2023 Economic Impact Awards 75+ Years in Business: CoxHealth

CoxHealth, founded in 1906, has come a long way since its inception. It’s become a major employer in the Springfield community.

According to Springfield Business Journal’s research of the area’s largest employers, CoxHealth has been the largest employer locally since 2019.

Ashley Casad, senior vice president of operations and president of Springfield hospitals, says being a large employer is something CoxHealth is proud of.

“We just surpassed 13,000 employees for the first time ever this month,” Casad says. “When you look at some of the peak times of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were down to under 12,000 employees. So, over the last year, we are up 500 employees. That’s pretty significant growth, 8% employee growth in just the last two years.”

Even with the growth, CoxHealth doesn’t see any signs of slowing down, Casad says.

“We still have plenty of job openings,” she says.

“People can still come to work for us. We still have about 1,300 more openings, so we could grow about 10%, just to fill our current positions.”

One of the things CoxHealth has tried to do to fill positions is stay up to date with making market wage adjustments, Casad says.

She says CoxHealth now is focused on the well-being and mental health of its employees, through a partnership with a national unified mental wellness platform, Modern Health.

“The last three years in health care have been really challenging,” she says. “There is a lot of trauma employees went through, taking care of patients. With the relationship we have with Modern Health, it is hopefully, really going to support our employees.”

Casad says a lot of the health care workers joining the CoxHealth team are coming from the community and outside the area, but many are hired on from Cox College or the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Springfield, which is a partnership between CoxHealth and Mercy.

Besides employing more staff, CoxHealth continues to open more clinics as the need arises. In the past year, the system has opened the Advantage and Urgent Care Clinic off of National Avenue and Sunshine Street. Soon, the system will open an additional clinic, the Branson super clinic.

“It’s an exciting time and we have seen tremendous growth the last couple of years,” she says.

“I don’t expect that to slow down at all. It’ll be great to see what it looks like even five years from now.”