KANTON – After more than 40 years at the Aultman Health Foundation, Rick Haines finds himself running the organization.
The foundation announced on Wednesday that Haines would become President and Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Ed Roth III. who has headed the foundation since 2001.
“It’s very humbling to fill Ed’s position,” Haines said during a sitdown interview with The Canton Repository.
Haines, 66, joined Aultman in January 1981 as a staff coordinator at the hospital. Dick Pryce, then President and CEO, hired him.
Five months later, Pryce hired Roth. Haines and Roth have been together as colleagues for 40 years. Haines helped develop AultCare in the 1980s and became President and CEO of the Foundation’s health insurance division in 2001.
Originally from Mantua, Portage County, Haines earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in business administration from Kent State University. He was working as a consultant answering a job advertisement at Aultman Hospital.
During Haines’ tenure with Aultman, the foundation has grown into a number of operations. While the hospital is at its heart, the area has AultCare, Aultman College, and numerous medical facilities.
The foundation uses a vertical integration model to manage the various operations, Haines said. In 2020, it started a company called AultPlan, run by Chris Remark. AultPlan’s goal is to investigate “how the components can work closer and better together to deliver a better product to the community,” said Haines.
He will lead an organization with annual sales of more than $ 800 million, approximately 7,200 employees, hospitals in Canton, Alliance and Orrville, and medical facilities across the region.
While Haines takes over the helm, the Aultman Health Foundation is building the $ 28 million Timken Family Cancer Center at Aultman Hospital in Canton, which competes with other healthcare providers and seeks to remain independent.
Haines discussed the ones issued with The Canton Repository. Here are his answers:
Question: Most people are happy about a new job. Why are you excited to be named President and CEO of the Aultman Health Foundation?
Reply: Well a couple of things. One is that I bleed Ault blood. I’ve been with the company since 1980. There is a family atmosphere from the board of directors to the employees. I am enthusiastic about the way Team Ault works.
Aultman and all of our partners are very, very important to this community. And that excites me. We are currently competing in a pretty tough world across all areas of our organization from the hospital to the health plan to college and every other component. It is really important for this community that we are fine.
The combination of the Ault family and how important they are to this community really excites me. The kind and level of people we have here at Aultman. I’ve been here for 40 years and I’ve worked with great, great people. Great mission to lead our community to better health. It just seemed to fit together to me. It has been together for a long time
Q: What are the biggest challenges for the foundation right now?
A: There are a few. One of them is the continued financial sustainability of all of our financial programs and all of our activities as the health sector in general is under pressure, funding problems and stability of funding in all areas of our organizations. It puts a lot of pressure on us and most health organizations across the country.
A second thing that comes to mind is maintaining and retaining our great workforce. In all branches there is currently a great need for good, reliable employees who face the mission of a company. This is certainly a topic that we, like all organizations, have to deal with in order to retain, retain and hire good employees.
Q: What are some of the foundation’s long-term goals?
A: To get back on its feet as an organization and community from COVID, the coronavirus. This is a big issue for us in many ways. Definitely our employees, who ensure that their working conditions are safe.
We have started seeing more people through the emergency room than we did during the peak of COVID concern. Sometimes this is not necessarily the best place for them to seek care, but they do seek care. We would prefer them to go back to their GPs where appropriate. Coming back and re-establishing our care for the community after COVID would be one.
We are very excited about our Timken Family Cancer Center, where we just broke ground. This is a great benefit to our community for those patients seeking cancer treatment. It will be an all inclusive cancer center. It is slated to open in July next year and is currently on schedule and on budget.
We have the Aultman Deuble Heart and Vascular Hospital. Great things happen there. We want to make sure that it continues to grow and thrive.
On the college side, we are very proud to have our own Aultman College. We want to make sure we are conveying to the community that we have a great college here and that we are open to business. After COVID-19, there are great training programs here at Aultman College that prepare people for high-demand jobs that our graduates would like.
On the AultCare side, there is ongoing competitive pressure from major health insurers entering the area. Our goal is to continue to grow and to ensure that AultCare and PrimeTime, as well as all of our various programs, are competitive, affordable, and meet the needs of our local community.
Q: Can Aultman keep his independence?
A: I am very confident and it is extremely important to remain independent for the benefit of our community.
We have what we call the Ault Way here and I think the continuity we have shown with our board of directors and leadership team adds to that confidence in our ability to move on. Ed Roth was here for 20 years. Dick Pryce was here for 20 years. Howard Taylor was here for 20 years. We have great continuity leading these communities to better health, which is our mission.
We take that very seriously. It’s not just something we put on the board. We pay special attention to two words in this sentence. One leads. It does not mean participating or being part of it, but leading the communities. And health, there are many different definitions of health that we take seriously. Obviously the physical health of the community. Mental health. Fiscal health to keep our costs as low as possible.
So we are very confident that we can continue to fulfill our mission in the Ault Way and our vision is to be the leading health organization and system in the communities we serve. The purpose we take seriously is to protect our communities by providing the very best service, at the lowest price, and the highest quality that we can possibly do.
We take these missions and visions and objectives and values seriously. We spend a lot of time with them. We train our team on it. You are, so to speak, our collective call.
We have 7,200 great employees and 900 doctors. We have a 44-member foundation board, all of whom are citizens who live and work here. The combination of all these things makes me very confident that we will be able to survive here as an independent system with a lot of competition around us.
There is intense competition in almost every organization and product line that we have at Aultman. The other thing I like about our self-confidence is that we love competition and don’t shy away from competition. We believe that competition improves our selves, our team improves. We’ll work together where we can, but we don’t shy away from it, we don’t run away from the competition.
That attitude of being willing and able to compete, as well as all of our programs that we have, puts us in a very good position.
We have a great hospital. We have a great health plan. We have a great university. We have other great programs. Most health systems across the state of Ohio and across the country do not have all of these components. You may have a hospital but you don’t have a health insurance plan. They may have a health insurance plan, they don’t have a hospital. Surely most of them don’t have college. Not only does this make us different, it also gives us many opportunities to work together as an organization to lead this community towards better health.
Q: After 40 years, most people your age will consider retiring. You noticed Roth and Pryce had been here for 20 years. Are you planning to work for 20 years?
A: I don’t think I’ll be here 20 years, but I’ll be here for a while. When the AHF board approached me, I had no doubt that I would accept the position if it was offered. I am so passionate about this organization that I am here for how long they need me. I am fully involved, I think you could say it that way.
Rick Haines
Age: 66
Residence: North Canton
Personally: Married to Vicki, four children and three grandchildren
Education: Bachelor and Masters in Business Administration from Kent State University
Specialist: Employed at Aultman Hospital in 1981 as Human Resources Coordinator, then Director of Budgeting, Director of Patient Accounts and Associate Vice President of Finance. Appointed Associate Vice President of Managed Care for AultCare in 1985, Executive Vice President in 1997, and President and CEO in 2001.
Community activities: Former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce and Kent State University Stark. Coordinated the United Way of Stark County’s annual fundraiser with his wife, Vicki. Member of the board of directors of America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Alliance of Community Health Plans.
Other: Lifelong Cleveland Browns fan.
source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/aultmans-new-ceo-intends-to-stay-the-course-as-independent-provider/
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