There have been a lot of changes at Valley General Hospital in Monroe over the last five years. The latest change came in December. That’s when temporary CEO Phil Sandifer was replaced by the hospital’s new permanent CEO, Mike Liepman.
Liepman inherits an organization that has been experiencing growth and is on a path to continue to grow. The first few months of his appointment have been spent meeting with as many of his new collegues as he possibly can, getting to know the people of his new community and sharing his hopes and ideas with them.
“Folks have been very welcoming. The board is very positive and committed,” Liepman said.
Although he spent many years in Eastern Washington, Liepman is no stranger to this side of the mountains. His in-laws live in Mount Vernon and he himself grew up in Port Orchard. His mother was a business manager at Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton.
“I was raised hanging around hospitals as a kid,” Liepman said.
Not long after receiving his degree from Washington State University, Liepman found himself working in Washington’s health care system. He eventually took a position in Spokane with Empire Health Services. At that assignment, he was head of operations for a 388-bed tertiary hospital, a 123-bed general acute care hospital and the related clinics of the organization.
“But what I really wanted was an opportunity to come back to this side of the state,” Liepman said.
An opportunity did arise for him. It was to do some consulting for Franciscan Health Systems in Pierce County. This transitioned into a full-time position, and Liepman went on to become vice president of Guest Services and Facilities with that organization. But as much as he enjoyed the job, he missed the strategic planning, the organization and the interactions he had experienced as head of Empire Health Services.
When Liepman learned of the opening at Valley General Hospital in Monroe he was nostalgically reminded of Valley Hospital in Spokane, where he had spent many happy years. The two locations had many similarities, including both being nonprofit.
Valley General Hospital serves Public Hospital District 1. Hospital districts are governmental entities created by state law and governed by a board of publicly elected commissioners rather than being privately funded. District hospitals can present certain challenges for the staff.
One of the challenges that Liepman discovered when he took over the position is that there is some local perception — mostly among newer residents of the city — that Valley General Hospital is in some way inferior because it is a district-administered hospital.
Liepman wants everyone to know that this is definitely not the case. The hospital is held to the same strict standards as all other hospitals in the area. In fact, it has some specialty features that aren’t available in other local hospitals.
A good example is the Wound Healing Center at Valley General. It is one of the few places that patients can go for state-of-the-art hyperbaric wound treatments. Locally, Stevens Hospital and Virginia Mason are the only other facilites to offer it.
Valley General also has a comprehensive diabetes program that is highly regarded in the medical community. The hospital draws top doctors. Five Valley General physicians were named to the exclusive and peer-elected Seattle Magazine “Top Doc” list.
Liepman is aware that the hospital must continue to grow and add more programs in order to keep offering residents the same services and opportunities they have come to expect from Valley General over the last decade.
“We want to grow and we absolutely need to grow,” Liepman said. But his plans for growth are carefully considered. He knows that the growth Valley General needs doesn’t involve recruiting more doctors at this point — he hopes instead to identify any gaps in the specialties that can be remedied either by partnering or bringing in new programs.
Part of his strategic plan is for the managers and directors to look for new service lines that may be beneficial to the community.
Valley General will also be taking public advice into consideration. Around the beginning of April, the hospital will be conducting community surveys to get more input from those whose taxes pay for the hospital.
Valley General already gets quite a bit of community feedback from its Community Advisory Committee. This group that was developed about a year ago consists of a cross section of residents from across the hospital district. They meet monthly to consult with and advise the hospital administrators and board. Currently, the Community Advisory Committee consists of 11 volunteer members but they hope more people will be interested in joining.
Liepman would also like to see more wellness based programs in his new community. “Raising the healthcare of the whole community is the real goal. I’m really interested in those programs,” he said.
He hopes that the feedback of the community, the Community Advisory Committee and his colleagues will echo that.
More information about the hospital and for those interested in the Community Advisory Committee is available from www.valleygeneral.com.
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