The new Chief Executive Officer at Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital, John Bishop, is on the ground and rapidly coming up to speed on his new job. You may have met him already on the streets of Hamilton or in the local coffee shop. He’s an amiable person and very articulate. He’s also a very avid outdoorsman. That’s at least in part due to his upbringing. He’s a Montana boy.
Raised in Bozeman, Bishop got degrees in business and accounting from Montana State University and then jumped into the private sector, working for Murdoch’s Farm and Ranch Supply in their home office in Bozeman doing corporate accounting.
Then a life changing event occurred with the birth of his first son. The child was born prematurely at 29 weeks, weighing just 2 lbs, 15 ounces.
“I got to see the good, the bad and the ugly of health care, the miracle that he is alive and well today, but also an awareness of the broken systems and processes,” Bishop said.
“From an outsider’s perspective and working for an organization that was pretty well run at the time I saw some opportunity to go be part of something that was bigger than us,” he said. “We are there in health care for people’s greatest times in their lives and some of their most challenging ones. Making sure that those services that are delivered to those patients in those moments is excellent is what inspired me to get into health care, and it’s been great ever since.”
This inspired Bishop to apply for work at the Madison Valley Medical Center in Ennis, Montana where he served as Chief Financial Officer for about six months and then as Chief Executive Officer for about five years.
“Then I went to rural Oregon to learn a little bit more about health care in a little bigger place,” he said. He was President of two critical access hospitals there in the cities of Prineville and Madras which are very similar to Hamilton, according to Bishop.
“But being from Montana – my wife and I were both raised here – moving back here was always at the back of our minds,” said Bishop. He said he was really grateful that this opportunity came up so early in his career.
But it is not just the fact that he was born here in Montana that draws him back, it is the things he loves to do here.
“I’m an outdoorsman. I like to fish, to hunt, to ski, and when you look at those things and what’s here, it’s a great place. I also like smaller towns. I like the connections that you make. I already can’t go downtown without seeing people that I know. I really like that kind of environment.”
He said his wife had some college roommates that grew up in the Bitterroot Valley and Hamilton was on their short list of places to go.
“So we visited Hamilton a few years back and it was always in the back of our minds, when will we get a chance to go to Hamilton. It came sooner than I expected, and I am just very grateful that we got the chance when we did.”
Asked what he would be focusing on in his new job, Bishop said, “I think the things I focus on most are probably the patient experience first of all. Having our young son in the hospital and experiencing care from multiple organizations starting in Bozeman, then to Billings, then to Denver, we got to see the extremes of health care and how important that experience is.”
“Another area that is really important to me is to ensure that we deliver our care in a cost-effective approach,” said Bishop. “The cost of health care today is too expensive and we have to make decisions and develop strategies in our organization to reduce that burden on our patients and to deliver that care at an affordable price. I think that’s a key component of health care.”
Asked if he had a strategy in place for moving forward, Bishop said, “Every community is different. They have their unique pieces and parts, different demographics.” As a result, he said, you need to really understand an organization before you can start making any changes.
“So, the first few weeks I focused on meeting with individual care givers and physicians to hear from them where our strengths are and where there are opportunities to improve. And from that, begin to develop a strategy for better care more efficiently. I know the finance part of it is really important to health care, but the more broad responsibility of a chief executive is really challenging and inspiring because that’s where you get to make changes.”
Bishop said relationships in health care are critical. “It’s far too complex for any individual to deal with and solve all the problems. We have 500 employees doing hundreds of different jobs and tasks and we need to make sure that the relationships exist to solve those problems because those who are closest to those problems often have the best solutions,” he said.
He said one of the things that is really unique about Marcus Daly Hospital is the breath of services that are delivered here.
“Being an independent organization that has grown and developed over the decades, they have been able to develop the ability to meet the needs of the local community in ways that you do not see in other organizations,” he said. “The leadership here over the years has made good decisions to bring additional services to meet more of those needs locally.”
Bishop had a good assessment of his board of directors.
“At the board level they have various backgrounds both in health care and outside of health care. It’s critical that you have both. You need that fresh set of eyes to come in, that hasn’t been living it and breathing it, to ask the tough questions of why we do things the way that we do. But you also need the experience and the background in health care to be able to answer some of those questions and to solve some of those problems that those fresh eyes bring up. This board, from what I can see, has a very good mix of people with professional backgrounds that are outside of the health care industry and then some physicians and other folks that grew up in the health care world.”
Bill Bean, chairman of the board for nine years, said the search for a new CEO began when the previous CEO, John Bartos, gave notice.
“He promised to give us 18 months’ notice and he did,” said Bean. A team of board members was formed to engage a company that could conduct an executive search. They settled on Pintlar and the company drew in 100 applicants and then winnowed it down to seven. The board interviewed the seven and then brought two back, with their wives, for a second interview.
“The vote was 100% for John Bishop,” said Bean. “He met the type we were looking for. We really liked his background in finance and we were impressed that he really wanted the job. We liked what John had to say at the interviews. He convinced us that not only did we want him, but he wanted us. He wanted to come here and be a part of the area and what we do.”
Bean said the hospital staff were intimately involved in making this decision and they were 100% for him.
Bishop said the hospital itself was a good fit for him.
“The breadth of services is quite unique. Many other hospitals are part of larger systems and as part of larger systems they don’t always have the same priorities you have when you are prioritizing as part of that community you are serving. Having the autonomy to shift quickly to meet the needs and demands of our local community is much greater when the governing structure is also local. In other cases that is not so easy to do,” he said.
“I think the caregivers here are remarkably talented and the tenure many of the care givers have is remarkable and that brings with it a degree of institutional knowledge, memory and competence. The key thing is to get all that good institutional memory and competence focused on improvement and that’s where I come in. To try and take that really good piece of this organization with that stability and shift it in its energy towards improvement,” said Bishop.
“I think there is a lot of growth potential still out there, a lot of demand that hasn’t been met yet or could be met more locally. I think that it’s exciting to be in a community that’s growing, and that there is still potential for growth within our own community that will allow us to do some things we haven’t in the past.”