People You Need to Know: Dr. Matthew Stinson

Q&A | Feb. 17

Why You Need to Know Dr. Matthew Stinson: Closing in on a quarter-century health care career, he’s leading the newly rebranded Jordan Valley Health as the organization nears 70,000 patients served annually.
Position: President and CEO, Jordan Valley Health
Age: 50
Education: Doctor of medicine, St. Louis University School of Medicine, and bachelor’s in chemistry, Southwest Baptist University
Career: Vice president of primary and behavioral health services, and medical director, Jordan Valley Health; family physician, CoxHealth

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Nearing a quarter-century in health care and 20 years at Jordan Valley Health, Dr. Matthew Stinson is at the helm of an organization that is closing in on 70,000 patients served annually.

He also is leading the health care provider amid a new name and brand for the first time since its founding as Jordan Valley Community Health Center in 2003. Stinson said the name Jordan Valley Health, which went into effect Jan. 7, better describes the gamut of services it offers, which includes medical, dental, behavioral health, optometry and pediatric care.

“The words ‘community’ and ‘center’ really didn’t communicate anything to anyone,” he says, adding the organization does more in health care than a traditional community health center. “The reason to remove those is because it just complicated things.”

Additionally, Stinson says Jordan Valley Health needs to be better at talking about itself in the community.

“We’re trying to find a voice for communicating with the places that we serve about what we do,” he says.

The old logo that included trees also was quite similar to the one for the Springfield-Greene County Park Board, he says. The new logo depicts a mother bear and her cub.

“We’d frequently get the question of, ‘Do you guys own Jordan Valley Park? Can we get passes to the park,’” Stinson says of the previous logo. “We decided we needed a new logo that better represented what we are.”

Today, as the largest federally qualified health center in the state, Stinson says Jordan Valley Health served 69,800 patients last year in a footprint that’s grown into communities throughout southwest Missouri. It provides comprehensive services for underserved people, regardless of their ability to pay. Services are available with a sliding scale fee.

With a workforce of roughly 800, Stinson says the organization is challenged at times to fill clinical positions, particularly in some of the rural areas it serves.

“Putting some dollars into rural communities and trying to retain providers, such as physicians, dentists, behavioral health, is one of the things that we really have to figure out how to do better,” he says.

An employee of Jordan Valley Health since 2007, Stinson is only the second leader in its history, succeeding Brooks Miller as president and CEO in 2024. He joined the organization as a family physician and was promoted to medical director in 2010. Prior to his current leadership post, he was vice president of primary and behavioral health services.

“I probably have more of a bent toward the clinical side of the care that we provide,” Stinson says of a difference between he and Miller’s leadership style. “Brooks was a great leader for Jordan Valley and helped to bring us from infancy to a middle-sized organization. He did that very effectively.”

While Stinson admits he probably wouldn’t have been very good at starting the organization, Jordan Valley’s current employee count and volume of patients it serves fits him well, he says.

“That’s probably a role that’s better suited for me because we can expand and be creative on the quality side of how we get things done,” he says.

A resident of Clever, the married father of 11 – soon to be 12 – children, says he was drawn into health care by the desire to do something meaningful professionally.

“What drew me into family medicine was the same idea,” he says. “I felt like as a family doctor you could make more of a difference in the lives of people because you had a relationship over time.”

Expanding Jordan Valley’s footprint with more physical locations is in the future, although Stinson is largely mum on current details beyond saying it has leads for facilities.

“We know we need to be on the north side of Springfield. We know there is a hole in our service area in Christian County,” he says, noting those county residents must travel for care to either Hollister or Springfield. “There’s a fair number of people there that are in our demographic group that we need to serve.”