Albany Business Review June 2024: St. Mary’s Healthcare CEO wants hospital to stay independent

Within the first two years of his career in health care, Jeff Methven went from just hired to head of the HR department.

That upward trajectory has continued, moving to Saratoga Hospital as a vice president in 2006 before being named CEO at St. Mary’s Healthcare in Amsterdam early last year.

Since taking over, Methven has tried to tackle the hospital’s most pressing problems — budget deficits — while also resetting the culture and thinking about new ways to make the organization part of the community.

“We’ve made progress. We’ve still got a lot of progress to go,” Methven said.

You’ve been with St. Mary’s for about a year and a half now. How did you set the culture when you started here as CEO? I think, initially, it’s shaking hands, meeting and greeting. You have to be visible, out on the units, in the departments. We’ve done some things to really try and improve communication. … I spend, usually once or twice a week, a few hours with an associate or group of associates in areas, actually putting on scrubs and doing that work with them.

What are some things you’ve learned? Late last week, I was with our case managers and what was eye-opening for me was just how integral they are to the discharge process. Every day they’re essentially trying to put a puzzle together. … We have a team, our ACT program that deals with mental health population, and they’re really on the front lines,

St. Mary’s is running at a deficit, but you’ve noted those have come down. How do you tackle that? In my mind, you’re not going to shrink your way to profitability. You have to grow your way there, and that’s one of the tenets I consistently reinforce with our leadership team. So we’ve turned some new programs on. … We have a new pulmonary program coming online for us July 1, that’s going to be a huge opportunity for us. And we’re making sure we’re improving access and patient experience. A lot of hospitals struggle with that, but we’re making sure we’re doing everything we can to answer phone calls and give patients appointments in a reasonable timeframe.

Is it hard to recruit providers to a smaller, somewhat more rural hospital? It’s more difficult. I think there’s limited housing here and there’s less going on here than in, say, Albany or Saratoga. If I’m a new physician in a specialty field, I can work for a larger group where I’m on call one night in 20 instead of every other night. So how do you create the right environment, or find other organizations to collaborate with to alleviate or ease some of that burden?

St. Mary’s split with Ascension in 2020, but the trend in health care is toward consolidation. How long do you think you can stay independent? Our plan is to remain independent. It creates unique challenges, especially in a smaller, more rural community. We can’t be all things to everyone. But one of the reasons we left Ascension as I understand it — it happened before my time here — is that the hospital was seeing money leave the area and was losing its autonomy and ability to set the direction for its health care.

If you were handed a magic wand, what’s the first thing you do to fix health care? I would say probably to set reimbursement rates at a level that aligns with cost of care. I think the challenge for most hospitals is cost of care is rising and reimbursements are not.

What would you like to invest in next at the hospital? Like a lot of hospitals, infrastructure is a big opportunity. We see about 25,000 ER visits a year, and our footprint is about 8,000 square feet. Based on today’s standards, we probably need an ER that’s three times that size. I think that would enhance the experience for our patients, and that’s what we’re trying to do, improve the experience and not have folks feel like they have to leave the area for high-quality care.

What are your goals for, say, 10 years from now for St. Mary’s? I’d love to see St. Mary’s profitable. I’d love to see newer, state-of-the-art facilities, I’d love to see additional collaborative relationships with other hospital and organizations. I’d love to see the city of Amsterdam continue to flourish, I’d love to see some of that growth we’ve seen across other parts of the Capital Region continue to move west.

I think there has to be a symbiotic relationship between city and hospital. We’re the largest employer, and as we go, so goes the city. If the city can be successful and thrive, if it can create new housing opportunities and create more culture, create more activities, that helps us grow.