Hospital management changes, first time in 25 years
Megan Strickland
Shane Roberts, left, retired Sept. 1 from his position as CEO of St. Luke Hospital in Ronan. Steve Todd, right, is replacing him.
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After a quarter century of working to improve healthcare needs of the community, Shane Roberts, the chief executive officer of St. Luke Community Healthcare, retired Sept. 1. He handed the reigns over to former chief operations officer Steve Todd.
Todd, who has served in St. Luke administration since 1998, said the transition should be smooth.
“I’ve been doing most of the things I’ll be doing for the past eight years,” Todd said.
Roberts leaves big shoes for Todd to step into.
Roberts arrived in Ronan in 1988, after serving as an administrator in Yakima, Wash.
“It just wasn’t a place we wanted to raise our boys,” Roberts said about Yakima.
So his family moved to the community-oriented Mission Valley, where the town had come together to build St. Luke’s, but had not yet found a way to manage it in a way that was financially sustainable.
“We had no money,” Roberts said.
One of his first management proposals was to close the hospital’s nursing home facility in St. Ignatius.
“It was one of the smallest, if not the smallest facility in the U.S. at the time,” Roberts said. The tiny facility was a huge financial drain. After the closure, Roberts directed the hospital to take out a $1.5 million loan from the Montana Facility Finance Authority so it could add a wing onto the Ronan nursing home.
The plan worked. During his tenure, the hospital went from sending $2.3 million in bills out each year to more than $60 million. In 2009, the facility underwent a $30 million construction project. The hospital is Lake County’s largest private employer.
“Those skilled employees live here and shop here,” Roberts said about the economic effects of the hospital’s growth.
Building a staff that focused on top-notch primary care was a key facet of the hospital’s turnaround. The facility had two doctors when Roberts arrived. Today, 14 physicians staff the facility.
“I have a knack for getting people who are a lot smarter than me to come work here,” Roberts said.
The hospital’s success with providing primary care is something other health organizations across the country are struggling to provide, especially as the nation undergoes a healthcare overhaul, Roberts said.
“That challenge is something we’ve been successfully dealing with for a while now,” Roberts said.
Todd agree with Roberts and said he realizes that the overhaul will bring changes. It is uncertain what some of those changes will be at this point, Todd said.
“This is by far the biggest challenge this generation is going to see in healthcare,” Todd said.
St. Luke will be able to handle the changes, Todd said.
“I have no doubt we’ll be successful,” he said. “When you look at our recipe you can’t come out with a bad product. It’s no secret. Good people with the right priorities have the ability to affect our destiny.”
Roberts will assist the hospital in a few projects in the future, but for now he’s looking forward to spending more time with his two sons who live out of state and enjoying the outdoors.
“Bow season begins September 7,” Roberts said with a grin.
