In 2018, South Texas Health System (STHS) appointed Lance Ames to be Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of South Texas Health System Edinburg and South Texas Health System Children’s, two long-standing healthcare facilities in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV).
Ames, who earned his bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in business management at Brigham Young University, initially planned to become a medical practitioner. However, after discovering his passion for management and operations during his studies, he opted to pursue the path of health care executive.
“I have always loved the sciences, physiology, and anatomy, but I’m also fond of strategy, business development, and finance. I was able to combine that with a master’s in health administration from Virginia Commonwealth University,” said Ames.
Ames started with STHS over 12 years ago as an associate administrator. He took on various leadership roles, such as system administrator for ambulatory services and chief operating officer, and eventually was selected to serve as CEO.
Since taking on the position, Ames has dedicated STHS Edinburg and STHS Children’s to becoming national exemplars of patient care, safety, and outcomes.
“Our vision for STHS Edinburg and STHS Children’s is to ensure that our patients have the best experience possible: that they feel loved, that they feel like they’re part of our family and that they have confidence when they come to our facilities, that they’re getting the highest quality care.”
For Ames, each day on the job is different. A hospital presents a diverse array of encounters and challenges to address, but what stays constant is his integral devotion to improving all aspects of care. Patient safety is critical to delivering high-quality medical treatment and improving patient outcomes.
“We focus on safety first. This is the central core of what we do. Every day, as a leadership team, we start with team safety huddles.”
“We bring together all the leaders from every department of the hospital, whether it’s nursing or laboratory, radiology, or even our engineering and environmental services leaders and we discuss what barriers we have to safety,” said Ames.
To constantly evolve and improve, STHS Edinburg and STHS Children’s employ rigorous standards to measure its success, developing and monitoring metrics to track the hospital’s performance on a routine basis.
“We want to be able to get better at what we do every single year. We are always looking back to say, how did we do last year, and what do we need to do better this year? It starts with patients’ safety and outcomes.”
Some metrics measured are mortality rates, complications of care, hospital-acquired injuries, and surgical site infections. The objective is to have no complications or ailments related to hospital care.
“Our goal is zero percent. We want to have zero harm in what we do. I think we’ve made some great progress as a hospital over the past several years. In 2024, for example, we had zero central line infections, which is a huge win for our patients and our community.”
“We look at our safety metrics daily. We trend it monthly, and we’re constantly monitoring where we’re at. When you look at a metric, set a goal, and educate our teams to provide new deliverables that will help drive improvement, you really can make a difference,” said Ames.
Another aspect of leadership that Ames prioritizes is supporting the hospital’s employees and ensuring that they are recognized for their efforts, which he believes is crucial to improving the care the hospitals provide.
“What inspired me to become a leader is that I truly love people, and I want the people who come to work every single day at this hospital to feel appreciated.”
“The way we view it is that if you take really good care of your employees, they will be inspired, and they’ll be energized to take even better care of our patients, and that’s how we provide the best patient care.”
STHS has an employee recognition program known as the ACE-IT Award to recognize staff who have been exceptional in their patient treatment. The program is based on an acronym for attitude, commitment, enthusiasm, innovation, and teamwork, and select employees are rewarded and celebrated every quarter.
Incorporating innovative technologies has also allowed STHS Edinburg and STHS Children’s to advance their treatment capabilities for the people of Edinburg and the surrounding communities. This has allowed their facilities to expand the services available within the Valley and reduced the number of people who must leave the area to find specialized care. Under Ames’ leadership, the facilities have expanded multiple service lines and opened a new $105 million patient tower at STHS Edinburg in the summer of 2022.
“Our new tower has allowed us to expand our emergency department, intensive care unit, advanced imaging, adult medical/surgical/telemetry bed count, and inpatient rehabilitation unit, as well as expand the services offered through STHS Edinburg’s advanced imaging center.”
“At STHS Edinburg, we opened a wound healing center and added hyperbaric oxygen treatment chambers to provide advanced wound care for our patients, which is helping so many individuals with hard-to-heal wounds.”
In 2023, the STHS Edinburg team added two new catheterization laboratory suites where patients could receive limb-saving revascularization treatments. This furthered the mission to heal wounds and avoid amputations.
“STHS Edinburg was the first hospital in the Valley to introduce the da Vinci XI Surgical System, offering patients a minimally invasive approach to surgery. We have since added a second robot to the STHS Edinburg campus. As a Surgery Center of Excellence in minimally invasive, robotic and hernia surgery, we have been able to improve patient outcomes, including fewer complications, less blood loss, and faster recovery times.”
Meanwhile, STHS Children’s – the first dedicated children’s facility in the Rio Grande Valley – has proudly served hundreds of thousands of children and their families for nearly 20 years with quality, compassionate care, including specialty pediatric services and critical care through the facility’s emergency department and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), both the largest departments of their kind in the Valley.
“For decades, families had to leave the region to get comprehensive pediatric care for their children, leading to a loss of income and hefty transportation expenses for parents,” said Ames. “South Texas Health System opened STHS Children’s in March 2006 to provide enhanced pediatric services right here at home. Today, STHS Children’s remains an integral part of the community dedicated to the health and well-being of Valley children.”
Beyond focusing on the health care provided at STHS Edinburg and STHS Children’s, Ames is dedicated to community outreach. Both facilities actively host and participate in health and wellness events, like our Eddie’s Safari Run at the children’s hospital. These events aim to educate and empower Valley residents to prioritize their health at a young age.
“We’ll send hospital staff from our lab to do blood tests and other diagnostic screenings for community members. Others will provide important education on health issues that are prevalent in our community. We work in every single city within the Rio Grande Valley to support these health events,” said Ames.
Looking forward, Ames plans to continue fostering innovation at STHS Edinburg and STHS Children’s while elevating the standard of quality, compassionate care provided to patients to even higher degrees.
“I want to build the strongest health care program in the area so that community members know that these are facilities that they can trust with their health care needs.”
