New Boone Hospital president finishes up his first week on the job

Boone Hospital’s new president is finishing up his first week on the job. Jim Sinek was named to the position last month. He previously was the president and CEO at Faith Regional Health Services in Nebraska.

ABC 17 News was able to sit down with Sinek for his first interview as president. Sinek said he’s trying to get his goals for the hospital organized. He believes he’s walking into a position where not many sweeping changes need to be made. Sinek said he doesn’t want to fall into the trap of becoming idle, but there are some things he’s targeted that need to improve.

Sinek said this is the best and largest hospital he’s worked at. He explained what really caught his eye is how passionate the staff is. The president believes it can lead them to recruiting some of the best doctors in the world and eventually expand the hospital.

“While you have to reshuffle sometimes and adjust based on your needs given your patient volumes, I think at the same time and maybe more importantly you continue to grow your business,” Sinek said.

Sinek said the health care industry is drastically changing by the month. He claims it’s hard to develop long-term goals for the hospital because of that. The one thing he’s sure of is spending for the hospital needs to decrease.

This comes after an announcement less than two months ago that 20 employees either lost their jobs or had hours cut. Sinek said it’s important for them to keep people employed.

Even if they have to make cuts in one area, it’s important they can keep employees on board and expand in another area. But Sinek said they need to come up with new methods and practices to prevent similar cuts from happening again.

“How can we use new systems, how can we leverage our BJC health care relationships to bring the cost down not just for the hospital, but cost down for our patients,” Sinek said.

Sinek believes he needs to set the tone and push employees to achieve his, and the hospital’s, goals. He was adamant, the potential for the hospital to be the best is there.

“This hospital has the capability of being one of the best hospitals in the country and we’ve already shown that its results are some of the best in the BJC system,” Sinek said.

Sinek said they’re also changing from acute to preventative care. He says it might be a struggle to mesh the old and new methods. But he’s confident they’ll be able to find the solution.

Boone Hospital was recently rated by consumerreports.com as one of five of the highest rated hospitals in the country for back surgeries. It also represents 4.5 percent of Boone County’s general revenue.