Saint Alphonsus CEO shares about state of health care, need for medical personnel in Idaho

Keeping care local and affordable, maintaining faith-based roots, and the urgent need for health care personnel were all topics of discussion at a recent luncheon.

As part of its annual CEO and Business Leader Speaker Series, the Boise Metro Chamber hosted Saint Alphonsus President and CEO David McFayden in a fireside chat on March 4 at The Grove Hotel in downtown Boise. The leader of the health system spoke about the current state of not only the longtime care provider but that of the entire state and nation.

The packed room, which was humming with conversations as the question-and-answer event began, soon became nearly silent as McFayden, who started in his position July 1, 2024, shared his thoughts with Michael Ballantyne, managing partner of TOK Commercial Real Estate, and the conversation moderator.

As pointed out in his introduction, McFayden oversees five hospitals and three hospitals throughout Idaho, Oregon and California, with a total staff of 9,700 employees and an annual net revenue of $2.1 billion.
McFayden wasted no time in talking about his organization’s health care goals for the state.

“We really want to ensure that our region, Idahoans, Treasure Valley patients stay close to home when they need highly acute care,” he said. “What that means is we bring in specialists that typically we would see practicing at an academic center, at University of Washington.”

McFayden pointed out that Boise is further away from those hospitals in places like Washington or Utah that can provide specialty care than any other metropolitan market in the country.

“What that means is if you have a time sensitive event, you’re not going to get to that care in a certain time,” he said. “Or, if you have to travel to that care you get, you have to find hotel rooms and spend lots of time in a foreign community. That costs a lot of money, so we want to invest in bringing specialists that can provide those services right here, close to home.”

Those services, he stated, include specialties like neurology, cardiology and others.

Every company has its own culture and Saint Alphonsus is no exception. Ballantyne asked the CEO his thoughts on the health care system’s culture and how that’s managed.

“Tell us about the culture and ministry, and how do you embed culture within a large organization,” Ballantyne asked.

“It’s hard,” McFayden responded. “Many organizations have cultures and micro-cultures within. I think what sets us apart, I always go to this is our faith-based, mission-based approach. … We hold each other accountable for our values and our behaviors, and we train constantly on that with our leaders.”

Ballantyne shared that McFayden recently joined the chamber’s board of directors, asking him why he thought it was important to have that connection to the business world. For McFayden, it comes back to patient care and community, keeping the right balance of commercial, Medicare and Medicaid patients, and keeping the doors open when many hospitals are struggling to do so across the country.

“It’s really important to me that we have a really healthy balance of economic development and business development as communities continue to grow,” he said. “I want to make sure that I’m hearing from business leaders or community leaders. What are you hearing from your colleagues? What are you hearing about access care? What types of services? How do we complete them?

How do we partner to reduce the cost of care, to ensure those access points of care are close to home?”

By “close to home,” he means 10 to 15 minutes away from where someone lives. That includes constructing things like the new medical office building in Caldwell that includes primary care, urgent care and other services. There will also be a new oncology building and behavioral health services.

And by having surgical procedures done in a dedicated surgery center and not the Saint Alphonsus hospital, it helps reduce costs, as well. Part of keeping costs affordable is discussing ways to retain access to Medicaid and Medicare.

“I’m hoping that we can have more dialogue together between our elected officials and those that are working in health care to understand some of these decisions,” McFayden said. “When Medicaid expansion first happened, it was over 60% of Idahoans that said, ‘We support Medicaid expansion.’ Since then, the last survey we saw was over 73%. … It’s the working poor that will suffer because they’re working two jobs so they can get access to health care, and Medicaid is their way to get access to health care.”

Personnel was another issue that McFayden’s organization faces, which is a common problem throughout the U.S. It can be more difficult for communities where there might not be school programs dedicated to various areas of health care.

“We have to keep that pipeline of students coming through the [University of Washington] program, [University of Idaho], currently,” he said. Whereas there is a DO program through ICOM in the Treasure Valley, McFayden stated there needs to be an MD program as well.

Beyond doctors and nurses, other personnel is needed, and partnerships with schools like the College of Western Idaho, Boise State University and others are being established so that graduates can find work within local health care systems after they leave school.

“It’s pretty much every profession we have here,” McFayden said. “We need housekeepers. We need nutrition workers. We need surgical techs. With the growth we’re seeing, we need every position.”