Health care is a challenging field to be in right now. Hospitals in Iowa and across the country are facing many challenges. Dozens of rural hospitals have succumbed to those challenges and been forced to close their doors.
Skiff Medical Center recently celebrated our 94th anniversary as the local hospital provider for Newton and Jasper County. We have had many milestones during that time, but perhaps the biggest legacy since our dedication nearly a century ago takes place July 1. We are so glad this momentous day is upon us, and that together, we will be able to retain local health care services due to the opportunities afforded by Mercy Medical Center. This is a celebratory moment and a victory for Newton when so many other businesses have dissolved since the 2007 departure of a Fortune 500 company in a rural American town.
Many people do not realize that Skiff is the envy of a lot of rural hospitals right now and that others are in line behind us to do what we just accomplished. I have had other Iowa hospital administrators reach out to me in recent weeks, asking how we got to where we are as they would like to replicate our new model of a tight partnership with a health care system. A population the size of Newton requires hospital care, and in order to ensure that care would continue to be the case for years to come, we needed to affiliate with a health system.
Although we officially became a Mercy hospital on July 1, that doesn’t mean the time of transition is over. There are a lot of integrative activities ahead of us. We’ve received many questions, both from our own staff and from the community. Some things have yet to be determined, but with other things we are happy to offer assurances.
For starters, there are no plans to eliminate staff in our success plan, but rather the goal is to grow local health care services. That doesn’t mean there won’t be changes. For example, Mercy has a dedicated home care and hospice division, and it is likely we will adopt that same model. From a local perspective, though, that will not look different to our staff or our patients. The same people will provide the same services in the same roles in the same location with the same colleagues.
Our employees will also benefit from Mercy’s competitive pay and benefits, which includes an excellent retirement plan with an employer match of up to 6 percent.
We will continue to have a close and important relationship with the Newton Clinic, who have been very positive and supportive of our impending partnership with Mercy, while themselves remaining an independent clinic. Another local partnership — that with Health Enterprises Medical Lab — is one that will continue, as we are currently 1.5 years into a five-year contract.
Another question we have received is how being a Catholic hospital will impact our operations. For the majority of what we do, nothing will change. Many of the principles of Catholic health care — such as promoting and defending human dignity, caring for those who are less advantaged, contributing to the common good and exercising responsible stewardship — have been woven into our identity for almost a century. We will, by and large, continue doing what we have been doing.
We are blessed that Mercy recognizes the great value of Skiff, which is due in so many ways to what our caregivers, key stakeholders and patrons do every day. We are thankful for the community and staff support in welcoming Mercy to our community.
Brett Altman is the CEO
of Skiff Medical Center