Holy Cross Medical Center CEO sets plan to retire in 6 months
Bill Patten, the chief executive officer at Holy Cross Medical Center in Taos since 2015, will retire this year, the hospital’s marketing department announced in a news release on Friday (April 15).
According to the release, Patten tendered his resignation to the
hospital’s board of directors at a meeting in March and has proposed a six-month transition plan “that will allow him to continue his
leadership role while supporting the organization’s recruitment efforts.”
“At the March board meeting, I submitted my resignation to the board,” Patten said in a prepared
statement included in the release. “In an effort to make this a smooth
transition, I suggested a schedule in which I will continue to serve as the full-time CEO for the next
three months followed by a period of almost three months where I
step back a bit, working a [threequarters] time schedule.”
Patten was working as the CEO of Powell Valley Healthcare in Powell, Wyoming, in 2015, when he was recruited to take over leadership at Holy Cross.
At the time, Holy Cross was under great financial strain, partly due to reductions in state and
federal funding, but also a change in payer mix from private to public
health insurance programs, like Medicare and Medicaid.
Financial difficulties came to a head in early 2018, when the
hospital experienced a serious cash shortage triggered, in part, by a simultaneous shift to a federal critical access designation and problems with a new accounting
software. Patten, his board and
his staff succeeded in an extensive campaign to increase the hospital’s public funding, renewing a 1 mill levy tax and achieving a 3/16 GRT increase, which net the hospital $2.8 million in public support
annually.
“When Bill arrived at Holy Cross, the hospital was in turmoil and
financial distress,” said Chris Stagg, chairman of the board for Holy Cross, as well as a Taos Ski Valley village councilor and vice president for Taos Ski Valley, Inc. “As he
moves on to retirement, we all can be thankful that our hospital is in
much better shape thanks to Bill’s efforts.”
Patten was also at the helm throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting the operations of the hospital to provide critical care
from 2020 through January of this year, when he activated “Crisis Standards of Care” in response
to the Omicron variant. Like hospitals
elsewhere throughout the
state and nation, surges in cases of the virus limited the hospital’s ability to treat other critical health
problems due to a lack of available ICU beds.
In January, Patten oversaw the hospital’s acquisition of the Taos Clinic for Children and Youth following the retirement of the clinic’s longtime leading physician, Dr. Sylvia Villarreal.
The hospital was recognized with several awards over the course of Patten’s tenure as CEO, including recognition last year for its suicide prevention program.
Patten’s successor will likely face several lingering challenges at Holy Cross, including a lack of permanent
nursing staff, which has
forced the hospital to pay higher wages to traveling nurses.
Patten said he chose to retire because he wants to spend more time with his family.
“This desire to be closer to our families has led us to make a very bitter-sweet decision; it will soon be time for me to retire,” he said. “It has been an honor to have led Holy Cross Medical Center for the
past six-plus years. I believe the organization is in a more stable
place financially, and we are developing a good set of plans that will
provide direction over the coming years.”
‘It has been an honor to have led Holy Cross Medical Center for the past six-plus years. I believe the organization is in a more stable place financially, and we are developing a good set of plans that will provide direction over the coming years.’
BILL PATTEN
Chief executive officer at Holy Cross Medical Center