A Conversation With ... Steve Erixon

Skaggs is a community hospital that has been around since 1950. What interested me was this ongoing commitment to the community. It’s such a vibrant community, too, and growing in such interesting ways that the challenge of health care (in Branson) is different than in other communities.

For instance, how do you plan for taking care of 8 million people a year, in visitors? We basically have 40,000 people a day … which is a whole community here four or five days or a week. And how do you take care of them, and also plan for and take care of the people who live here? Plus, I just love running hospitals, and community-based hospitals are something I find interesting.

Tell us about your education and professional background.

I have a bachelor of arts degree in economics from the University of California-Santa Barbara and a master’s degree in health administration from Duke University. Somewhere in college, I decided I wanted to be a hospital administrator. Nobody in my family is in health care, but it just seemed like an interesting challenge.

There are (about) 5,000 hospitals in the country, and they go from very small to extremely large. They are very unique institutions within our society and within each community. I’ve worked in hospitals in very small rural settings, 100-bed hospitals in rural settings to 800-bed hospitals in large urban areas.

In what areas is Skaggs seeing the most growth?

Skaggs, in the last 10 years, has really moved into providing more tertiary services.

An open-heart program, started five years ago, rounds out a complete cardiac line … . This next year we will … add the third treatment arm of oncology services, which is radiation therapy, so we have moved from more of a traditional, small, community-based hospital into more services. We have very advanced neurodiagnostics and neuro services here.

We’re going to continue to expand and see development of those types of services, because our community is asking for them.

How do you see Skaggs’ role in the community?

One of the things that draws people to a community, particularly Branson, is not only the great lifestyle and the lakes and all the wonderful things that we have here, but also, as you retire, and think about moving someplace – even if you’re not retiring – you want to know what type of health care is there. Particularly for retirees, they’re going to want to have good health care available, and usually they want it provided by a local organization that really understands the needs of the community, and that’s really where we see a lot of growth and strength.

What have you enjoyed most about your time in Branson and at Skaggs?

One thing is getting to know some great people at the hospital, physicians, employees, volunteers and community board members.

And Branson is just a great town. We love the shopping, we love the restaurants, and people are very friendly and warm and engaging. It’s kind of that great mix of southern charm and Midwestern values all together in one place.

Tell us about your family.

My wife, Anna, is a consultant to the pharmaceutical health care delivery services and biosciences industry. We have three boys: Benjamin, 21, Christopher, 18, and Michael, 14. They’re in schools in Mississippi and Arkansas.

What do you enjoy outside of work?

My wife and I run, and we ride bikes, although we’ve recently decided that mountain biking looks more interesting than it actually is.

We enjoy snow skiing, and then with the guys, hunting or shooting clays and paintball. I also enjoy traveling and reading and taking care of the yard.