MOSES LAKE — Gregg Fletcher said a career in medical technology, which eventually led to a career in medical administration, started with an interest in math and science and a conversation with a guidance counselor at Central Washington University.

He wanted a degree that allowed him to pursue that interest in science and math, he said, and would provide career options. 

“You get to that point in college where you have to decide what you’re going to do,” he said. “I had a counselor who kind of laid out the options for me. He recommended medical technology, which is clinical laboratory science.”

Fletcher has been the vice president in charge of the Confluence Health-Moses Lake Clinic since 2015, and managed the lab there about 17 and a half years prior to that, he said. 

The job in the lab gave him a chance to use his skills, and work with doctors and patients.

“The math and science aspect of it,” he said, when asked what made lab work interesting. “And you’re participating in direct patient care, which I really liked. You’re helping people and physicians - you have an active role in the well-being of people and I liked that. And I got to use my math and science to do it.

“And you work with a lot of neat equipment,” he added.

His first job was in Yakima, he said, and working in the lab there also got him interested in management. 

“I think certain types of people gravitate toward wanting more responsibility,” he said. “More responsibility generally comes with more pay, which is the good side, but the bad side with more responsibility (means) more headaches, too.”

It was chance, in a way, that brought him to Moses Lake, he said.

“I came to Moses Lake just to get some interview practice, and I ended up taking the job. Moving my family from Yakima,” he said.

The lab at Confluence offered a chance to do different things that interested him, he said.

“What I really liked about working at Moses Lake Clinic was not only could I manage the 

department, I could still do lab work,” he said. “It was two jobs, but the way it was structured it was really, really manageable.”

Fletcher said Moses Lake reminded him, and still reminds him, of Wenatchee when he grew up there. 

Confluence Health grew out of a merger between the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center and Central Washington Hospital; Moses Lake was, and is, among the organization’s clinics. The clinic manager was promoted to a new position in Wenatchee, and Fletcher was asked to take the job on an interim basis, he said. After a year as the interim, he took the job permanently. His experience in the lab helped him make the transition.

“I drank from a fire hose for a number of months - years - but when you spent 17 years managing a laboratory, (this) is still managing. Just on a larger scale,” he said.

Whether it’s the lab or the entire clinic, there are regulatory requirements, personnel requirements, the need to stay financially viable and work with people, he said. It’s a good job.

“I miss the direct patient care, but I do like it. You still get to interact with patients from time to time. I like working with the physicians and all the employees, building those relationships,” he said.

Technology has had a major impact on healthcare, and not only in terms of medical treatment, Fletcher said.

Grant County is among the rural areas in need of more primary care doctors, Fletcher said. But technology is changing the way people look for medical care.

“A lot of what we’re seeing is digital engagement of patients,” he said. “We have a different generation of people who don’t necessarily want a primary care provider. If they have a problem they want to be able to call somebody up on their phone and get a prescription and not necessarily come in and see the doctor.”

If those patients do need to see a physician, frequently they will take an available appointment rather than wait to see a specific doctor, he said. As a result walk-in clinics are getting more popular. But there are still patients who want a primary care physician, and who want to consult the doctor in person.
“So there are a diversity of ways people are seeking their healthcare now, and we have to be able to provide those,’” Fletcher said.

But more and more medicine is focusing on addressing potential health problems before people have to seek medical care, he said.

“There’s a pretty heavy emphasis on managing care through the early parts of the disease, so you don’t progress (further in) the disease. But because of that shift in how that’s treated, you have to change the way you pay providers,” he said. 

Publicly funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid are driving that change, he said.

    Gregg Fletcher, vice-president and administrator at the Confluence Health-Moses Lake Clinic, second from left, at the ribbon cutting for the organization’s radiation treatment center in Moses Lake.
  

    Gregg Fletcher, right, and Aaron Binger of Confluence Health discuss the finishing touches during construction of the organization’s specialty care clinic in Moses Lake in 2021.