Insight Magazine Fall 2022

Ozarks Healthcare Therapies

was the first healthcare provider in this region to offer physical and occupational therapy as well as speech language pathology services for inpatient, outpatient, nursing home, home health and school settings.

Therapies

1111 Kentucky Avenue West Plains, MO 65775 417-257-5959

OzarksHealthcare.com

We wish you a happy, Healthy Holiday Season

As we approach the holidays this year, I’m reminded of the importance of family. Over time, family changes or may look different, but family is what grounds us and gives us our roots. We are focused on caring for your family at all stages of life at Ozarks Healthcare (OZH), and I think you will find this to be evident as you flip through this issue of Insight. Recently, we were fortunate to grow our own family of primary care providers through the addition of Ozarks Healthcare Family Care (formerly Ozarks Family Care) in West Plains. We are thrilled to be adding to our capacity to serve our community better with the skills of Dr. Jason Spurling, Dr. Scott Roush, Dr. John Washburn, and Dr. Shannon Marsden.

Our health system’s impact on our family of caregivers across our organization is even extending further into staff members’ own families –for instance, Dr. Caleb and John Piatt, brothers and now coworkers, are now serving our community through their specialties of sports medicine

and orthopedics and emergency medicine. Our staff in our rural locations in surrounding counties of our service area are making waves in the healthcare field, extending the OZH family across the Ozarks through not just healthcare, but also employment opportunities. Speaking of which –Ozarks Healthcare is focused on the future of families – this means we have to recruit a strong workforce now. Our nurse residency and extern programs do just that and are highlighted in this issue.

Lastly, as a family of our own at Ozarks Healthcare, we celebrate milestones in life, big and small. At the end of the holiday season, we will bid our matriarch of sorts, Ruth Warren, goodbye as she enjoys retirement after 48 years spent at our health system, the longest tenure of any OZH coworker to date. When I think of legacy, I think of Ruth. I love how her story connects with the growth of our health system and think you will too.

From Ozarks Healthcare to you and your family, I wish you a joyous and healthy holiday season.

TOM KELLER

President and Chief Executive Officer

Ozarks Healthcare

We are focused on caring for your family at all stages of life at Ozarks Healthcare, and I think you will find this to be evident as you flip through this issue of Insight.

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OZH CONTRIBUTORS

Dwain Hebda WRITER

Dwain Hebda is a writer, editor and journalist whose work annually appears in more than 35 publications. A Nebraska native, he has an extensive resume spanning nearly 40 years in print. Hebda is also founder and president of YA!Mule Wordsmiths, an editorial services company in Little Rock, Arkansas. An empty-nest father of four, he and his wife, Darlene, enjoy travel and pampering their three lovely dogs.

James Moore PHOTOGRAPHER

James Moore is a photographer and filmmaker located in north central Arkansas. For over 20 years, he has used his talents in the marketing sector, creating content and building brands for local and national companies across a broad spectrum of industries. He has three amazing sons and a beautiful wife.

Ashlee Nobel DESIGNER

Ashlee Nobel is a graphic designer and illustrator with a background in publication design. After working her way up to Creative Director over two magazines in Little Rock, she set out on her own to freelance and focus on her art, creating Lee Lee Arts + Design. When she's not drawing or designing she enjoys gardening, biking and reading.

NEWCOMERS

ARMING THE HOSPITAL FOR YOUR TOTAL CARE

BY DWAIN HEBDA

Dr. Anthony W. Campbell

GENERAL SURGEON - OZARKS HEALTHCARE GENERAL SURGERY

Dr. Anthony W. Campbell knew early on he wanted to be in medicine, just like his childhood role model.

“My dad was a paramedic,” Campbell said. “When I was a little kid, he would come home and talk about the lives he’d saved, and he was recognized with awards for it. When I was 5, I wanted to do the same thing. He said I should be a doctor, and I’ve wanted to be a doctor ever since.”

Campbell, who joined Ozarks Healthcare’s surgical team in May, attended St. Louis University where he double majored in biology and psychology. From there, he attended medical school at Kansas City University followed by a fellowship at the University of Massachusetts in surgical anatomic pathology. He completed his residency at Henry Ford in Michigan.

Asked why he chose the small-town atmosphere of West Plains, he said the close-knit environment appealed to him.

“I see a lot of my patients outside of work, and they’re all very appreciative,” he said. “I’m not just treating some random person; I feel like I’m treating the community.”

Away from work, Campbell likes to work out and with his wife keeps up with their three daughters, all of whom are competitive dancers.

Dr. Shannon Marsden

FAMILY PRACTICE PHYSICIAN - OZARKS HEALTHCARE FAMILY CARE

Growing up in Poplar Bluff, Dr. Shannon Marsden knew she wanted to minister to others, and medicine seemed an ideal way to do it. But her decision to specialize in family medicine came as a surprise, even to her.

“I’d intended to be an emergency medicine physician,” she said. “My first week of med school, my advisor told me, ‘You’re going to be a family medicine physician. It’s the only specialty where you’ll get to talk to people as much as you like to talk to people.’”

Marsden earned a degree in chemistry and biology from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, then completed medical school at the University of Missouri in Columbia. From there, she served a three-year residency in family medicine at CoxHealth Family Medicine in Springfield.

And from there, she came straight back home to join the team at Ozarks Healthcare Family Care.

“I can’t say enough good things about Ozarks Healthcare Family Care,” she said. “The culture of the clinic is what every clinic should strive for. It’s very patient-centered. I have yet to encounter any situation where the good of the patient wasn’t the first priority. I am so impressed by that culture, and I’m excited to watch that permeate through the rest of the healthcare system.”

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All in the

Famil

BY DWAIN HEBDA PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE

Greatness attracts greatness. Iron sharpens iron. Birds of a feather flock together. Such folksy idioms describe what happens when two successful entities come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. And they perfectly illustrate the conjoining of Ozarks Family Healthcare and longtime family practice clinic Ozarks Family Care of West Plains, a move started last year and made official in May.

“We are thrilled to welcome the Ozarks Family Care team of caregivers to Ozarks Healthcare,” said Tom Keller, Ozarks Healthcare president and CEO. “Their experience and compassion are well-known in our community, and we are honored to add the skills of their providers and staff to our team.

“Together, we will add to our capacity of serving our community under one unified health system with multiple specialties. We anticipate being able to grow our focus on our community’s health with combined compassionate care from both organizations.”

“This is an opportunity to truly make a positive impact on a large scale, affecting thousands of people, which is rare,” said Dr. Scott Roush, Ozarks Family Care co-founder. “We felt the best way to achieve our goals was to join forces in a united effort to navigate the multiple directions medical care is moving. It is an exciting endeavor, but daunting as well, and many challenges lay ahead.

“I look forward to the challenging work that is coming and the reward of seeing the health and productivity of a community evolve and improve.”

“We are thrilled to welcome the Ozarks Family Care team of caregivers to Ozarks Healthcare. Their experience and compassion are well-known in our community, and we are honored to add the skills of their providers and staff to our team.”

– Tom Keller, Ozarks Healthcare President / CEO

Ozarks Healthcare Family Care Staff

From Left: (front row) Beverly Denton, FNP-BC; Jen Lambert, DO; Brooke Fair, APN; and L. Reese Marriott, APN. (Second row) Scott Roush, DO; Joseph Barnard, DO; Jason Spurling, MD; and Druery Dixon, MD. (Third row) Lisa Wade, FNP-BC; Sarah Williams, MD; Meagan Jones, APN; Shannon Marsden, MD; and Karen Johal, MD. (Forth row) Jaime Parrott, FNP-BC; Samuel Evans, MD; John Washburn, MD; and Ryan Vaisler, MD.

For nearly two decades, Ozarks Family Care has been a fixture in the West Plains community, providing primary care and wellness services. Roush founded the firm with Dr. Jason Spurling, the clinic’s practice manager, in 2004 with the intent of delivering the utmost in patient-centered care and customer service.

“Dr. Roush and I were both in residency together at Cox in Springfield and we graduated together,” Spurling said. “This is actually his hometown and he recruited me back here. We evaluated that there definitely was a need; this was a health provider shortage area in the state, and they had a few doctors who had just retired. They definitely had a shortage of primary care providers.”

Like many ventures, the family practice clinic had its share of doubters that it would last very long. But the two physicians proceeded anyway, convinced that if they built their clinic on the medical model they had in mind. the people would find them.

“We had a lot of people who didn’t feel like we would be successful here,” Spurling said. “Quite frankly, we felt like if we did it we had to do it for the right reasons and if we did that, it would all work out. We prayed about it a lot and we felt like God opened a lot of doors for us in getting started and we just kind of kept that our focus. This is kind of like a ministry for us as much as anything and we’ve in turn been really blessed by it.”

The founders’ dual foundational strategy of strictly managing overhead costs while

splurging on customer service and personal attention has held up over the years. In fact, it was so well-received it led to expansion considerably sooner than forecast.

“It definitely grew much faster than we expected,” Spurling said. “A normal rampup would be four to five years. We were full within the first two to three years.”

Spurling said the clinic has never even actively looked for additional physicians but have been blessed by providers who shared their same philosophy finding them.

“We did bring in a couple other physicians through the years, individuals who had done some rotations with us in residency and who liked what we did,” Spurling said. “They had similar values and similar feelings towards health and the right way to take care of patients. We mutually agreed they fit in well from that standpoint.”

Over its long and fruitful practice, now known as Ozarks Healthcare Family Care, the clinic grew from the original partners to include four physicians, two family nurse practitioners and a support staff of eight. Along the way, the clinic developed a mutually positive working relationship with Ozarks Healthcare as well.

“We’ve always had a good working relationship with the hospital and working over there in the hospital setting and in the OB unit as well,” Spurling said. “We’ve had a lot of interactions over the years and the hospital was very supportive of us when we got started as well.

“Ozarks Healthcare has done a lot to bring in a lot of good specialists and improve their facilities and they’ve brought in some other people who have really made some positive changes to help the community as a whole.”

Ozark Family Care wasn’t necessarily looking to join forces with anybody, Spurling said, but when Ozarks Healthcare leadership broached the idea last year, it brought with it too many potential benefits to ignore.

“I look forward to the challenging work that is coming and the reward of seeing the health and productivity of a community evolve and improve.”

– Dr. Jason Spurling, Medical Director of Primary Care, Ozarks Healthcare

Nurturing Hands

“From our standpoint, obviously they’re a much bigger organization with a lot of resources that we don’t have,” Spurling said. “This really does allow us the opportunity to coordinate our care much better with the specialists at the hospital. That ability to coordinate and get testing done in a more timely manner is a big asset.

“Technology is another area where we can benefit. Their patient portal is something that they’ve invested a lot of time and

resources in and it’s really, really helpful as a result of that. Telemedicine is something we were kind of just dipping our toes into prior to this, but Ozarks Healthcare definitely has a more robust system and they’ve got plans for even a better system coming down the pipeline. That’s an area that will definitely be an advantage for us and something we just wouldn’t be able to do on our own.”

Like all good partnerships, Ozarks Healthcare is benefiting from the addition

of the family practice as well, hoping to strengthen its own patient-facing processes and procedures by borrowing from the clinic’s model. Spurling will have a frontrow seat to that effort, having been named Medical Director of Primary Care for the larger organization, through which he will have a hand in assessing and enhancing the overall patient experience, especially when it comes to receiving quality, compassionate care.

“I’m basically going to help with implementing new policies, standardizing all the primary care in the organization including the rural clinics, helping with recruitment of new providers and developing onboarding and education protocols for them as well,” he said of his new role.

“I think a bigger part of what I’m trying to accomplish is bringing a patient-centered focus to primary care system-wide. It’s not to say it’s not there now but we’ll be looking at ways to strengthen that and then looking at how we can collaborate better with our specialty and patient physicians. This will result in better coordination of care throughout the whole system.”

For all of the change that the move represents, Spurling said the practice’s patients will still experience the same attentive care under the new arrangement as they always have, in some ways made better and easier to navigate having officially come under the Ozarks Healthcare umbrella. He pledged the same passion and commitment to the community that brought the clinic into reality in the first place.

“Family medicine and primary care is really the ability to manage patients and their families through their entire lifespan and the entire disease processes that come up,” he said. “It’s trying to keep them healthy and manage their health but it’s also helping them through the struggles of cancer, helping with that diagnosis and oftentimes involved with them at the end stage of that into hospice care as well. It really is a birth-to-grave specialty which is part of what makes it fascinating for me.

“When we were approached by the hospital about wanting us to bring in our model of care to their organization, we saw this as an opportunity to help make something better for the entire community. In the end, that’s what it all comes down to and what we’re here to do.”

Dr. Shannon Marsden, the newest physician at Ozarks Healthcare Family Care, believes the clinic's patient-centered culture is what every clinic should strive for.

Brothers BLOOD

BY DWAIN HEBDA PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE

Dr. Caleb and John Piatt didn’t start out with a career in medicine in mind, let alone wind up working for the same hospital. But some things are just meant to be.

The duo, who grew up five years apart in O’Fallon, Illinois, chose medicine almost by accident, starting with Caleb.

“I was a football and baseball player in high school and ended up getting a scholarship to play junior college baseball,” Caleb said. “Throughout the sports stuff, I had my own set of injuries which kind of piqued my interest in medicine. That’s when I started looking into medicine as being a potential opportunity. One thing led to another and ultimately, I felt led to pursue the medicine route.”

Caleb, 32, finished up his undergrad at Dallas Baptist University in Dallas, Texas, prior to completing medical school at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Missouri, and residency in Dayton, Ohio. While in Dallas, John took an interest in his baby brother’s studies.

“I graduated college in 2008 with an accounting degree but once I got out into the field, I quickly realized that wasn’t the kind of job for me,” John said. “I was working in sales after that and I really wasn’t happy with it because I didn’t feel like it fit my skill set.

“After talking with Caleb quite a bit when he was pursuing medicine, it got me into the idea of going that route as well.”

John, 37, made the decision to enroll in Des Moines University in Iowa and

pursue a master’s degree that would allow him to work as a physician assistant. During this process, he and his wife lost their newborn, Malachai, which steeled his resolve even more.

“That was a big thing that drove this home for me,” he said. “We had a lot of good people around us, medical professionals, and I wanted to be there for people facing something similar and try to help them in tough situations like that.”

As for both brothers landing at Ozarks Healthcare, the story begins with Caleb interviewing for jobs following residency. Coming from a small town himself, he was impressed with West Plains and the opportunity to build a practice in an area that offered his children the chance to grow up in a safe and nurturing environment.

“For me, working in a small community, I feel like your staff members as well as your patients feel a little bit more like family,” he said. “It’s more close-knit. I wanted a situation where I could be engaged and involved in the community and my wife and I both felt like this was just an awesome place to raise the kiddos.”

In the process of interviewing, Caleb found out Ozarks Healthcare was hiring physician assistants, news he passed along to his brother. John also liked the community and jumped at the chance to work in Ozarks Healthcare's emergency department in 2019, followed by Caleb in the orthopedics department in 2022.

“When I started doing my clinicals in the master’s program, I did a month working in the emergency department,”

“

John said. “I didn’t know if it was something that I was all that interested in initially, but once I did that month, I liked the variety of it. It was pretty fast-paced, which I liked. It’s cool to experience a lot of different things, and that’s what you get in the emergency department.”

Since landing in West Plains, the two brothers have relished the opportunity to spend time together. Both attend the same church, both are struggling to take up golf and their families see a lot of each other as well.

“A lot of our life is interconnected at this point, which is honestly really nice because we haven’t had family around for the 10 years that my wife and I have been married ... It was kind of a convoluted way of getting here, but we’ve both been very thankful and pleased the Lord brought us all together.”

- Dr. Caleb Piatt

“Our wives are close and we live only a couple minutes apart,” Caleb said. “A lot of our life is interconnected at this point, which is honestly really nice because we haven’t had family around for the 10 years that my wife and I have been married and finishing all this school stuff. We’ve really been blessed to have family around. It was kind of a convoluted way of getting here, but we’ve both been very thankful and pleased the Lord brought us all together.”

The two brothers demonstrate a striking similarity in their demeanor and

temperament, which is a big plus in their line of work. Asked to evaluate each other’s strengths, the two siblings demonstrate a healthy respect for each other in their respective roles as healthcare professionals.

“I would say John’s strength is he’s evenkeeled and doesn’t get rattled,” Caleb said. “He can really diffuse an uncomfortable situation and not get fazed by it. He’s also a fast learner; from watching him in the emergency department and managing patients, he’s only been a couple of years out, but I’ve had a lot of his colleagues and

superiors comment that he really picks up things quickly and has been able to handle the stresses of the emergency department, which is kind of its own animal.”

“The things that make Caleb good at what he does are his patient interaction skills, the way he communicates with patients,” John said. “He’s probably a little chattier and more sociable than I can be at times. Also, he’s very focused and very skilled as far as being a surgeon. He takes a lot of pride in the training that he’s done, and I think a lot of patients enjoy having him as their provider.”

Dr. Caleb Piatt (left) and John Piatt

BY DWAIN HEBDA PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE AND COURTESY OF OZARKS HEALTHCARE

There’s an old saying that reads, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” By that definition, Reese Marriott lives a life of ease and leisure.

It’s not that the family nurse practitioner at Ozarks Healthcare Mountain View doesn’t work hard or take her responsibilities seriously. As one of the few places offering medical care for at least 30 minutes in any direction, the Mountain View clinic buzzes with activity most days. For the past seven years, Marriott has found herself right in the middle of the action from the time she arrives to the time she goes home to her family.

Ozarks Healthcare Mountain Grove

According to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, 150 rural hospitals closed their doors nationwide between 2005 and 2019. The organization also reported that as of last summer, 600 more are in danger of following suit. Connecticut, Hawaii, Kansas, Alabama and Arkansas top the list of states with the highest percentage of hospitals in danger of closing, but in almost every state, at least 20 percent of rural hospitals face the same grim forecast.

In the Ozarks, 10 small-town hospitals have closed since 2005, and 37 percent of the state’s 57 rural hospitals fall into the threatened category. This includes two hospitals classified as being under immediate risk of closure.

To help combat this trend, Ozarks Healthcare maintains a robust system of clinics that provide crucial primary care and, in many cases, a rotating schedule of specialists serving the communities where the clinics are located as well as drawing from surrounding counties. Making the clinics go are medical professionals such as Marriott who left Ozarks Healthcare’s West Plains hospital for the immediacy and familiarity of practicing small-town medicine.

The difference, as she is quick to point out, is that she’s doing what she loves in a place she truly cares about. Marriott grew up locally — in fact, many of her patients are former classmates or people who have known her since she was a child — and her desire to serve her hometown through medicine is something that takes the edge off of even the busiest, most hectic day.

“I was pretty much born and raised here,” she said. “I love practicing in my hometown because I’m so invested in the community.

“It’s really cool to me that we can get to know our patients here, that we know their mom is this person and their grandma is that person, or they work here or there. It’s really just providing that community-based healthcare. It’s really nice whenever the patient comes in, and they’ve seen the same person and nurses over the last seven years. You can’t really say that for most hospitals.”

Throughout America, small towns are in big trouble when it comes to healthcare. Changing economics, inability to attract physicians and nurses and shrinking reimbursement rates have already doomed many rural hospitals with continued fallout from COVID threatening the ones left standing.

“I consider family practice as the heart and soul of the medical field,” she said. “I just wanted to be able to establish those close relationships with my patients and see them throughout their lifetime rather than just get a glimpse of them during their hospital stay.”

In total, Ozarks Healthcare operates 11 clinics, four of which are in West Plains with the remaining seven set in small towns like Mountain View, Thayer, and Mountain Grove. In each of these outlying areas, the story is generally the same — serving an aging, sicker population who, if they didn’t have the clinic, would be facing a long drive for diagnosis and treatment, if they decided to go at all.

“I definitely feel like we have a different type of patient compared to West Plains,” said Dr. Sarah Williams of Ozarks Healthcare Mountain Grove. “A lot of people out here don’t want to travel too far for their medical care. Sometimes they don’t even want to travel to West Plains to see specialists or when they really should be admitted to a hospital. You give them their options — either go to the hospital

Dr. Archana Sinha BOARD-CERTIFIED CARDIOLOGIST Provides heart care services.

YOUR PROVIDERS AT

MAIN PROVIDER PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT

VISITING SPECIALIST

Dr. Sarah A. Williams Stephan Yost, PA

... being a walk-in clinic is so important. We know that if we weren’t here, many patients simply wouldn’t bother seeking medical attention.

Dr. Sarah Williams, Ozarks Healthcare Mountain Grove

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or you might die at home — and they’d rather do the latter.

“I think that’s why being a walk-in clinic is so important. We know that if we weren’t here, many patients simply wouldn’t bother seeking medical attention.”

Williams, who has been with the clinic for four years, is another local product having grown up in nearby Houston. As such, she understands the idiosyncrasies of the local population, not to mention their expectations of the small-town clinic.

“We’ve had nights where at the end of the day we’ve shut down the walk-in clinic,

but we have a family come in with three sick kids,” she said. “The walk-in may be closed, but I know if we don’t see them there’s no one else for them to see, so you just do it. You stay late and get them taken care of because that’s what you’ve got to do.”

Mountain Grove is a good example of what a valuable conduit the clinics can be between local patients and the medical specialties they might never seek out themselves.

“Most rural clinics do multiple things, but we probably have more than most,” she said. “We have providers in behavioral health, we have physical therapy in the building. Cardiology comes up once a month. Pulmonology and rheumatology have all been coming up. It’s very rare, for sure.”

A common trait among the clinics is the closeness of the teams that work there. Medical and support staff have to remain flexible and ready for anything that walks through the door.

“It can be challenging at times just because you never know what exactly is going to come due to the larger hospitals and facilities being so far away,” said Trisha Vigna, a nurse practitioner with Ozarks Healthcare Gainesville. “We see such a variety of stuff.

Fulton

Ozark

Douglas

Texas

Shannon Wright

Howell Oregon

It’s really cool to me that we can get to know our patients here, that we know their mom is this person and their grandma is that person ... It’s really just providing that community-based

Reese Marriott, Nurse Practitioner, Ozarks Healthcare Mountain View

I’ve delivered babies here. We’ve had chainsaw injuries. We have people show up unresponsive at our doors. And then we have normal family practice things like strep throat and broken bones and that kind of stuff.”

Compassion also runs deep in the staff; as most are local to the area, they understand the difficulties many families in their midst face. This empathy comes through in the respectful way each patient is treated.

“It can be challenging because we have a poorer community,” Vigna said. “Sometimes access to funds is hard, so you have to kind of adapt to what the community and the patients can afford. A lot of times with follow-up care, you know they can’t make it to West Plains, or they’re not going to, so you have to change their care accordingly. You have to take care of it all at once knowing they may not come back.”

Vigna came to the clinic after working for one of the largest hospitals in Arkansas, moving back to be nearer to family. She said the medicine she practices today more closely resembles what she envisioned doing in healthcare in the first place.

“After I graduated from high school, I went straight into the medical field and got my nursing training in 2004,” she said. “I really enjoy healthcare and medicine. I just wanted to be able to learn more about it and be able to work in the field and provide care to the area that I live in. I wanted to help take care of people and make a difference.”

Unlike many rural small-town hospitals, the future for Ozarks Healthcare clinics is bright. The health system continues to make the clinics a priority, regularly investing in their physical space as well as equipment and services. Ozarks Healthcare Thayer, for example, recently gained a pharmacy when the healthcare system bought a drugstore that was for sale in town.

“This is going to be a flagship model,” said Katie Mahan, pharmacy director. “We wanted a model where the patient could go see the provider, the provider would write the prescription and then we could fill it right there on-site. This is the first clinic location that we’re doing this in. It helps the patient because they can get everything in one stop.”

Mahan said investing in communities where other healthcare providers are scaling back or leaving altogether is a testament to Ozarks Healthcare’s overall mission.

“I think the main benefit of having the clinics is that they make healthcare convenient and affordable for people in the community,” she said. “Taking healthcare to those rural areas, and thereby preventing people from having to drive an hour or two to receive healthcare, is key to giving the

Trisha Vigna, Nurse

Ozarks Healthcare Gainesville

ONE The and

RUTH WARREN CALLS IT A CAREER ONLY

BY DWAIN HEBDA | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE

When people say Ruth Warren is one of a kind, they aren’t just employing a well-worn figure of speech. Not only does 48 years make her a singular example of dedication to Ozarks Healthcare, but within the context of the organization’s history, it’s a phrase that fits literally.

The hospital created the position of executive assistant to the CEO a few years into Warren’s tenure here, and she’s been a mainstay of the executive administrative team ever since. Many have come and gone in the hospital’s top executive role — five CEOs and five interim CEOs, by her recollection — among whom she alone has been the common denominator.

“I think I just enjoyed the people the most,” Warren said to explain her longevity. “I have a relationship with the board because I support the board of directors, and I support the medical staff. Every day is something different and I think that’s the thing that’s kept my work interesting.

“At the time I started, there were directors under the CEO, but we didn’t have many vice presidents or assistant administrator positions. That has grown tremendously over the years. I think all of that constant change has kept my interest. There was no time to get bored.”

Warren grew up in Thomasville and graduated from Alton High School. After one year of business college in Springfield,

she joined Ozarks Healthcare as the only on-staff medical transcriptionist, reporting for work on Christmas Eve in 1974.

“The lady that was in the position before me had resigned, and I started on Christmas Eve to allow extra training time with her,” she said. “I don’t remember how long I was the sole transcriptionist, but it was a few years before we hired a second one.”

In addition to her transcription duties, Warren assisted the executive leadership with typing correspondence and other oneoff tasks. Then one day, human resources came calling with a new opportunity.

“We’d had a CEO change, and the HR director came to me and asked if I was interested in this position, the executive assistant to the CEO,” she said. “I took the position, and I’m the only one who’s ever had it since.”

To say Warren’s seen a lot over almost half a century is a gross understatement. During her tenure, the hospital reinvented itself several times over, bringing online an ICU, additional operating rooms and surgical space, the emergency department and most recently, the stunning medical office building. Multiple new services and medical specialties also blossomed during her career.

“Looking back, I think what probably stands out to me the most is how much smaller we were back then,” she said. “I think it was 66 beds at that time. The medical staff was very small, probably only

eight physicians or so. We had one general surgeon, and the others were general family practice physicians who did a variety of services. They did their own surgeries at that time, and we had no specialists to speak of compared to what we have now.

“Another thing that stands out to me is we had one emergency room, and there was a physician on call. When someone came to the emergency room, the nurse called the physician on call to see that patient.”

Not only have the physical dimensions, medical services and market reach of Ozarks greatly expanded since then, but so have the more pedestrian aspects of her career.

“Back then, we had typewriters. Over the years we moved to computers and a lot more automation. Electronic scheduling versus paper calendars written in pencil, that sort of thing,” she said.

For all of this change, her core function has remained steadfastly the same: supporting the many chief and secondary executives who have come along through the years, as well as countless board members. Warren said she always looked at her role in part as a navigator, helping new leadership get their bearings with names and faces and fielding inquiries of who to call or how to get things done.

“I think being able to adapt as each new CEO came in, being able to provide the support they needed and being able to guide them with what they needed to

ON THE SUBJECT of Ruth

“Ruth has been absolutely committed to our local health system for nearly half a century, and she should be recognized as a person who helped lead OZH to success and continued growth. People like Ruth can never be replaced; we only hope to live up to Ruth’s high ideals and expectations and how she lives her work life.”

TOM KELLER, PRESIDENT AND CEO

“Ruth is our human metronome. She keeps everyone at the right pace, at the right location at the right time.”

DR. WILLIAM “ANDY” MCGEE, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER

“Ruth has been invaluable. She’s just been a tremendous resource. She’s been there a long, long time and she has so much institutional history. She just knows everything and is a fount of knowledge in that regard. Wonderful to work with, we couldn’t have asked for anyone better.”

BILL WOOD, CHAIRMAN, OZARKS HEALTHCARE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

know is probably my greatest accomplishment,” she said. “That’s the expectation of the job, to be that resource. A lot of my responsibility is helping them get to know the organization through policies and practices in addition to the people.

“There’s still a lot to that. People come to me and ask, ‘What’s the process for this?’ or ‘Who do I contact for that?’ and

‘Who can help me do this?’ and ‘Do you know if we have a policy that directs us on what to do with this?’ I still have that role, not just with the CEO, but the vice presidents and many directors.”

As for her decision to retire at year’s end, Warren said there’s no intrigue to it — after 48 years and one pandemic, she’s just ready for a change. Instead of

tending to C Suite executives, she’s looking forward to soaking in more time with her husband, two sons, daughter-in-law and especially her 15-month-old granddaughter, Evelyn Noelle.

Asked if she was tempted to ride it out to an even 50 years in the role, she chuckled.

“Maybe just a little bit,” she said. “But not enough.”

THE NEXT Developing Generation

BY DWAIN HEBDA | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE AND COURTESY OF OZARKS HEALTHCARE

AMERICA IS IN THE GRIPS OF A NATIONAL NURSING SHORTAGE, A PROBLEM THAT GOES BACK DECADES BUT HAS INTENSIFIED IN RECENT YEARS DUE TO THE AGING OF THE WORKFORCE.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reports that of the roughly 4 million nurses at work in the U.S. today, about 25 percent, are age 50 and over. This fact is expected to accelerate retirements over the next 15 years, creating nearly 176,000 nursing vacancies annually per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the additional demand created by the aging Baby Boomer population and younger nurses changing careers after burning out during COVID.

In such a job market, smaller hospitals are often at a distinct disadvantage in attracting and retaining the nursing talent that’s required to serve patients. But Ozarks Healthcare has leveled that playing field with a robust slate of nursing programs designed to land and keep nursing talent today and well into the future.

“I think that across the nation, everyone could use more staff,” said Karlee Marvin, nurse education

supervisor. “At Ozarks Healthcare, we feel like we are in a much better place than we were even a couple of years ago, especially with our residency and our externship programs.”

Ozarks Healthcare's success story begins with extensive recruitment and has been aided of late with the opening of outstanding facilities, such as its medical office building. Marvin said the opportunity to work in a new, state-of-the-art facility is a strong draw for many prospective nurses.

“We continue to grow because of all of the specialty providers that we offer and the procedures that we perform here. I think that is definitely a draw,” she said. “The physical improvements we have made over the last few years make the hospital that much more enticing. The new office building is beautiful on the outside and even more beautiful on the inside. We have a gym now that is available and free to coworkers, we have Grill 59, and a coffee shop serving Starbucks coffee.

Previous Spread: New nurses get hands-on training in a group environment.

Above: Pairing beginners with mentors helps ensure nurses get off to a good start.

“I think when people see all we have to offer, it’s really beneficial for the hospital, especially among our locals. We want our locals to grow up here, go to school here and then take care of their community here.”

The combination of professional amenities and constant recruiting has resulted in new hires that split evenly among traditional nurses a few years removed from high school and non-traditional nurses who have come to the profession as a second career.

“I think both traditional and nontraditional nurses are looking for the same thing,” Marvin said. “They’re looking for a job that will take care of them and that will grow with them.”

Bringing this diverse group to the same starting point after hire is the purpose of Ozarks’ nurse residency program, a 12-week ramp-up that has been instrumental in getting new employees off to a solid start.

“In our nurse residency program, we put two cohorts through per year in January and June,” Marvin said. “It is essentially a program where we take brand-new nursing school graduates, support them and walk them through finding their perfect job at Ozarks Healthcare. They learn the hard and soft skills of nursing, and they are able to see Ozarks

Healthcare as a whole and not just the one department they think they want to work in.

“Nursing school and clinical time are so different from real-life jobs. We’re able to put them through all of our different inpatient departments and give them the time to see and work with those coworkers and find their perfect fit where they feel comfortable and are ready to grow in their new jobs.”

The residency program combines work shifts, class-based learning and guest speakers to help match new nurses to the job that best fits their skill set, personality and career goals. Once they choose a department, additional specialized training follows along with the assignment of a mentor. All of which, Marvin said, help contribute to nurses’ professional success.

“That first year of nursing is hard,” she said. “You are so overwhelmed by learning all the pieces and then essentially being the one who’s taking care of those patients. Having that mentor to reach out to means a lot.”

The hospital is also taking steps to connect with prospective nurses earlier and earlier. A brand-new paid externship program provides current nursing students with a 10-week summertime opportunity to augment their education in a real-world setting.

The residency program combines work shifts, class-based learning and guest speakers to help match new nurses to the job that best fits their skill set, personality and career goals.

- KARLEE MARVIN Nurse Education Supervisor

“They are assigned one-on-one with a nurse preceptor, and they are able to get in and learn a lot of those soft skills that are often not at the top of things they teach you in nursing school,” Marvin said. “They really learn how to talk to patients, how to talk to their preceptors and how to talk to providers.

“That’s been really successful. I heard back from the nursing instructors that the students who completed this externship were a completely different group of students walking into third semester clinicals.”

Ozarks Healthcare's MASH Camp reaches even younger students, introducing them to the nursing profession while still in junior high and high school.

“MASH Camp has been a highlight of 2022 for all of us,” Marvin said. “We had 96 seventh through 12th graders from all across the area attend, which was pretty significant. We did a three-day camp for the high schoolers and a one-day camp for seventh and eighth graders.”

Campers were given the opportunity to view nursing from a number of departmental perspectives and perform simulations using advanced medical equipment.

“One of our cardiac thoracic surgeons came in and taught the high school students how to suture on bananas,” Marvin said. “Another huge highlight was a class led by one of our orthopedic and spine

Above: MASH Camp is a fun and effective means of introducing middle and high school students to the nursing profession.

surgeons who showed students a brand-new surgical robot. We also took a group into our cath lab, gave each of them a role to play, and they mimicked a full cath procedure. We created an epidemic within the classroom so they were able to see how quickly an epidemic could spread.”

Marvin said reaching youngsters at this age is critical to generating interest in the profession, which bodes well for the future.

“One of my favorite parts of MASH Camp was we ended with bringing in representatives of the career opportunities within healthcare,” Marvin said. “We had X-ray there, we had the high school involved in some of their biomedical science

classes there, we had air evac. We also invited parents so they could get information on how to look into local educational opportunities.

“As an organization, I think our name and our brand have grown over the years along with all of the specialties and career opportunities that are right here within the walls. We wanted to show how it’s possible to specialize as a nurse here locally, more than you ever could before. I think that speaks to people. One of our top healthcare system goals is to be the employer and the provider of choice, and the more we can promote that in the community, the more successful we’re going to be going forward.”

Campers were given the opportunity to view nursing from a number of departmental perspectives.

Walking the Last Mile

BY DWAIN HEBDA | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE

Jack Butler served his country honorably in Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star for valor. But when his health started to fail, the veteran found himself in the greatest battle of his life.

“We were just running back and forth to Springfield and Mountain Grove and Willow Springs and Houston, Missouri, just everywhere trying to find out what was wrong with him, and nobody could give us an answer,” said Beatrice Butler, Jack’s wife of 11 years. “We went to see our primary doctor one day and he looked at Jack and said, ‘You know Jack? I have sent you to some of the best doctors I know, and I’ve done everything I know to do for you. I think it’s time you get on hospice.’

“We thought about it and thought OK, sounds like a plan because he didn’t want to go into a nursing home and I didn’t want him to. This way he was able to stay at home and live out his life here.”

Jack died August 20, 2022, and while nothing erases the pain of a loved one’s passing, Beatrice is quick to point out how helpful and comforting Ozarks Healthcare At Home: Hospice was, all the way to the end.

“If I needed them, all I had to do was call, and somebody would be here,” she said. “I remember the first time I got really upset about him being so sick, and I knew what his destination was. I called the social worker and she said, ‘I’m coming over. I’ll be right there.’ Her just being

here made me feel so much more at ease. It was about him, but it was also about me. It was nice.”

It’s not hard to find many similar stories about Ozarks Healthcare At Home: Hospice, a caring collection of medical and spiritual professionals who help patients and their families deal with the final steps in the natural life cycle.

“It’s a really rewarding job,” said Eric Bowman, hospice chaplain and pastor of Lighthouse Community Bible Church in Moody, Missouri. “I realize that people struggle. There are a lot of things undone. I just want to help them with those things. To me, it’s the personal nature of (hospice ministry), just having the opportunity to be one-on-one with somebody.

“To tell you the truth, and I know this is hard to say, but I have more of a blessing working with these people probably than they do with me. I’ve come to terms with my own death, so it makes it a little easier for me. That’s how I feel about it.”

The hospice serves a seven-county area across the southern border of the state.

Volunteers and staff serve patients in their homes, relieving families from many of the burdens that come with endof-life care, from physical needs to emotional and spiritual support.

“There’s a lot of roles in that process,” Bowman said. “We help with bringing healthcare into the home — medicine,

It’s a really rewarding job. I realize that people struggle. There are a lot of things undone. I just want to help them with those things.

- Eric BowmanHospice Chaplain

“

”

Above: Eric Bowman, who has been a chaplain with hospice for the past two years, also serves as its bereavement coordinator and manages the organization’s We Honor Vets program.

STAFF & VOLUNTEERS

supplies, things like that — which allows people to spend more quality time with their family members. On top of that, spiritually speaking, most of them can’t attend church; lots of times it’s been years, maybe. So, we bring that into the home too.”

Bowman, who has been a chaplain with hospice for the past two years, also serves as its bereavement coordinator and manages the organization’s We Honor Vets program. He’s also in charge of volunteer recruitment and management. Volunteers are a key part of ministering and with such a wide service area, he’s always on the hunt for more caring individuals to serve families.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to help somebody at a time when people really are hurting and they could use a little support,” said Diane Schroeder, who has been

a volunteer with Ozarks Healthcare At Home: Hospice for 30 years. “I’m just naturally a giver kind of person, and this was something that I really felt was an important thing to be able to do. I have met some really interesting people that I normally would have never gotten to know.”

Schroeder, a former teacher, said hospice volunteers are often hard to come by due to the public’s aversion to death and dying. She said the satisfaction of serving people who are facing the inevitable brings her abundant joy and satisfaction.

“Apparently, a lot of people say they couldn’t be a hospice volunteer because they couldn’t stand to be with somebody when they died,” she said. “In my experience over 30 years, I have never been with someone who actually died while I was there.

“I am mostly sitting with people. I sometimes read to them. I like to hold their hand because it’s important to have physical touch. All you need is to be willing to listen and encourage someone, and that includes caregivers. They often have a very difficult role, and they may be ignored a little. They’re grieving and they’re often physically tired. Being able to say something positive to them is really important.”

Beatrice Butler agreed. As one who’s recently walked this path alongside a loved one, she said the smallest kindness can make all the difference.

“Hospice was there when I needed them,” she said. “And they were also there when I didn’t even know I needed them, but I did.”

First Row (sitting left to right): volunteer Gary Walker; volunteer Stanley Taylor; volunteer Norman Carte; and volunteer Diane Schroeder Back Row (sitting left to right): Eric Bowman, hospice chaplain; Holly Isom, hospice manager; Tammy McCall, hospice MSW; and Greg Yount, former hospice chaplain/volunteer coordinator

“

”

“I remember the first time I got really upset about him being so sick ... I called the social worker and she said, ‘I’m coming over. I’ll be right there.’ ... It was about him, but it was also about me.”

- Beatrice Butler

HOSPICE

Be Our Guest

REGISTRATION STAFF SETS THE TONE FOR PATIENT EXPERIENCE

BY DWAIN HEBDA PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE AND JASON MASTERS

It’s the little things that set winning organizations apart from the competition, details that enhance the customer experience. For Ozarks Healthcare, that difference starts the minute a patient and their family cross the threshold. They are greeted warmly, checked in quickly and moved to the right department without being made to feel like a number.

Managing patient traffic in a compassionate, caring manner is as much art as science and the daily mission of Ozarks’ friendly, capable registration team led by Melody Simpson, patient financial services director.

“One of the things that we try to do when we’re training and talking to the staff is to have them put themselves in the position of the patient,” Simpson said. “This patient is put into a position that they didn’t plan for. They didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘I think I’m going to have a heart attack.’

You don’t plan those things. They’re in a circumstance that they don’t expect.

“We teach every one of our employees to put themselves in our patient’s life and also think about how for some people, the only human interaction they have is when they go to the doctor or the grocery store. Sometimes patients just want someone to hear their story.”

The registration team is made up of about 30 Ozarks employees backing up a client-facing corps of volunteers. The team is positioned strategically at four locations: the new medical office building, oncology, surgery area and emergency care.

In addition to the human touch, the hospital has equipped the team with technology that speeds the registration process, with more to come.

“We have implemented a centralized scheduling system; we all register patients the same way, and we try to streamline information so we don’t continue to ask the same questions over and over again,” she said. “For a patient that comes in a lot, that really simplifies the process. We have also recently put in place a tracker that ‘sees’ our patients through our system so when we hand them off, a provider knows they have X patient waiting in the lab.

“One of the things we’re working on in the future is to allow patients to check in prior to getting here, whether it be through their phone system, their computer or on a kiosk. You can do certain things on our portal now, and there are a lot more of those features coming in the future.”

Simpson, who’s led the registration team for about a year, also heads the financial services department and she’s leveraged that experience to further speed parts of the registration process.

“The ability to verify patients’ insurance and ensure everything there is correct is very vital,” she said. “Something we have initiated recently is our e-forms where, instead of handing them a stack of paper, we just hand an iPad or tablet to the patient or their family, and they can sign their forms right there. And then we save them electronically into their electronic medical record.”

However, as Simpson is quick to point out, none of these technological tools will replace the human element of the registration process, nor will they be as effective without it. That’s why Simpson and her team look for certain intangibles when hiring or taking on new volunteers.

“What I try to teach my managers, who help a lot in the hiring phase, is we can teach someone how to be a registration clerk or how to be a biller. We can teach

One of the things that we try to do when we’re training ... is to have them put themselves in the position of the patient. This patient is put into a position that they didn’t plan for.

- Melody SimpsonPatient Financial Services Director

“

them the functions, we can teach them how to schedule a patient for a service,” she said. “What we can’t necessarily teach someone is how to have that bubbly want-to-help compassion. That’s something ingrained in you; it’s all about your compassion.

“We should always remember that a patient might have just received terrible news that they can’t deal with. A kind, friendly smile and a ‘How are you today? How can I help you?’ and ‘Have a great day,’ is something that should be ingrained

in us. I believe if you talk to our people, 90 to 95 percent of them would say they’re in healthcare because they want to make a difference in someone’s life. We provide that opportunity every day, to help someone and make a difference in their life.”

Registration desk in the main entrance.

BODY, MIND & Spirit

TIME OUT TO TREAT EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR HEALTH

BY DWAIN HEBDA PHOTOGRAPHY BY JASON MASTERS AND COURTESY OF OZARKS HEALTHCARE

If the past two-plus years have taught us anything, it’s the importance of minding our own health be it mental, emotional, spiritual or physical. Nowhere is that more vital than in the healthcare industry where the daily demands of the job, as well as the compounding challenges of meeting family obligations, are enough to overwhelm anyone.

We talked to two on-staff experts about how to make the most of the wellness opportunities available at work, as well as how to mute the negative effects of stress, especially during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

WORK OUT FOR WELLNESS

Sarah James, Ozarks Healthcare's director of therapies, calls it like she sees it when it comes to the importance of physical wellness. She said staying active and working out to one’s physical abilities are nothing less than essential to surviving in the high-stress healthcare profession.

“If you stay on top of your health and take more of a proactive approach, you don’t have to be in that reactive situation where you’re trying to get over the hump,” she said. “This is a mindset that’s built into our vision statement which says we’re going to encourage wellness for every person, every time.”

James said the philosophy is more than just words on a page and can be seen in the investment the hospital has made in opening an on-premises, 24-hour gym, and maintaining a robust slate of wellness activities.

“The new gym is a really great resource,” she said. “It features badge access 24 hours a day, and we’ve opened it up to spouses for a very minimal fee. We’re putting together some employee

TAKE

If you stay on top of your health and take more of a proactive approach, you don’t have to be in that reactive situation where you’re trying to get over the hump.

- Sarah JamesDirector of Therapies

challenges for the end of the year, and we’ve started hosting some community health classes, such as pediatric yoga. We’re also moving toward possibly offering other community health classes at the wellness center and potentially some nutrition classes, too.”

As nice as the new gym is, James said it’s only one opportunity for wellness activities throughout the workday.

“Once you get to work, park the furthest away you can,” she said. “Everybody’s always trying to race to those spots in the front of the building, and that’s not really necessary. Park in the back and get some extra steps in. Throughout the day, take the stairs when available and if possible.

“Something I’ve seen some employees do is sync up their smartwatches to challenge each other. They’ll set a daily goal — for instance, getting in 8,000 steps — and then they can monitor each other’s progress.”

James said it often takes very small changes to put a person on a different fitness path. Eating one’s lunch at one’s desk is a commonplace occurrence for many workers, for example, but not necessarily the best strategy for maintaining optimal health.

“I’m a poor, poor example of this,” she said. “I am a type-whileI-eat-just-to-get-it-done kind of person. But I would definitely advocate for anybody to step away just for a few minutes and clear your head and not even think about work.

“You’re going to be more productive if you can get in there and get some work done, take a break and come back than if you just sit there and grind it out all day. I’ve read studies that show workers who take breaks complete their to-do list with a lot more efficiency than those who just kind of paddle their way through all day. We all really do need that break time.”

TRADING WOEFUL FOR JOYFUL

The holidays are supposed to be a time for enjoying family, counting our blessings and engaging our brighter spirits. Unfortunately for many people, it is also a time of great stress and anxiety as people are run over by the hustle, bustle and expectations of the season.

Lora Hand, a mental health therapist with Ozarks Healthcare Behavioral Health Center (BHC), said surviving the holidays isn’t something to be left to chance; it takes deliberate effort and strategy.

“Acknowledge your own feelings about the holidays and whether you are doing what you want to do or is it just like, well, this is tradition, this is what we always do. It’s OK to say no. Be realistic. Acknowledge your own feelings and don’t feel bad about doing it.”

Hand said with some creative thought and careful planning, virtually every aspect of the holidays can be brought under better control. Alone and feeling blue? Schedule some volunteer time to connect with people. Bills piling up? Write out a holiday budget and stick to it for food, decorations and the like. Even gift spending shouldn’t escape your scrutiny.

“Sticking to a budget is a big deal,” she said. “With food costs being what they are, maybe suggest having a potluck instead of taking on all that responsibility yourself.

“As for gifts, you can always do an alternative theme. Especially in big families, do a drawing, pull out a name and buy gifts with a certain dollar limit. That way, it doesn’t seem like someone’s

trying to overcompensate with a large present to someone.”

And as for that big gathering that always seems to land at your house, don’t be afraid of managing those extra hands to help share the work, including kids.

“Incorporate people into your plans, definitely,” Hand said. “You can incorporate them and give people little tasks to do, even if it’s washing dishes. Who wants to wash, who wants to rinse, who wants to dry? You might even draw out a chore list before everybody gets there so everybody can take a task and feel like they’re contributing to what’s going on.

“Not everyone might be able to bring a dish, but there’s something they can do to be a part of the holiday instead of you, the host or hostess, just serving them a holiday. For many people, they want to feel like they are a part of the celebration.”

Most of all, don’t be afraid to set — and stick to — limits.

“Everybody can say no at times and be OK with saying no,” Hand said. “It’s OK to say no and limit our guests or just limit the holiday itself if we feel like we need to. If we can’t be a happy participant, everybody is going to see that and we don’t want to project that. We want to project togetherness. That’s why we have a holiday.”

Acknowledge your own feelings about the holidays and whether you are doing what you want to do or is it just like, well, this is tradition.

- Lora HandMental Health Therapist

“ ”

Emergency Response

BY DWAIN HEBDA | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE

Ozarks Healthcare has long prided itself on providing advanced behavioral care, far exceeding that of hospitals its size. And now, the health system is setting the bar even higher with the establishment of a mental health emergency department, giving people in crisis another avenue to seek help in the moment.

“This is separate from the existing emergency room, but it’s also going to work very closely in collaboration with the emergency department,” said Jac Crawford, director of behavioral health. “It will function much like a psychiatric emergency department.”

The new Crisis Stabilization Center will be located in Ozarks Healthcare's old neuroscience building. It will improve the speed of care patients in crisis receive, putting them in front of a behavioral health specialist from the moment they walk in.

“The whole point of this new crisis stabilization center is to have a place where patients can go to receive psychiatric care, primarily,” Crawford said. “If somebody’s coming in because they’re having thoughts of wanting to hurt themselves, all of the healthcare professionals they encounter in the crisis stabilization center are behavioral health-focused and have behavioral health backgrounds.”

As with most hospitals and health systems in the country, patients experiencing a mental health emergency commonly report to the regular emergency department for help. Crawford said while Ozarks Healthcare's emergency department provides outstanding service for physical ailments, it wasn’t designed to treat patients thinking of harming themselves, having a psychotic episode and the like.

“Somebody comes into the hospital for a broken bone, they go to the emergency department,” he said. “If somebody comes in because they’re depressed and they’re having thoughts of suicide, the most appropriate place for them to go is still the emergency room. As it stands right now, the emergency room isn’t necessarily set up to focus primarily on psychiatric patients.

“This means patients are receiving the best care that we can provide, but they’re still not receiving the most appropriate and expeditious care possible in terms of behavioral health issues. When you end up going to the emergency room, you are triaged first based on your medical issue. If you are there for psychiatric care, you are automatically separated from the rest of the queue. The physicians who are asking evaluative questions have had psychiatric training, but it’s definitely not their specialty.”

The new crisis stabilization center will siphon off patients experiencing a mental health emergency from the emergency department’s patient load, providing specialized care from individuals trained in the field of behavioral health.

“We will immediately triage them based on their psychiatric conditions, and we will begin the process of

Above: The new crisis stabilization center will siphon off patients experiencing a mental health emergency from the emergency department’s patient load. Patients will be immediately triaged based on their psychiatric conditions.

is separate ... but it’s also going to work very closely in collaboration with the emergency department. It will function much like a psychiatric emergency department.

- Jac CrawfordDirector of Behavioral Health

“ ”

determining the next level of care at that point,” Crawford said. “We will be focused solely on behavioral health.”

Crawford said the emergency department is still a valued partner in this work; if a patient reports to the crisis stabilization center with a physical ailment or injury, treatment of that condition will take precedence over mental healthcare. He said the new system represents a major step forward for the care of people needing help.

“If they come to the crisis stabilization center and are psychotic or having hallucinations or are delusional, we can talk to them,” he said. “We work to deescalate their current crisis to a point where they’re not having an immediate panic attack, or we

can talk them out of their current crisis. And we have counselors there who can do short, individual therapy sessions if that’s needed. Finally, we will have a psychiatrist on call who can prescribe anti-anxiety medication, as appropriate.”

The new center, which opens this fall, is completely voluntary for patients. It will initially operate during clinic hours with the goal of operating 24 hours a day in the future. Generally speaking, the center will serve patients 18 and over, although no one in a legitimate emergency will be turned away.

The center is part of a wider effort by the State of Missouri to bring such amenities within easier reach of patients statewide.

“This program was rolled out by our governor, Mike Parson, who used to be a highway patrol officer,” Crawford said. “He saw firsthand how law enforcement struggles with how to most appropriately help psychiatric patients. (Gov. Parson) has said he wants to see a facility like this in every one of the highway patrol districts in Missouri, and Ozarks Healthcare is the one for our district.

“We’re taking, hopefully, the responsibility of intervening with psychiatric conditions away from the law enforcement as soon as possible because that’s not their wheelhouse. The quicker we can intervene and the quicker we can assist the patient, the better.”

This

Above: The new Crisis Stabilization Center will be located in Ozarks Healthcare's old neuroscience building. It will improve the speed of care patients in crisis receive, putting them in front of a behavioral health specialist from the moment they walk in.

Jac Crawford

Beautiful Minds

OZARKS HEALTHCARE BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CENTER CELEBRATES 25 YEARS

BY DWAIN HEBDA | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE

Over the past several years, mental health issues have garnered more and more attention, prompting the medical community to step up to provide help to those who need it. Ozarks Healthcare Behavioral Health Center (BHC) has been well ahead of that curve, marking 25 years of providing mental health services in a caring, compassionate environment.

“The attention to mental health issues has changed a lot, mainly due to acceptance,” said Richard McGee, who’s been with the practice for a decade and its director for nine years. “The stigma around mental health has been a deterrent for a lot of people to seek services for a long time. There’s far more acceptance of mental health as a treatable condition, and that’s allowed more people to seek help.”

McGee said at the heart of the practice’s sustained growth is its variety of services and the many ways in which Ozarks Healthcare BHC provides access to patients.

“One of the phrases we use is, ‘There is no wrong door,’” McGee said. “The people who come in for our services come from a variety of backgrounds, and they also come with a variety of issues. Some are very severe, some chronic, some acute, some are people who just need a little bit of help.

“Services run the gamut, with the big ones being medication services, counseling, case management and crisis services. We also have some walk-in services that are available. During COVID, we were doing a lot of services over the phone, and we still do some over the phone. It really depends on the individual.”

Above: Richard McGee has been with Ozarks Healthcare Behavioral Health Center for a decade and its director for nine years.

Ozarks Healthcare Behavioral Health Center has distinguished itself, ranking in the 99th percentile for patient satisfaction.

”

It’s a far cry from the earliest days of the practice when services were largely limited to medication and counseling, notably psychiatry. McGee said the growth of the behavioral health center has been thanks to continued investment by hospital leadership, which has expanded the center to 110 employees. Still, it’s a challenge to meet the demand.

“The State of Missouri has been very progressive about pushing for mental health services," he said. "Our area is unique because we cover the seven counties of South Central Missouri, which represent roughly 9% of the state’s land mass. It’s a big area we have to cover, and it’s only 2% of the population.

“Based on the need for services and the referrals that we see coming in, we are a relatively large part of the organization, but as community mental health centers go, we’re not huge.”

OZH’s continued commitment and investment recognizes the importance of this category of healthcare, despite the challenges of market size and patient need. Jennifer Wheeler, clinic manager, has worked here for 22 years and watched as the small practice grew into a cornerstone of healthcare for the region.

“Smaller communities like ours, there are a lot of little mom-and-pop mental health places that offer counseling, but there’s no psychiatry even close to us,” she said. “It’s at least an hour’s drive to see a psychiatrist if you don’t come to us.”

Longevity is one thing, maintaining a consistently high quality of care over time is something very different. Here again, Ozarks Healthcare BHC has distinguished itself, ranking in the 99th percentile for patient satisfaction, per tracking service Press Ganey.

“We put a very high focus on patient satisfaction,” Wheeler said. “We have a group of behavioral health employees who make up the patient experience

team. We meet every month and we talk about different ways that we can increase patient satisfaction. We also have drop boxes around the clinic where people can put in comments and suggestions.

“I think our No. 1 thing is we make sure our patients are heard. When they tell us they would like to see something different or that they need something different or another service, we listen to that and we act upon it. That’s one of the things we’re most proud of.”

Ozarks Healthcare BHC achieved another milestone recently, earning the designation of a certified community behavioral health organization.

“That means we basically meet the highest level of certification that you can obtain for a mental health organization,” McGee said. “It’s a national standard established by SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services organization. It took us several years to develop policies and procedures and put in all the programs that help us meet that.”

The practice continues to set the bar for community mental healthcare and wellness. It will soon open a crisis intervention center, which acts like an emergency room for mental health conditions, as well as a substance abuse disorder program. It’s also stepping up efforts to reach into area schools and law enforcement to provide various educational programs and healthcare services on behavioral health issues. It’s an ambitious agenda and not without challenges, but one Wheeler is confident can be fulfilled as the department embarks upon its second quarter-century of service.

“I am proud to be a part of behavioral health,” she said. “It’s been an amazing journey and experience for me. I had never worked in the medical field before, so I didn’t know what I was getting into. But I have thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a great group of people with great big hearts for our patients.”

The people who come in for our services come from a variety of backgrounds, and they also come with a variety of issues. Some are very severe, some chronic, some acute, some are people who just need a little bit of help.

- Richard McGee -

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The Legacy Phone Booth

BY DWAIN HEBDA PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES MOORE

The Ozarks Healthcare Phone Booth is a familiar sight to long-timers, but newer patients and staff may not know its significance and history.

Mildred Young spent 30 years working in and managing the hospital laundry, and 21 years after that as a volunteer. She remembers the phone booth as a fixture near the waiting room.

“I remember it up in the front of the hospital when the hospital was first built,” she said. “My youngest daughter was born there May 16, 1959, and the hospital opened in March of 1959, if I’m not mistaken.”

Ruth Warren, who will retire in 2022 after 48 years of employment, said the phone booth was a popular amenity for patients’ families.

“It was located in the hallway off the admission office, near the front entrance by the waiting room,” she said. “It was before cell phones, so families used that to call family and give them updates on patients or call and announce a birth.”

Retaining the booth and putting it on display as a reminder of the hospital’s past is a nice touch, Warren said.

“In those days, phone booths were fairly common, but you no longer see phone booths anywhere,” she said. “This one is the actual wooden booth itself, from the original building. I think a lot of the elders in the community will remember it. It’s just unique to what you would have seen anyplace else.”

“It does remind you of how far we’ve come, because (the hospital) has come a long way, and there have been a lot of upgrades and things,” Young said. “The hospital has really been a blessing to this community.”

It was before cell phones, so families used that to call family and give them updates on patients or call and announce a birth.

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