Mat-Su Regional has new CEO

MAT-SU — Hospitals are big business in the communities they serve. Even in smaller communities like the Valley, the impact of health care reaches beyond simply treating the sick and injured.

Mat-Su Regional Medical Center employs more than 600 people full- and part-time, and meant about $68 million to the Valley’s economy in 2009. As one of the largest employers in the area, Mat-Su Regional pays about $1.2 million a year in taxes and is a big player in the local Mat-Su Valley business community.

As the hospital’s new chief operating officer, John Lee relishes an opportunity to guide on of the state’s most progressive medical facilities. After a 22-year military career, Lee spent the past four years leading a medical facility in Mississippi.

Now he’s ready to take on The Last Frontier. The area’s strong military influence makes Lee feel right at home.

“The first 10 years of my Army career I was doing all the fun things — riding around with infantry battalions and jumping out of airplanes,” he said. “When we had our first son, Robert, I started to think about things to do after the Army, so the Army sent me to get my master’s in health care administration.”

His years in the Army helped develop leadership skills that work well in the civilian sector, Lee said.

“As far as leadership and interacting with physicians and staff, it’s relatively similar,” he said. “The biggest difference (between managing military and civilian medical centers) is the financing. At military hospitals, people who get their health care there are beneficiaries and are entitled to care there. In civilian hospitals, services generate revenue. How hospitals are financed is the biggest difference.”

At Mat-Su Regional, the financial outlook is good, Lee said, but the hospital is dealing with some of the same financial challenges many medical centers around the country are strapped with.

“Of course, compared to the country, we’re not unique,” he said. “We have a lot of uninsured patients who are accessing health care. The charity care and uncompensated care we provide is about $10 million a year. That’s on par with the rest of the country. It is up (from the past) and it’s growing. It’s a challenge all hospitals face.”

While maintaining the bottom line is important, Mat-Su Regional is also unique, Lee said. For a hospital of its size serving the Valley’s estimated population of about 100,000, the hospital has an unusually large and talented medical staff.

“We’re kind of uniquely situated,” Lee said. “Most rural hospitals in America are areas suffering from declining populations, aging populations and dwindling physicians. Our population is actually growing. We’re very unique in that regard, and we also have a growing medical staff.”

Mat-Su Regional has 91 physicians on staff, “which, for a community hospital of our size, is probably double the average,” he said. “Also, the depth of our medical specialists and the high quality of our medical staff is phenomenal, that that’s what really sets us apart from our average community hospital.”

While much of the Lower 48 has experienced a shortage of qualified nurses over the past decade, that’s a strength for Mat-Su Regional, Lee said. Also, he’s watching the recent changes in health-care reform closely. From the perspective of a hospital administrator, reform could bring some much-needed financial relief, he said.

“Some of the details are still being worked out, but in general, hospitals have been hit disproportionately hard by the uninsured, because people who don’t have insurance access hospitals,” he said. “They can come into emergency rooms and get care. Having access to a payer source will be good. … We’re cautiously hopeful it will have a positive impact on hospitals.”

Along with the natural beauty of the Mat-Su Valley, Mat-Su Regional’s staff and state-of-the-art technology were major factors in choosing to come to the Valley, Lee said.

He began March 31 and has found a home in the Palmer area. In June, his wife, Nit, and 16-year-old son Matthew will join him. Their oldest son, Robert, is a sophomore at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.