Wednesday, June 26, 2019
PROGRESS SPECIAL SECTION
East Oregonian/Hermiston Herald
C7
Photo contributed by Good Shepherd Medical Center
Good Shepherd Medical Center’s recently expanded medical plaza helps attract health care professionals to the Hermiston facility.
Local hospitals buck a trend
St. Anthony and Good
Shepherd find success
recruiting health care
providers to area
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
UMATILLA COUNTY —
Shortages of doctors and other
health professionals have plagued
rural America for a while.
Twenty percent of us live
in rural America, yet only 9%
of the nation’s doctors practice
there. Rural hospitals fight to
attract physicians willing to give
less-populated locales a chance.
However, two hospitals —
Pendleton’s St. Anthony Hospital
and Hermiston’s Good Shepherd
Medical Center — say vigorous
recruiting efforts are increasingly
bearing fruit.
“Most physicians want to
practice in an urban setting,”
said Harry Geller, CEO of St.
Anthony Hospital in Pendleton.
“It’s supply and demand. We have
to be very aggressive.”
The courting process is exten-
sive and requires competitive
packages with compensation that
may top urban hospital salaries
and include student loan repay-
ment. Recruiters woo spouses,
too.
“A very important decid-
ing point is the spouse,” Geller
said. “Fifty-one percent of any
recruitment is dependent on that
spouse.”
Both Good Shepherd and St.
Anthony say impressive facilities
are part of their success.
Good Shepherd added 33,000
square feet to its north wing med-
ical plaza for a women’s clinic and
other expanded services and ren-
ovated other areas, including the
day surgery center. St. Anthony
opened a streamlined, state-of-
the-art $70 million medical cen-
ter in 2013 to replace a sprawling
older hospital. For both, tech-
nology and ambience help in the
quest to draw providers.
“The new hospital is a big
plus, a wonderful tool,” said St.
Anthony recruiter Mary Green.
St. Anthony has recruited a
net 10 doctors and six nurse prac-
titioners in the past 10 years.
Good Shepherd also is enjoying
an influx.
“We’ve had quite a bit of suc-
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
St. Anthony Hospital’s $70 million facility, opened in 2013, helps in recruiting health care professionals to the facility.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
St. Anthony Hospital’s $70 million facility opened in 2013 helps in re-
cruiting health care professionals.
cess in the past couple of years,”
said Good Shepherd spokesman
Nick Bejarano.
Bejarano ticked off the names
and specialties of recently
recruited providers. The group
includes a family heath physi-
cian, chiropractor, pediatrician
who specializes in pediatric gas-
tric surgery, three nurse practi-
tioners and an emergency depart-
ment director. The hospital also
hired Dr. Robert McCauley to
direct the emergency department.
Many of the providers hailed
from metro areas, such as Seattle,
Las Vegas and Omaha.
“The majority we hired were
from urban areas,” Bejarano said.
He said most of the battle
is coaxing prospective hires to
come to town.
“It’s getting them to give us
a chance during the recruitment
process,” Bejarano said. “When
they get here, they are pretty
much blown away.”
Once in Hermiston, he said,
they are wowed by the infrastruc-
ture, the hospital’s team approach
and the community. Many can
envision themselves practic-
ing in Hermiston after inspect-
ing the hospital and the town.
Three internists and a psychia-
trist will join the hospital in the
next two weeks. An orthopedic
surgeon from Boston will arrive
in October.
Green, the St. Anthony
recruiter, spends a lot of time
outside the hospital as well as in
with her prospective hires. She
addresses any concerns and ques-
tions that arise.
“Transparency is first and
foremost,” Green said.
She hooks them up with who-
ever they want to meet in the com-
munity and drives them around to
schools, the arts center, the Pend-
leton UAS Range, Tamastslikt
Cultural Institute or wherever
else they want to explore. On one
trip, she drove 212 miles in a cir-
cuit that included Elgin, McKay
Reservoir and a ski area.
“We went to the Tri-Cities,”
she said. “We went up on the
mountain.”
Bob Duehmig, president of
the Oregon Rural Health Asso-
ciation, gets around to many of
the state’s hospitals. He praised
both facilities for their recruiting
strategies.
About Good Shepherd, Dueh-
mig said, “They make it a con-
certed team effort to recruit. The
first impression is that you’re part
of a team and we’re here to sup-
port you.”
He also extolled St. Antho-
ny’s mentorship program for new
nurses who are paired with men-
tors through the first year.
“They do a really good job
attracting and keeping nurses,”
Duehmig said. “St. Anthony is
looking at the larger picture.”
Geller said his hospital has
retained 100% of the nurses hired
last spring.
St. Anthony and Good Shep-
herd also partner to fund one
nursing instructor position at
Blue Mountain Community Col-
lege as a local supplier of nurses.
The two Umatilla County hos-
pitals may be bucking a national
trend. The NPR Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation Report,
released in May, reports that
some other rural hospitals are in
trouble.
Closures are a problem in cer-
tain rural communities. Accord-
ing to the report, “almost one
in 10 rural Americans say hos-
pitals in their local community
have closed down in the past few
years.”
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