Don’t begrudge Ron Baker the big smile he’s wearing these days. After 37 years in health care, he’s stepping down as chief executive officer at Allen County Regional Hospital. A NATIVE of Humboldt, Baker began his career in 1978 as a lab technician at Allen County Hospital and worked his way up the ladder. He came on as CEO here in 2012 after managing several hospitals across the state. SOON, that will all be behind Baker. His voice actually lilts.
“I’m looking forward to the next chapter in life,” Baker, 58, said Wednesday afternoon.
And that future will have nothing to do with health care.
“I’m going to a nut farm, literally,” he said.
During his most recent tenure at ACHR Baker’s wife, Ellie, has remained at their home outside of Concordia, Mo., where they have a 25-acre farm that sports 150 pecan trees and several of other varieties.
She is an elementary teacher in nearby Alma, Mo.
Besides working on the grafting of those trees Baker will also volunteer his talents as an organist to schools.
Concordia serves as a hub for Lutheran churches, he said, and is the site of an internationally renowned preparatory school that has three pipe organs.
“I want to work with students and share with them my enthusiasm for music,” he said. “I’ve got lots of things lined up for retirement, and if I find myself bored, perhaps I’ll find a part-time job at a hardware store,” he said.
The challenges of running a hospital have become more difficult in recent years because of financial straits, he said.
“From 1978 to 1982 it was pretty nice,” he said. “Money was flowing in the doors.”
But in 1982 the way hospitals could charge for patient care was changed and the result was much shorter hospital stays.
Gone were the days of staying one week in the hospital to have a baby or recover from an appendectomy.
“Patient censuses really got cut,” Baker said.
And while that created a needed savings for the federally funded Medicare program, individual hospitals could no longer be viewed as “cash cows” for their communities.
Compounding the problem is that Americans typically live longer than when Medicare was devised back in 1965.
“Medicare was designed to provide medical care for about five to seven years” of a person’s life, he said. “Today, we’ve become very successful at living much longer and are a huge burden to the system.
“There’s been no choice but to cut back on reimbursements to hospitals,” and for hospitals to deal accordingly.
A constant challenge is adequate staffing.
“When you don’t have control over your workload, how can you have control over your workforce,” he asked.
“One day we may have 20 patients in the hospital and the next day only five. If we hire enough to handle peak times then when we’re at low volume we can’t make enough money to make payroll.
“It’s very tough to manage and a huge concern for every hospital,” he said.
“I’ll stay around until the board finds a replacement,” he said, but has given them a time frame of between April 17 and June 4 as his exit date.
The Bakers have six grandchildren.
“Three in Denver and three in Cincinnati. It’s time I got to know them.”
Hospital CEO to retire
