MOSES LAKE - Raising the bar for patient care and maintaining financial stability will be the main challenges facing hospitals in the future, said Tom Thompson, one of two candidates for the job of Samaritan Healthcare chief executive officer. Thompson was interviewed by the hospital board, talked with hospital staff and local physicians, as well as a group of community leaders Wednesday and Thursday.

The open public session was Thursday. The first candidate, Kathy Romano, was interviewed Feb. 21.

Thompson currently is a consultant with Envision Associates in Detroit Lakes, Minn. Prior to that he was the chief executive officer for Essentia Health in Detroit Lakes. Thompson said his family has lived in Minnesota for 12 years.

His interest in the Moses Lake position stems the from fact his children are almost grown, and he and his wife were looking for a change in lifestyle, he said. In addition, "I see tremendous opportunity" in Moses Lake, he said.

In answer to a question from Kim Garza, of Big Bend Community College, Thompson said "financial stability, ultimately," is the biggest challenge facing the hospital, and tied in with that is the effort to raise the bar for patient care. Financial stability is the reason clinics and hospitals across the country are affiliating or merging, to take advantage of economy of scale, he said.

Garza asked if Thompson thought Samaritan could survive without affiliating with another hospital. Thompson said it depended on the degree of affiliation. It makes sense, both financially and to deliver quality care, to work with natural partners in the region and find areas of common interest and effort, he said.

Collaboration, done properly, improves the quality of care, he said. And quality of care will be the second major challenge, Thompson said.

"I'm a big fan of creating value," he said, and the biggest challenge is delivering and increasing value for the patients. If the hospital is providing value to the patients it will do well, he said.

He has learned management doesn't have to be complicated to be efficient, he said, and if the hospital stays focused on the patient and patient care, the outcomes will be favorable, he said.

Currently the hospital is turning a profit, and Thompson said the measures taken to return the hospital to profitability - a lot of change in a relatively short time - traditionally is the best way to turn around. The hospital showed an operational profit in 2012, and the way to sustain that is by "hard wiring" the effective management practices into place. In addition, relationships with physicians, both those employed and not employed by the hospital, "need to be nurtured" so that everybody benefits, he said.

That should open doors for collaboration, Thompson said. If three different clinics (Pioneer Medical Center, Moses Lake Community Health Center and Moses Lake Clinic) are working in three different directions, in his opinion none of them are reaching their full potential, he said.

If he was a patient he would want his treatment to be local, he said, and other health providers in the community know that, he said.

In answer to a question from Herald managing editor Lynne Lynch, Thompson said he would start by looking at where the hospital is now and working with the employees and board to decide where it should go in the future. That process eventually would produce a list of top 10 tasks, he said.

The hospital board has scheduled a special meeting for Monday to review both candidates.