 

Sometimes it’s reducing turnaround time for returned calls. Other times, it’s poring over patient satisfaction surveys and employee comments. It might be getting providers or supervisors what they need. It could be leading out on making more data-informed decisions about wait times to see specialists and driving hiring from there. 

Any of those things are within Womack’s purview, and he’s grateful to have a job that changes from day to day. He also appreciates the fact that WSU’s MHA program gave him a well-rounded foundation for his current role. From population health to visits to long-term care facilities, quality and process improvement, he absorbed the classroom lessons while experiencing the real-world applications simultaneously. 

“Every single class that I went through in the program was going hand in hand with my job,” he said.