- The strategic agenda facing hospital and health system
- leaders right now is not a short list.
- Growth in a consolidating market, sustainable margins in
- a reimbursement environment that rarely moves in your
- favor,
- a tech investment cycle that demands both urgency
- and discipline,
- and a workforce story that is still being
- written.
- Eker's fourteenth annual CEO CFO roundtable brings together
- more than 1,500 executive level attendees and nearly
- 400 speakers across four days of sessions that
- are designed to help c suite leaders benchmark,
- pressure test, and sharpen their priorities.
- Not in the abstract, but against the real
- decisions they'll face heading into the next year.
- It's the kind of event you leave with
- a clear sense of where you stand and
- what comes next.
- So join us November second through the fifth
- at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago, and come
- ready to do the hard thinking.
- Register on our events page at beckershospitalreview.com
- by clicking on the events tab in the
- upper right.
- This is Rosie Talaga with the Becker's Healthcare
- podcast.
- I'm thrilled today to be joined by Holly
- McCormick, president and CEO of Cottage Hospital. Holly,
- it's a pleasure to have you on the
- podcast today.
- Pleasure to be here, Rosie. Thank you for
- having me.
- We have a great discussion in store diving
- into what's gone well this year, where the
- biggest opportunities
- for growth, and even some leader
- leadership inspiration.
- So now let's get into it.
- I'd like to start with a quick state
- of the union, Holly. So what has gone
- well this year, and what are you focused
- on for the rest of 2026?
- So Cottage is,
- in a year where I feel like we
- are in a very forward moving spot, which
- is a great feeling to be to be
- in this place.
- We have had some success with recruitment of
- new providers, particularly in the outpatient space.
- We're able to grow our behavioral health,
- service line in our rural health clinic. We've
- been able to recruit,
- specialty providers such as podiatry,
- which is very important.
- And so, you know, keeping our eye on
- that future growth of the in the outpatient
- space of our rural health clinic is strategically
- very important to us and very important for
- our community.
- And then we've also,
- had some great success
- with securing some grant funding this year,
- in terms of traditional grant funding, CDS projects.
- And we have a few major projects underway.
- We are going to be upgrading and replacing
- our CAT scan, which is, a very big
- project for,
- independent critical access hospital. It's quite the undertaking,
- and it's a very expensive project. And to
- be able to secure funding for that,
- has been an amazing opportunity for us. And
- there's a couple of other projects that we've,
- been able to secure grant funding for as
- well. One of those will be an upgrade
- to our,
- operating rooms. So over the next three years,
- we'll be doing a major,
- renovation in that area of the hospital,
- as well as some grant funding to do
- some projects that have to do with,
- some of the the core pieces of the
- hospital such as oil tank replacement
- projects.
- And then, finally, we were chosen by, HRSA
- for a program called the TTAP program, so
- the targeted test technical assistance program.
- And that program is aimed at providing resources
- to help stabilize rural hospitals. And so we're
- gonna be working on several projects with, the
- teams,
- that are helping us through TTAP, and that
- is also all grant funded.
- And so we will be looking at things,
- such as recruitment and retention
- projects
- as well as marketing strategies
- as,
- an independent critical access hospital.
- We have a very small,
- modest, marketing budget, and we actually don't have
- a marketing department. And so it's really important
- when we're adding on these service lines
- and we're implementing
- these great programs
- and this new equipment that we're able to
- communicate that to our community so that they
- know that we're here and they know what
- we offer.
- Absolutely. That sounds like you're in a great
- spot right now.
- Recruitment wins, recruitment and retention,
- and really emphasizing that growth of the behavioral
- health and rural health growth, specifically
- the outpatient area.
- And I think that that's a great point
- we should make about the marketing. It's one
- thing to add, but it's another to make
- sure your community is aware.
- Exactly.
- That's great. So now kind of flipping the
- script a little bit, what are some of
- the biggest headwinds that you're keeping an eye
- on and preparing for?
- So the headwinds,
- always, always, always are are looking for any
- financial challenges that are coming on our way
- coming our way. And some things that we're
- starting to see and that we're keeping our
- eyes on are changes in our payer mix.
- We've noticed an increase in self pay patients,
- and so that is something we're keeping a
- close eye on. We know that from our
- community health needs assessment, affordability of health care
- is very important in our community.
- And noticing that we have about a two
- percent increase
- in our patients that are self pay. It's
- something that we know we have to keep
- a very close eye on.
- Other things, other challenges coming our way. We
- faced a lot of different auditing processes this
- year, and I think that,
- it's something that we have navigated successfully, but
- something that's been different for us,
- to have to participate in those types of
- audits such as a three forty b audit.
- And so it gives us a chance to
- shine and show that we're, implementing all of
- these,
- projects appropriately. But, also, it takes a lot
- of resources to complete something like that.
- Absolutely. I think the changes in payor makes
- it on is very, very prevalent for many
- different hospitals and organizations
- right now,
- and just always going back to that affordability
- of how important that is, especially in a
- rural community.
- Absolutely.
- What do you think so we talked about
- what's going well, what are some headwinds.
- What do you think gives you best opportunity
- to grow in the next two to three
- years?
- The area that we're gonna continue to focus
- on is that outpatient space. And what we
- know in our community is that access to
- specialty care
- is something that, either our patients have to
- travel a distance for or they have long
- waits to get into specialists. And so we're
- committed to recruiting
- for the specialists that we need in our
- community to help our patients
- get the care close to home. And so
- that's something we're really gonna focus on As
- well as continuing
- to develop our behavioral health service line, we
- know we have a 10 bed inpatient geriatric
- psychiatric unit, and we know we need to
- be able to offer
- services for our patients once they've been discharged
- for that unit and for patients in our
- community. So we will continue to focus on
- behavioral health
- and more importantly,
- looking at that next level of care for
- our patients that,
- are being discharged out of our ray of
- hope geriatric
- psychiatric unit. And then also we are concentrating
- on our age friendly designation at our hospital.
- And so we've achieved our level one, and
- we're gonna continue down that path because we
- know that's very important
- for the community that we serve. In the
- month of June alone, we saw our 61
- of our patients were Medicare age, and so
- that tells us a lot about what we
- need to focus on here at Cottage Hospital.
- Those are great points. I think
- it's really inspiring to hear you talk about
- everything relating back to what the patients need
- and what your community needs, whether that be
- care after they're released or age friendly care.
- I think that that's a great great mindset
- for growth and opportunities ahead.
- I think it's always very important. I mean,
- the the reason that we exist is for
- the patients, and so that is the message
- that I try to get across
- every day to our teams is that the
- number one reason we are here is for
- our patients. And so if people wonder, am
- I doing the right thing? Is this the
- right thing? Should we be doing this?
- If it's what's right for the patient,
- then that is what we focus on. And
- so it needs to be right for the
- patient and then, secondly, right for Cottage Hospital.
- And so that is what the culture is
- here at Cottage Hospital.
- Absolutely. That's great to have that as some
- more compass and kind of the rallying cry
- of the organization.
- Yeah.
- For our last question today, what do you
- admire about a leader from any industry and
- why?
- Some of the properties that I admire most
- or
- characteristics
- or traits of leaders,
- the usual things that we will all say,
- you know, a leader with integrity, a leader
- that,
- is a servant leader.
- But one of the characteristics that I admire
- most in a leader is somebody who can
- ask really good, really smart questions.
- You know, we hear we have conversations. We're
- at these education sessions. We're in meetings.
- And what I admire is the person that
- can ask that question,
- that can suss out the information that the
- rest of us were saying, yes. That's what
- I really wanna know. And so I think
- that's probably an atypical
- answer to this question, but that is the
- thing that I admire most is people that
- have that state of mind and eloquence to
- be able to put into words what everybody
- else in the room is thinking in order
- to ask those, poignant questions.
- Absolutely. And I think
- that that really
- relates back to what you were saying about
- knowing what the patients want. That kind of
- relates to knowing what your employees want. It's
- it's staying curious, what do they think that
- they are asking in the room, what are
- they thinking in the room, and really translating
- that into an eloquent to ask the correct
- question. That's great.
- Absolutely. I think you're summing it up by
- saying staying curious. That is 1000%
- exactly the point.
- That's great. I think that's also a great
- example of a leader to not present that
- they know everything, staying curious and asking what
- they think that their employees around them are
- also wondering.
- Exactly right.
- That's great. So,
- staying curious and asking great spark questions is
- something to really admire about a leader. I
- love that.
- That brings us to the end of our
- discussion. Holly, is there anything that you wanted
- to add today or maybe that we didn't
- get to that you'd like to discuss?
- No. I just thank you for the opportunity
- to for share allowing me to share a
- little bit about Cottage Hospital once again and
- the important work that we're doing here in
- Woodsville, New Hampshire.
- Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us
- and sharing such wonderful insights from your leadership
- at Cottage. It's been great speaking with you,
- and we look forward to collaborating again soon.
- Thank you, Rosie. Have a nice day. You
- too.