2013 Business Class Honoree: Citizens Memorial Healthcare

Citizens Memorial Healthcare in Bolivar is in growth mode.

The system, which manages six long-term care facilities, one residential-care facility, a 76-bed medical and surgical center, a Level III trauma center and 36 physician offices including 10 rural health clinics across an eight-county area, has several projects in the works. CMH projects include an 80,000-square-foot expansion of its Kerry and Synda Douglas Medical Center in Bolivar, a 4,700-square-foot housing facility for cancer patients and their families dubbed the Tremain Family Hospitality House and a 3,400-square-foot addition to its Dallas County Family Medical Center in Buffalo.

The physical growth comes alongside its recent growth in revenues and earnings. Health care system revenues climb to nearly $300 million in 2012, an increase of 20 percent compared to 2010. During that time, CMH CEO Donald Babb reports profits in 2012 were $5.9 million, up from $112,000 in 2010.

He says CMH’s involvement in a national management-improvement program since 2008 has helped it better manage its resources.

The health system participates in the Baldridge Performance Excellence Program, which was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and institutions with business assessment tools and a management framework to improve organizational performance. Babb says it has been a key to growth.

“It’s a way to develop benchmarks, and we’ve spread that through the organization in every department,” Babb says.

When it comes to innovation, Citizens Memorial has been ahead of the curve. About 10 years ago, Babb said CMH began switching to electronic medical records. Its technological foresight has led to Hospital & Health Network Magazine including CMH eight times on its list of the nation’s 100 Most Wired Hospitals. The health care system is one of four in Missouri on the list and the only one in southwest Missouri.

“When you have so many people in outlying areas, the one way, when patients come in, that you can have consistency in treating them, is to have the same records available every time they show up to a clinic or hospital,” Babb says.

CMH also invests resources in Bolivar and surrounding communities based on community need via avenues that include a senior health center receiving more than 1,700 visits per month from those 55 and older, and its free clinics, which have treated more than 2,800 patients since 2008.[[In-content Ad]]