Director's Welcome
TALLAHASSEE— The Florida Department of Health (DOH) announces the appointment of
Marsha Player Lindeman, M.S.N., A.R.N.P. as the new Administrator of the Gulf County Health
Department effective December 17, 2010.
“With more than 20 years of healthcare leadership in both private and public health
organizations, Marsha brings established professional relationships with statewide DOH
administrative, medical and nursing leadership,” said Michael Sentman, Assistant Deputy
Secretary for Health.Player joined DOH in 2007 when she began working with the Region 2 Public Health Preparedness Team. Since 2008, she has provided clinical leadership in the design,
development, and early implementation of DOH’s new electronic health record system. She earned a two-year degree in nursing from Gulf Coast Community College while still residing in Port St. Joe and began her nursing career in Bonifay. Ms. Player earned her Master of Science in Nursing from Florida State University.
She spent more than 20 years at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in the region, serving as a nursing administrator.
There came a juncture when life’s path veered. “I was ready for a new career opportunity,” Player said. “I was in acute care for years, but I wanted to grow in a new direction.“I had been on the back end of health care but I wanted to get around to the front end for a change.” So she moved over to the Florida Department of Health where she could be involved in the preventative side, working on promoting health habits, education and prevention programs to assist people in staying out of the doctor’s office, emergency room or health department. She worked with county health departments in implementing incident response teams for emergencies or disasters and establishing educational programs.
The past two years Player has been heavily involved in implementing electronic records systems for all 67 counties in Florida.Electronic record keeping, she said, is critical to facilities such as county health departments and clinics because patients are often seen by multiple physicians at various junctures in treatment. For the safety of the patient and arriving at a proper treatment protocol, replacing old paper records with electronic records allows physician to call up a patient’s complete history with a few keystrokes.
The Gulf County job was almost a sign, like dialing the numbers of a safe combination to open a new world. “It wasn’t just the position, it was this magic combination of this administrator position in this great health department in this county,” Player said. “I come in with a plan to connect with county and city leadership, not only to introduce myself and listen to concerns, but also to assess the community’s needs.”
Her early efforts, she said, would be working with the county and Sacred Heart Hospital on the Gulf to ensure that there are no gaps or redundancies in providing health care services in the county. The hospital, she hopes, will work hand-in-hand with the Federally Qualified Health Clinic (FQHC) which operates within the health department to provide the proper care in the proper setting. For example, she hopes to empower patients to use the health department, not the hospital emergency room, as their primary care provider. Player also wants to emphasize community outreach programs to promote preventative health and healthy lifestyle choices. She will be looking at the community’s needs and assessing how the health department can serve its role in addressing those needs. “I’m a data driven kind of leader and I like to work in a team formation,” Player said. “The mission is to provide services or ensure provisions of services for patients who do not have access to those services. “The (FQHC) is absolutely critical. We are confident we will continue to get federal support for that.
“My successful leadership experiences in healthcare have been accomplished largely through
teams of smart, talented staff,” said Player. “I am very excited to join the impressive team at
the Gulf County Health Department. Our goal is to partner with our county’s leadership to
prioritize health care needs and collaboratively develop strategies to meet or exceed clinical
and financial benchmarks of quality.”
In assuming this position, Player will be “returning home.” She was born and raised in Gulf
County. Both she and her family are excited that she will come full circle, bringing years of
health care leadership back to focus on the highest quality of services to the residents of and
visitors to Gulf County. Player said there will be a “ramp up” period for her as she and her family, a husband still working in Tallahassee – the couple has two grown sons – find residence in Gulf County.