In this “After the Chaos” episode, Angela and Kandice reflect on their conversation with Melonie Lagalante, FACHE—a powerhouse leader driving community-focused transformation at St. Tammany Health System. From her ability to fast-track the implementation of innovation to her deeply rooted leadership philosophy, Melonie exemplifies what it means to lead with urgency, purpose, and humility. Angela and Kandice discuss how Melonie’s commitment to decentralizing decision-making and empowering teams fuels a culture of trust, action, and long-term retention. They also reflect on the evolving role of hospitals as community anchors and how Melonie’s team models excellence in both care and collaboration.
Listen to the full interview with Melonie on Success in Chaos.
Full Transcript
AI-generated transcript. Accuracy may vary; please excuse any transcription errors.
Kandice Garcia, RN
Hi everyone. This is After the Chaos and we just got done speaking with Melonie Lagalante. I love her last name. It’s so fun to say. ⁓ So, my gosh, we’ve been able to work with Melonie over this past year and wow, is she a light, a little ball of light and energy. I mean, she’s like this in person like a hundred times and I think it really came across even on Zoom. Like she just is a little firecracker.
Angela Adams, RN
Thank you.
Yes, she’s a powerhouse. think the moment I first met her, we went into the first meeting and ⁓ talked about what inflow health does. And at the end of that meeting, she was like, Okay, I really like this. I think that this is something that we really need. And she was like, open your calendar, what do you have next week? And I was like, this person is a leader and a doer. And she literally had
Kandice
Mm-hmm.
Angela
I mean, months, like three months to get this contract done. And I think, you know, you’ve these contracts typically take six to 12 months, right? To get done. And she had three months because she had a goal to get her team’s performance and patient safety where it needed to be. And she, man, she did everything it took to like get the technology in place, get enrolled to the ACR and power program. Like it was incredible to watch. I was like, Whoa, this lady is a
Kandice
You know.
Angela
Little leader.
Kandice
You know, it kind of speaks to some of the things that she was talking about with like the culture and the organization of the organization and like kind of the vision and everybody gets what they’re supposed to be doing. One of the things that that really speaks to is this process for decision making and like dispersion of decision making across an organization. That is where I think most organizations fail. Even like the large, I should say especially the large organizations, these large academic medical centers, is they don’t have
clear processes for decision making. ⁓ And that is something that I think Melonie is really advocating for in her organization, but they’ve designed it that way, you know, working with the CEO. The CEO doesn’t have to be involved in every decision. We don’t have to get a committee together every three months to make every single decision within the organization. Really like delegating decision making across your organization. That takes, that takes work in leadership and a very clear mission.
and a very well organized organization to do that well and quickly.
Angela
So true. I feel like I see it already. Like you see the mature organizations that have truly streamlined their decision making and they have not kept the decision making at the top. They’ve empowered their leaders throughout the organization ⁓ to make decisions for their teams and move forward with things quickly. Those are also the organizations that are
bringing in transformational AI and they are leading change and they are have such a maturity in their quality programs and you know, their patient safety scores are off the charts. Like it’s, you could almost tie or correlate at least would love to do that study, Candace. This decision making in a hospital in comparison to where their patient and quality and
Kandice
I know.
Angela
all of their different metrics of performance are. And I bet they would correlate really, really well.
Kandice
Yeah.
Yeah, you know what else is a key piece here is that this isn’t the first organization we have talked to ⁓ or a leader that we’ve come in contact with where their hospital over the last couple years has shifted their focus to a community-based resource. And she was saying, we are the heart of the community. ⁓ This is like a framing and a trend for healthcare organizations that I think is
This is really some of the future of healthcare delivery. ⁓ know, like she was saying, we take care of our patients, but we go out into the community and take care of our patients as well. We’ve got lung cancer screening programs, we’ve got patient navigators, know, their safety and health is a huge priority to us. And now we’re cultivating, you know, ⁓ talent from the local community and providing opportunities to work in our organization and.
People who work here have been here for years. We are the community. And I just really feel that when you shift that focus about how you deliver care to becoming a resource for the local community, it really does kind of align this transformation of integration of technology and staffing shortages and having to change the way we operate. So really impactful, really ⁓ important framing for organizations.
Angela
Yep, I was sitting in a CEO roundtable. There was probably like 14 or 15 hospitals, CEOs present and the topic of hospital brand came up. And it’s like, there has never been a time period where your hospital brand and how the community views you and how they interact with you has been more important. And it’s because healthcare is kind of dispersing, right?
Kandice
Mmm
Angela
I can go to Amazon and get an appointment to go to the doctor. I don’t have to wait for my hospital anymore. I don’t have to sit on hold. can go online and book a telehealth appointment, or I can go pay for concierge medicine. There’s so many options now in healthcare, and I think hospital systems are realizing, man, we’ve got to treat the hospital system almost like hospitality. At this point, we’ve got to treat it like retail.
We have to own a brand and that brand has to infuse into our community and we have to take care of our community and our people so that they want to come back to us continuously no matter what’s happening in their life, whether it’s preventative care or whether it’s an acute illness. And so I think that brand recognition and she, mean, that’s something that they have done incredibly well. One thing I was going to say that was funny. was like, well, you know, if I lived in Covington, number one, I
Kandice
Yeah.
Angela
I would be a hundred percent your patient because I wouldn’t want to go across that Or whatever. That’s like, feel like for an hour and you’re like, how long is this bridge? Like I would just be like, I am coming to your hospital because I am not crossing that bridge. Like, yeah.
Kandice
Yeah, my gosh that bridge. don’t know. Like, concentrate.
my gosh. The first time we got to go across that bridge. I thought it would never end.
my gosh. But what a little treat once you get over there. That town is so cute. I think we’ve had dinner at two great restaurants over there. Like if you can get over the bridge, ⁓ such a great little area and such lovely people. I think we talked about her team a little bit, ⁓ but I think it’s just a representation of their whole organization. They’re a group of people who genuinely care about the patients.
Angela
Adore it.
Kandice
who come to work every day to do a good job. ⁓ And they’re not afraid to do the hard things. Like I think there’s one woman, Megan, she has built the entire lung cancer screening program by herself. Like she is lung cancer screening. She calls the patient, she calls the provider, she’s helping people understand what they’re supposed to do next and why it’s important. She’s doing community events. mean,
This is a one woman show doing everything. And, you know, that is only because she is deeply passionate about the care that she’s providing and that the community that she’s a part of.
Angela
incredible. One thing that strikes me about ⁓ the team there at St. Tammany ⁓
Kandice
It’s incredible.
Angela
Every single person that we’ve met, I’m pretty sure has worked at that institution for 20 or 30 years. Like, did that not strike you as something that in today’s healthcare, you just don’t see it. You don’t see that kind of longevity. ⁓ People are switching and going here and going there and they’re not satisfied and they’re not happy and they don’t feel like the health system is listening or taking care of them. like, burnout is real.
Kandice
Yeah.
No.
Angela
And here you have an organization that people are like excited to come to work. They’re so proud of their organization and that takes a real leadership, top-down leadership and culture to be able to sustain that.
Kandice
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it really does speak to the culture because we’ve seen other organizations I work with a lot across the country and when we’re doing improvement, you know, who is the biggest problem? It’s those people who have been there for 20 or 30 years, right?
stuck in their ways, they’re bitter, they’re never going to do anything differently. And so it’s almost like longevity is seen as kind of a negative thing. Like we want fresh blood, we want new ideas and they don’t. But that I think is because of the culture of the organization. The culture of the organization treats their staff well, they listen, it’s collaborative. People want to stay and they stay invigorated and excited to be a part of that organization. ⁓
The bitterness comes from the organization, not the people.
Angela
So, so true. I think one thing I’ll say with Melonie, I loved like when we talked about, she was like, I came out like walking like, oh, I’m a leader. I’m going to do all this great stuff. Like we’ve all, we’ve all been there. And then her getting to the point in her career where she could like admit in a room, like I don’t have all of the answers and I need us to put our heads together to come up with the answers. Like I think that’s maturity, true maturity in a leader.
Kandice
Yeah.
Yeah.
Angela
is you watch like younger leaders and they feel like they need to have all the answers and they come to the meeting with like, here’s what we’re doing. And it doesn’t feel like the team’s decision. feels like somebody just dictated something to us and we have to go pull it off come hell or high water. But I loved how she was like, man, you learn real quick as a leader that you it’s okay to admit like, Hey, what
Kandice
Yeah.
Angela
Let’s come together. Let’s solve this together. Let’s figure this out. And then everybody feels a part of that solution. And Melonie felt that so well. You can actually see it in her team’s eyes. Like we’ve sat down with them in meetings. We’ve sat down with them at dinner and like they have such admiration for her as their leader. They really look to her and that’s very inspirational as well.
Kandice
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, those are lessons for leadership in life, right? I think we finally reach maturity when we realize we know nothing. ⁓ So,
Angela
Well good on that note, we know nothing
and thank you for joining us. Good to see you Candace.
Kandice
Good to see you too. Bye, everyone.
