What brought you to Skaggs? I was at the end of my contract at (Labette Health), and I had contacted a recruiting firm, Witt/Kieffer, and they showed that Skaggs was on their list. I’d been coming to Branson for about 15 years during the summer for vacation, and always had a love for the community and for the independent hospital.
What makes Branson health care unique? Three months of the year (Branson) is a town of 6,500 people, and nine months of the year, it’s like a town of 100,000 people because of all the tourists. Most hospitals have their busier months in the winter, and that’s not the case with us. Our busiest months are during the tourist season.
What are your biggest challenges? Coming into a new job at the same time that the federal government is passing health reform is a challenge. (And) I walked into Skaggs on my second day, and we were handed the fifth Health Grade award for being among the top 5 percent of hospitals in the nation. I think the challenge there was getting an award that I hadn’t worked with the team to receive.
In fiscal 2007, Skaggs lost $4.5 million, followed by a 20 percent increase in revenues, to $164.5 million in 2008, and reportedly positive indications for 2009. How are you working to shore up Skaggs’ financial outlook? My focus, obviously, has been on what’s important to our physicians, what’s important to our customers and important to our staff and board. What I’ve been trying to do is just understand what’s been going on, focusing on the expectations and needs of (those) key constituents (and) building high relationships of trust so that the (financials) take care of themselves.
Like many companies, Skaggs has dealt with layoffs, with 11 in late 2008 and 36 in March 2009. Are those jobs still open? I do know some have been brought back, but not all. We’ve got to take care of the institution, and hopefully, the economy will grow back, and we’ll see the business we used to have (for all employers) so people don’t have to lose jobs, because that’s pretty traumatic.
How do you describe Skaggs to recruits? We tell them about the history of Skaggs and how important it is to the community, that we have more than 1,000 employees and (the center is on) land given by the Skaggs family, and that there were local people who really wanted to start a hospital for this community. It’s a 166-bed hospital with more than 135 doctors, and we explain to them that (Branson) might be a small town, but we do have big-town numbers.
How does Skaggs balance the small-community feel with the sophistication of present-day medicine? The important thing is (to) remember that health care is still blocking and tackling. It’s the basics – greeting the customer when they come in, it’s having the highly qualified staff (and) the technologies … and results that they expect.
What are your key objectives and goals? The No. 1 thing is (to) sit down … and have strategic planning with the board and go into what we’re going to do on the quality side, the financial side and on the growth side, and in patient satisfaction. … As (government regulations and reform rules) are disclosed to us more, we’ll focus on those.
What’s the best thing about living in Branson? Oh, the people. These people care about each other, and they care about the tourists. … The God, family, country thing – you hear that when you come here, but it’s real. There are so many (efforts) to help the poor, so much love for our country here, and there’s a respect and love of God. … I served in the United States Marine Corps, so I fit in well with people who love our country, and I have a deep faith in God, so that’s important to me. And I have a large family – we have eight girls and a boy – so the family culture here, we definitely fit that mold pretty well.[[In-content Ad]]
