By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University
Have you heard the saying about building an airplane while trying to fly it? That would be one way of describing one hospital in rural Kansas which was transforming itself while continuing to provide services – and in the case of the hospital building, a new hospital was literally built in the place of the old one. This small-town hospital in rural Kansas has been transformed into a state-of-the-art health care facility.
Todd Willert is CEO of Community HealthCare System headquartered in Onaga. He shared the story of the remarkable progress of this organization.
At right: Community HealthCare System hospital, Onaga
Todd is a native of the Chicago area. “There were as many people in my high school graduating class as in the whole town of Onaga,” Todd said. After serving in health care administration in Illinois and Iowa, he was recruited to Onaga and became CEO in 2015.
He credits a former director, the late Joe Engelken, and local physician Tom Walsh with many of the organization’s advancements through the years. Todd wrote: “When Joe joined in 1981, Community Hospital Onaga’s team consisted of 30 employees and Dr. Tom Walsh. We could have remained a sleepy little hospital in northeast Kansas, but Joe had other ideas. He looked past decades-old football rivalries and instead focused on how communities could work together.” Continue reading “Todd Willert, Community HealthCare System”
