MOSES LAKE — Kris Neff said her career allows her to help people, and that’s crucial to her.

“I just love what I do.” Being able to help people in need, or support them during a crisis is “just so rewarding,” she said. “I think you’re just changed by it.”

Neff has been chief operating officer at Samaritan Healthcare since January. As COO, it's her job to oversee Samaritan Clinic and Samaritan Parkview Pediatrics, the urgent care department and most of the hospital's operations with the exception of nursing and finance.

She came to Samaritan from her native Minnesota. “Born and raised in Minnesota,” she said. “In a very small town, population 2,500 people.” That was Aitkin, and that was where she started her career, in extended care facilities.

While studying for a degree she had discovered she liked working with seniors, she said, getting to know them and learning their stories. “It inspired me.” She became a nursing home administrator, and she stayed in nursing home administration for over a decade.

She was offered an administrative job at a nearby hospital, and took it. “I was ready to learn something new,” she said. She started by keeping track of patient and insurance billing (a process called revenue cycle management), then moved on to working with the hospital’s patient care and services like extended care, home care and senior housing.

Neff said she was hired as the chief operating officer of a senior services organization. “But I missed having the acute care involvement.” She missed working with physicians and being involved with patients through the cycle of being sick to getting well, or helping their families if they didn’t get well.

She found the Samaritan job opening on a website, and in addition was contacted by the hospital’s chief executive office Teresa Sulliman. “This job was ideal for me, because I could put it all together,” Neff said.

Currently there’s a shift underway in how hospitals are paid, she said. The number of patients used to be the crucial factor, but in the future it’s going to be value to the patient that matters most in hospital and physician compensation. Federal and state governments are major influences when it comes to health care, she said, but patients also influence the system.

As health care changes consumers get more for their money if they pay attention to how they consume health care and how they spend their health care dollars, she said.

Whatever direction health care takes, it will be up to the hospitals and doctors to adjust, she said – and healthcare professionals can and will do that. As a hospital “we’re pretty flexible.”

If doctors and hospitals can work with patients, take care of them before they get sick, it will be better for everybody in the long run, Neff said.

She has been impressed by what she has seen of Moses Lake and Grant County. “It’s a warm and welcoming community. People really want to take care of each other.” She was equally impressed by the hospital’s staff; employees are invested in their jobs and wants to do what they can for patients, she said. As she got to know the community, “it opened my eyes to the impact we can have.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].