Q&A: PRMC's new chief executive talks job, hospital priorities

Editor's note: This is one in a continuing series of state-of-the-entity interviews with local officials. Bill Priest is the newly hired hospital chief executive for Plains Regional Medical Center.

Q: What is your background in healthcare? Where did you grow up?

A: I've been in healthcare for 25 or 30 years now. I have been in healthcare leadership for roughly that length of time, I started off actually doing cardiac rehab. I worked with cardiac patients in the hospital on the inpatient side and the outpatient side, and then kind of gravitated towards doing more cardiac noninvasive diagnostics or just doing various cardiology, then eventually kind of expanded into other areas.

Over time, I grew into different areas. I didn't start off saying I want to be a hospital president or anything like that. I started off treating patients and then kind of evolved from there.

I grew up in Wisconsin. So I've been I've been in Wisconsin or Minnesota for most of my life, kind of more of the upper Midwest.

Q: Tell me what the process was in getting to Clovis?

A: My area or niche in healthcare has kind of always been more rural health care, and maybe rural health care with a little bit of a twist. I like a place that is big enough where you can be successful, have enough services, but really serve that rural population. And Clovis fits right into that niche; the big enough community where we can be successful with the healthcare services that we deliver here.

The timing was also good for my wife and I since we recently became empty nesters. So, to get to something a little bit warmer was OK with us.

Q: What was it about PRMC or Clovis in general that made you want to continue your career here?

A: First of all, Presbyterian has a very good reputation, and that was an attraction for us. Plains Regional, I think, has all the elements to have a really great regional medical center presence in this area. There's a lot of services here already. I think we can bring more to the table to help round out the services that are provided.

It's a big enough town without being too big. You know, we both grew up in a town of maybe roughly 45-50,000. Clovis may not be quite that, but pretty close to that. So it's similar to what we grew up in.

Q: What are your plans/goals for the hospital and serving the community?

A: Jokingly, my plans the first week here was just to find my office and find my way to the restroom and things like that. In my first 90 days, I really want to listen to the staff, to the board and to the community. Just to hear where things are, what the ideas are that people have and the thoughts that they have and really take that into account.

I don't want to come in and assume that I have all the ideas or all the answers because I don't, but I think oftentimes a lot of the ideas and the answers are already with the people who have been here. I just need to be able to hear them and listen to them.

At some time, obviously, we need to get to the point of action and implement some things. We'll be able to crystallize kind of where we want to focus on and what the best areas are to put time and energy into after we go through some of that listening period.

Q: How is the staff at PRMC? Are you adequately staffed or is there concern with any shortages?

A: All of healthcare right now, like many industries, in a lot of industries, is struggling to make sure that they have the staff and the team. PRMC has done a very nice job of getting upstream to develop the sources to help ensure that you have the staff.

There are a few hotspots that I think we have and will continue to work on. There are some subspecialties and specialty areas where it's harder to find providers. That's true here and that's true really everywhere in healthcare right now.

But overall, the staffing is good. There are not a lot of places that can say that.

Q: Is there an area of practice that you'd like to see improved at PRMC?

A: There's a lot of focus right now on our OBGYN program. I think that's because it's growing, and we want to continue to see it grow to meet the needs of the community. So that's been a fun one. That's a nice one to work on all the while. I think we're in good shape with that here. There's a real opportunity to continue to expand on the OBGYN services, and then some of those specialty and subspecialty types of services that can be part of a strong OB program.

Q: What's happening with COVID as we head into fall? What are you seeing in Clovis? Hospitalizations up?

A: COVID is one of those you can put in the same bucket as the flu, you know, you're going to have some peaks and some spikes with that, and it's not going to go away. We've had a very moderate increase. You see it sometimes, maybe initially with your staff, and then you might see it further down, spike a little bit with the patient population.

But we've had a little bit of it ... not anything like it was certainly a few years ago throughout the whole country. But it's kind of like the flu season where you're going to see some more folks come in and staff that are sick with the flu. COVID is going to follow that similar course I think.

Q: Are you recommending the latest boosters as they become available?

A: Certainly, we're going to encourage everybody to follow the same theme, you know, to get their flu shot, I think that's a great idea. Also, if they have not had a COVID shot or a COVID booster, we certainly encourage that. We believe that's to their own discretion.

Q: Any other illnesses expected to become front and center as people move inside for cooler weather?

A: I have not seen spikes in some other things, but you never know. You never know what the next one might be. Three, four years ago, no one was talking about COVID. So we hope that we don't have something similar come along.

Q: What is the number one priority for the hospital? How do you plan to address that?

A: It's a little early for me to say the number one priority, but I think there are several things. We want to do a really strong evaluation to make sure that we are offering all the services that are needed here; what the community needs, what Cannon Air Force Base needs. Some things may be a little further along than others, and we'll pick up on some of those as we go. And we'll initiate some of the other ones as we go.

- Compiled by Landry Sena, The Staff of the News