Women In Wellness: Sharon Vitti of ATI Physical Therapy On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Make sure there is a balance between your personal and professional lives. This is a constant area of focus for me, as it is for many others. It’s so important to stay cognizant of the multiple facets of our lives and not let one aspect of our life overtake another. It’s also important to work self-care into the mix and not to be so focused on meeting our responsibilities in our professional and personal lives that we miss our responsibility to ourselves.
As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sharon Vitti. She came to ATI Physical Therapy as Chief Executive Officer in 2022 with nearly 30 years of experience in healthcare. Before joining the Company, Ms. Vitti served as Senior Vice President at CVS Health and President of MinuteClinic, where she led all aspects of care delivery, business operations and strategic development. Prior to Ms. Vitti’s tenure at CVS Health and MinuteClinic, she served in executive leadership at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, including nine years as Senior Vice President of Clinical Services for Ambulatory and Women’s Health. Ms. Vitti received her Bachelor of Science degree from Clark University and a Master of Public Administration from New York University.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
Thank you for inviting me! I’ve been in healthcare for more than 30 years. Ever since I finished undergrad at Clark University, I always knew I wanted to be in healthcare. It started with a very positive experience at a young age, when I volunteered as a candy striper. I loved the energy in the field and really connected with the purpose of helping people get better.
This many years later, I’m fortunate to have had a lot of different opportunities in the healthcare arena that have allowed me to live out what I wanted to do as a young person. I’ve worked in for-profit, non-profit, publicly traded, hospital, provider and payer settings. It’s been exciting to have exposure to so many facets of healthcare throughout my professional career.
Most recently, before joining ATI Physical Therapy, I was at CVS Health and oversaw the national practice of their MinuteClinics. I enjoyed the primary care focus, and we did a lot to be disruptive in the ambulatory space around high-quality, on-demand care at the retail level.
When I began to think about the next chapter of my career, ATI appealed to me in three outstanding ways. First, I really liked that ATI has a national practice with many access points for people to get the care they need. I also was drawn to the potential for preventive care and the possibility for people to work on strengthening and staying healthy versus having to deal with an injury or illness down the road. Finally, I love that we have the opportunity to be disruptive around the cost of care in the musculoskeletal ecosystem. Those factors all suggest that we have the pieces in place to make a real impact on people’s health and wellbeing.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
When I was in grad school at New York University, I worked at an inner-city hospital, overseeing its outpatient mental health unit. It was a bare-bones operation with very limited resources. After completing my degree in Public Administration, I moved on to another position at a well-endowed, private specialty cancer hospital in Manhattan. The difference in resources couldn’t have been more vast. The Manhattan hospital had incredible staffing and amenities for patients as well as an attractive physical environment and much more.
Although I didn’t realize it until later, I learned from the juxtaposition of those two experiences so early in my career: amenities that were so abundant at the cancer hospital, and so scarce at the mental health unit, really weren’t so important in the grand scheme of things. What mattered most to patients was the care we provided them. It was a powerful realization to understand that what we care providers need to focus most on is the compassion and empathy that make patients feel cared for — and the environment for which this care is delivered comes secondary.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I’m not sure I can remember my biggest mistake when I first started, but I certainly can share a recent learning experience, which took place during Covid while I was in my role at CVS MinuteClinics. As a leader, I’ve always had the mindset that it’s part of my responsibility to push the team to do the best that they are able. As we all know, Covid was a crazy, unexpected time with tremendous uncertainties and anxiety. At the time, I was really focused on being able to provide the best care for our patients, but in doing so, I learned the importance of ensuring balance in life and in our providers’ lives. I wasn’t the only healthcare leader who got caught in this line of thinking, but the realization was impactful. I continue to reflect on it and will take it forward in my leadership roles to balance the delivery of care we bring to patients while balancing my team’s wellbeing.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
A common theme of my career, including what I’m doing with ATI, is access to high-quality, affordable care. This is a real passion for me, and in different parts of my career through different venues, I’ve worked to expand access. For example, at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, we expanded our footprint out into the community, which allowed a broader range of patients access to the high-quality care for which we were known. Through the CVS MinuteClinics, we were able to offer patients price transparency so that patients knew how much their care would cost. We also created evening and weekend hours so that more patients could get healthcare at times convenient to their schedules.
Our national footprint at ATI is one way we are trying to create access so that people can live the best life they can live, injury-free. It all relates to providing great care that people can get to when and where they want it. We’re also looking to leverage some of what we’ve learned during Covid to meet the patients where they are, such as enabling more convenient care through a hybrid of virtual as well as brick-and-mortar therapy options.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
There are so many things that go into lifestyle and wellbeing. Here’s what springs to mind as really important for me:
- Make sure there is a balance between your personal and professional lives. This is a constant area of focus for me, as it is for many others. It’s so important to stay cognizant of the multiple facets of our lives and not let one aspect of our life overtake another. It’s also important to work self-care into the mix and not to be so focused on meeting our responsibilities in our professional and personal lives that we miss our responsibility to ourselves.
- Maintain a mindset that allows you to enjoy your work. People spend a lot of time at work, and if you aren’t enjoying it, it can wear on your overall wellbeing and become stressful. Choosing to enjoy what you do and having fun with it can go a long way toward wellbeing
- Know what refreshes you. Everyone needs to disconnect, relax and rejuvenate. I find spending time with my family and exercising either outside or in the gym to be great ways to take time off from the stressors in my life. I always come back recharged and more relaxed.
- Find purpose in what you do. A big key to being happy and enjoying what you do is in knowing that what you are doing is gratifying and allows you to have a sense of meaning.
- Have a good support network. Across all aspects of life, things are easier when we’re not alone. On the professional side, it’s so helpful to have a mentor or confidante you can approach when you have a tough problem. I’m privileged to have multiple mentors and am also working with a coach right now to help further fill this capacity. On the personal side, it might be having back-up childcare in case your regular caregiver isn’t available, which in my case was very helpful and relieved the stressfulness of balancing work and family, especially when my children were younger.
I find that these tweaks or guideposts are helpful in setting me on a path that enables wellbeing and allows me to thrive in the different areas of my life.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Without question, I would focus on improving the health of all women. Women play such an important role in how and when everyone accesses care. When I was at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, I realized that if we can improve the health of women, we could improve the health of the entire population. Women are often advisors to others on how to receive care, when to receive care and offer lots of counsel on wellbeing. But women usually put themselves last, so it’s a situation where they are helping others but need more self-care. Women in society, in their roles as mothers, daughters, partners and their other various roles, are so influential in how the people they interact with receive care or advice around their wellbeing. We must do it for ourselves, too.
What are your “4 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
There are so many things we learn along the way, aren’t there? Here are a few that I’ve learned but wish I had known from the get-go.
- Patience is essential. Many of us don’t have a lot of patience, but good things can come out of learning to have patience.
- Not all leaders are good leaders. Recognize that and use your own judgement.
- People have their own agendas. You may feel you’re all rowing in the same direction, but that’s not always true. Sometimes you need to dig in to understand.
- It’s key to find people you can trust and cultivate those relationships. These relationships can sustain you.
Most importantly, I’ve learned that not everyone is the same. You have to get to know people, what motivates them, what their goals are — and then take the time to interact with them as individuals.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health is dearest to me, perhaps because my early experience working in a behavioral health setting helped frame my perspective from the start. That experience gave me the tools to empathize with people who had severe disorders. Many people have underlying mental health issues, and they impact lives in ways we don’t always recognize. When we don’t seek treatment, issues can manifest in other ways, like not being able to sleep or having physical health issues. Because of the historical stigmas and barriers, people don’t always recognize when something is going on and may not know how to deal with the issues. Sometimes, they can’t access the care they want or maybe even are too worried about stigmas to seek care. It’s a critical component of our society and individual health and wellness. We have a long way to go, although we are seeing small improvements.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
Social media is always a great way to stay connected.
You can reach me personally on LinkedIn.
You can also follow ATI on numerous channels and our website.
Thank you for the opportunity to connect and share a bit about myself and the good things ahead at ATI.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
