Leading NWMRMC to a positive future
Photography by Austin Britt
It was while working at a grocery store in Brandon, Mississippi that Lorie Till decided to enter the medical field, thus starting a trajectory that has led her to become the Executive Officer of Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in Clarksdale.
“Firefighters and EMTs would come in all the time, to the old Jitney Jungle off of Spillway Road, and tell me that I should do volunteer work in their field,” she recalls. “One day when I was leaving work, there was a wreck right in front of the store. A man had been hit by a motorcycle and, when I saw him, I immediately ran to his aid. Raised as a good Catholic, I knelt down beside him, took his hand and began praying. He was in a lot of pain, but we talked and he didn’t want me to leave until the ambulance arrived. He even wanted me to get in with him, which I was allowed to do, and went with him to the hospital.”
The EMTs drove her back to the Reservoir fire station where Ann Jackson, a well-known medical profession in the state now, was at that time, the lead nurse for the Reservoir Fire Department. “We ended up becoming very close and that led me to eventually take an EMT course which was my initial foray into healthcare.”
Till became a volunteer with that fire department and future governor, Phil Bryant, was her driver at one time. She stayed on as a volunteer even during her time in college.
“I had wanted to go into accounting or become a lawyer,” laughs Till. “But that fateful day outside of the grocery store changed all of that time forever.
Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where both her parents hailed from, Till’s father was always transferring due to his job with Farm Bureau Insurance. He eventually became Vice President of Casualty which prompted the family to move to Brandon, Mississippi during Till’s junior year in junior high at Northwest Rankin where she eventually graduated. Her mother was a professional bookkeeper and Till was the middle child of two sisters, Wendy, the oldest and youngest, Jodie.
Till went on to study pre-nursing at Holmes Community College before transferring to Mississippi College where she received her nursing degree in 1994. She started her professional nursing career in 1992 working in the emergency room as a student nurse at the VA Hospital in Jackson.
Married to Brice Till for four years, the couple has a blended family of five children. Her children, from a first marriage, are Cody Shumaker, twenty-eight, currently a nurse in Miami, twenty-seven year-old Caleb, in the Air Force who is currently deployed in Germany and nineteen year-old, John Ramsey, who is at Ole Miss now in pre-med.
“Brice and I met while we were both playing tennis and he’s been a true blessing,” says Till of her husband. “He has two children, Harrison, who is twenty-three and Adlyn, who is at USM, and all of our kids get together so well. It’s amazing.”
After leaving the VA in Jackson, Till moved to Louisiana where she worked in New Orleans at several hospitals as a Director and soon becoming the youngest Chief Nursing Officer, at the age of twenty-eight, at what was then called Doctor’s Hospital.
“It’s an upper-level administrative position and very demanding,” says Till. “I think I was chosen because I studied all of the time, even while working as a nurse when I would have some downtime. I was always constantly practicing and preparing for any situation. I believe I became CNO because of that drive and knowledge, I could juggle a lot of duties at one time and it was noticed.”
Till becomes incredibly animated while discussing her career and the challenges that she’s had to meet and overcome in her career, many of which are part and parcel of the modern healthcare system in America. At the same time, her passion for her work shines through in spite of any regulatory or bureaucratic obstacles she might have faced.
Till went on to receive her Executive Masters of Population Health from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 2019 and a Masters in Nursing Healthcare Systems Management from Loyola University, all the while keeping up her career.
“I got my Masters of Population Health the first year UMMC had applicants,” recalls Till. “I entered the program in order to effect outcomes and make positive changes. My goal was not to teach. Only MDs were allowed into the program at UMMC but, because of my experience and qualifications, the dean made an exception.”
Population Health is still a focus in Till’s modus operandi at Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center.
“It will impact outcomes across the board,” she says. “It’s a long term solution to so many issues, not merely a drug to prescribe. It’s a big-picture approach to a whole demographic, or population, like what we have here in the Delta which has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the nation, as well as babies born with disorders and diseases like syphilis.”
“Lorie’s knowledge of, and passion for, population health was one of the major factors why we chose her to come on board as the hospital’s CEO,” says Jon Levingston, Executive Director of the Crossroads Economic Partnership, “Population health not only produces positive outcomes, but also—eventually—drives our economy, for a variety of reasons.
One of the main reasons we hired Lorie Till as Executive Officer was not only her drive, management skills, her understanding of the basic nursing and doctor work, but it was most especially her being able to see the broader picture and the population we were working hard to serve. She had a vision of how to better treat our patients in the Delta and that’s critical for sustaining our economy, our educational institutions—our community, basically,” continues Levingston. “Population is key to everything we do or hope to do and Lorie Till understood that better than anyone we talked to about the position.”
Tripp Hayes, a member of the Board of Trustees at Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center and newly-named President of Delta Council, has nothing but praise for Till.
“We are so fortunate to have Lorie on board,” says Hayes. “She’s an incredible leader, recruiter and motivator. She can find quality people. We could not be happier.”
Levingston says he was first made aware of Til through a consulting firm she formed in 2019, Ramsey Health Care Consulting, whose prime mission was to assess and implement process with acute care facilities for operational and clinical efficiency, such as Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Group which Levingston’s partnership had assumed control of—on May 1, 2023—when it had become apparent that the current lessee of the hospital, Delta Health System, was struggling.
A member of the American College of Physician Advisors, the American Case Management Association and the Mississippi Hospital Association, Till has also served as Chief Nursing Officer with Hospital Management Association in Brandon, Chief Nursing Officer at Central Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson and Chief Operations Officer for Community Health Systems in Vicksburg and Director of Care Coordination for all of UMMC’s campuses prior to being tapped to come to Clarksdale.
“The first time I walked Lorie through the halls of our hospital in September, 2023, I could see, tangibly, how she connected with our staff,” says Levingston. “A smile, a touch on the shoulder. It was visibly apparent that she cared and that she would be liked. The fit was natural and I personally knew, after she and I had a long talk afterwards, that the decision was made to bring Lorie on, and it was a unanimous decision. We’re so fortunate to have her,” he says.
Was Till hesitant or ambivalent about coming to Clarksdale?
“No, because I think the whole of my career has led me here,” she answers. “I want to be a mentor and advocate for this hospital and the people who work in it. I didn’t bring in people from Jackson or other places; I have leaned on and brought on Clarksdale professionals to help me—and us—to meet our goals and move the hospital forward.”
Bowen Flowers, President of the hospital’s Board of Trustees, says that Till has been critical to the success of what is now taking place.
“We could not have found a better person to be CEO,” says Flowers. “She’s a calming force but also a go-getter. She’s brought stability to the hospital and has helped settle them down after all of the turmoil we’ve experienced here over the years. Lorie makes everybody feel confident and relieved.”
Till says that, with the leaders she has around her now, that the hospital will be successful and do many positive things, producing positive outcomes, in the years ahead. “You pull together the resources you have, create a culture of collaboration, work together—and get the job done,” she says.
When Till is not working (which is not often), she still enjoys playing tennis, as well as pickleball, and spending time with her husband. “I also recently started running and doing pilates,” she says. “Plus, I love to knit! I’ll get home late, watch television and work on my knitting. Brice and I meet halfway in Grenada on Wednesday nights for date night. I have a place in Clarksdale but I still do some commuting back home when I can.”
Lela Keys, another member of the Board of Trustees at the hospital, says that Till is “a blessing to our community as CEO. She’s brought so much energy and knowledge to her work and we’ve come a long way since she’s been at the head. Lorie is gifted, educated, personable and can collaborate with anybody in our community. She knows how to get the most out of the people around her.”
“I love leading and managing people, but also working alongside them and acting as a mentor,” says Till. “I’ve always loved watching the positive outcomes for the lives we touch in the medical profession. That’s my passion.”