At the time of this interview, Michael Blauer had been in the position of CEO at Bear Lake Memorial for a grand total of six days. Over the decade of doing hospital spotlight, this was a record for speaking with a new CEO. But Michael comes to the position with experience, familiarity with the community and a strong fondness for his new hospital. We may check back with Mike after he’s had six years under his belt to get updates.

HCB News: What inspired you to pursue a career in healthcare?
Michael Blauer: I actually have a background in Spanish and I was an interpreter in a hospital in the area when I was an undergrad at Idaho State University. I worked at that hospital and it fascinated me. I really enjoyed the exposure to the atmosphere and the people I got to associate with. It piqued an interest in me and I ended up pursuing a graduate degree in healthcare administration. My career since then has been in critical access hospitals.

HCB News: What attracted you to Bear Lake Memorial?
MB: Bear Lake is an amazing space. I grew up in Idaho, so I’m a little partial to the place in general, but I was looking around, and when I heard of the opening here, I knew it was in a beautiful area of the state because I spent a bit of time out here. It has a reputation for being a great facility. It’s been recognized as a top critical access hospital. In fact, it’s the third year in a row that we’ve been among the top 100 critical access hospitals in the country. Last year, we were in the top 20. So obviously, that was attractive and a validation of a well-run facility.

I came out, interviewed and met the team, and fell in love with the place. It’s a caring team and a well-run organization. I was excited about the opportunity and glad it worked out.

HCB News: Being that you grew up in Idaho and served as a CEO in another hospital in the state — were you familiar with Bear Lake Memorial before the position opened, and how did you hear about it?
MB: I was familiar with the facility and knew some of the folks who were in the role before. When the position opened, I had a few colleagues in the state tell me about it. I had friends text me and family in the area tell me about it.

HCB News: What is the employee culture and management style like?
MB: There’s an internal vision statement for the hospital, “Most caring hospital on earth.” It’s the hospital’s culture put into a simple phrase. When you walk around, you can feel it — how patient-oriented everyone is and how focused on caring. I think part of that comes from being a very close-knit community. People care about the community, their neighbors and obviously their families. I love the fact that it’s called out in the hospital’s internal vision.

HCB News: What is the makeup of patients as far as type of medical coverage?
MB: We cover private pay, insurance pay, Medicare and Medicaid. We’re full-spectrum with patient care. We have family practice providers taking care of babies and deliveries. We also have a nursing home. We do home health and an assisted living facility and we do counseling and behavioral health services. So we feel pretty proud of the fact that while we’re a critical access hospital in a small community, we offer a wide breadth of services and we do them well. We also provide general surgery, orthopedic surgery, and counseling services.

HCB News: Many rural communities have been hit by the opioid crisis. Others struggle with large populations suffering from chronic conditions like diabetes. Is there any particular type of health crisis in your community that stands out?
MB: We’re serving the community generally — covering all aspects of healthcare. Whatever needs our community has, we’re here to facilitate and give them the best care they need. We’re pretty fortunate to have a long-term facility as part of our organization, but also to have dialysis and chemo and some of the other things mentioned before. Not all critical access hospitals have labor and delivery. We’re fortunate to have that as part of our healthcare system. We’re able to cover all general needs.

Drawing from experience in other sites, I think like all rural locations, we’re worried about things like access to care and general overall health. Diabetes is always a problem and some of those dependencies you mentioned, behavioral health, I think probably, we have the same issues that most rural communities have. We work to engage with the community and solve those problems the best we can.

HCB News: Do you have any big goals or initiatives planned?
MB: I’m currently just getting the lay of the land, but I know one big project that’s in the works is an upcoming emergency department remodel that includes establishing an in-house MR. We’re looking to renovate and expand and make sure our ER best serves our patients and staff. We’re also looking to increase the privacy of the ER. Right now, we have a traveling MR that comes to our facility once or twice a week, but we really need to have one in-house, so that’s a focus.

We have a small community, about 6,000 people here. But we have over one million visitors every year to our valley to see the beautiful landscapes and enjoy the surroundings — the lake, the mountains. So we have a big responsibility here at our organization to care for not only our residents and our part-time residents, but also all the visitors that come to Bear Lake Valley as well.

HCB News: I understand that Bear Lake Memorial is county owned?
MB: That’s right. Fortunately, even though we’re county owned, we don’t use county taxes to run our operation.

HCB News: What are the biggest challenges facing BLM today?
MB: I’m new to Bear Lake Memorial, but based on my past experience, I think that the challenges we have here are similar to the challenges most other rural hospitals face. You’re always going to be concerned about reimbursement, managing your finances and attracting good clinical staff and providers. At this location, we focus a lot on growing our own and giving folks in the community opportunities to grow and develop by supporting their education, so that’s helpful. I think maintaining independence is something else to always keep in mind. There’s a lot of consolidation in healthcare generally. So we have to make sure we’re poised for success for the future and that involves managing our operations in such a way that we can continue to move in the right direction.

HCB News: What are the main strengths of BLM?
MB: I think that’s much of that we’ve touched upon previously. Things that come to mind would be going back to the internal vision of “the most caring”.

I also feel like this facility has a good track record of successfully reinvesting. It’s a beautiful facility. It’s been well taken care of and I think it’s a real gem. Again, the breadth of services is a strength. Good decisions were made in the past to set us up to really serve the community. So individuals don’t have to travel as often to find the services they need.

Our “grow your own” is another strength. We have people here in our community who used to be a bus driver and then saw there was a need to be a nurse. They’re already an established part of our community, they have gotten the training in nursing and they really care. People are able to get the education they need, stay in the community and be a valuable part of what we do here. It also strengthens our partnership between the facility and the community.

Our doctors and providers are excellent, our nursing staff is excellent — you start singling people out and you realize you can go around the organization and it encompasses everyone.

HCB News: I think the “grow your own” provides a good segue. I understand you grew up on a family farm. I’m wondering if that experience might transfer over to the hospital. Is there a community garden yet or is that something you’d love to see?
MB: That’s being discussed! It’s something our providers would love to see. They want our community to be healthier and having fresh food grown in a community garden has come up.

In this community, there’s a lot of agriculture, there’s a lot of ranching, and tourism was mentioned earlier. I think my background coming from a smaller town, growing up on a farm, has helped me fit in pretty well because I understand some of the work the people do.

HCB News: How do you think healthcare will change over the next decade?
MB: Something I’m really interested in is the transition in healthcare from fee-for-service to a greater focus on value for patients. Where we’re looking at is what drives the health of an individual, not just focusing on treating them when they’re sick, but keeping them healthy in the first place. It’s a whole industry wide move, it’s complicated but it’s necessary. As you well know, healthcare is expensive and costs are growing. Focusing on this change will help. I’d like to think even as a small place, we will play our part in that transition.