After 38 years, Santiam Hospital President and CEO Terry Fletchall is retiring.
“Over my tenure, I have been blessed to work with exceptional people who share a common cause,” Fletchall said in the Santiam Community Connection. “Through them I was afforded trust. Not blind trust, but rather a trust that is earned and which can be built upon. I have honored that trust and held it as a sacred contract.”
Fletchall was hired in August of 1982 as controller and was appointed chief executive officer, the youngest hospital CEO in Oregon. Today, he is the longest tenured CEO in the state.
At the beginning of his career, the struggling community hospital was on the brink of closure. Under Fletchall’s leadership, Santiam Hospital has flourished, an accomplishment he shares with his coworkers. He calls the “entire Santiam Hospital family” highly skilled, ethical, compassionate and committed.
“Together we embrace a culture of responsibility, dependent on each individual’s strengths,” he said.
“The value of this cumulative strength is priceless.”
Maggie Hudson, MBA to the office of President and CEO of SH, will take over Fletchall’s role. He credits her for being a worthy successor, saying, “Maggie and I have worked closely together over the past 28 years, and she is very familiar with the routine of the hospital and plans developed with Santiam Hospital’s board of directors, medical staff and staff.
“Maggie has her own excellent ideas on how she will lead the hospital,” he added. “Under the appointment of Maggie, we know the hospital is not only in good hands, but the best of hands.”
Hudson said working with Fletchall has been an honor.
“Terry’s commitment to Santiam Hospital, coupled with his integrity, has kept us all motivated to grow in serving the growing healthcare needs of our communities,” she said. “Terry will be missed, but his legacy of an independent hospital system will carry on for years to come.”
Melissa Baurer credits Fletchall’s commitment to serving local communities for part of the success of Santiam Service Integration, an outreach to serve Santiam Canyon families in need.
“We began Service Integration in the Canyon (in) July of 2017. Terry has been there for the program and the families we serve,” said Baurer, who heads the program. “Multiple times, Terry heard of a family who needed support and found ways to break down red tape and get them the help they needed. We thank Terry for his love to the communities and his leadership.”
Former Stayton Mayor Gerry Aboud said having a hospital in a small community “a wonderful asset to its citizens. Terry’s hard work and expertise as an administrator has made the hospital a new and full-service facility allowing Stayton and surrounding communities the opportunity to have excellent care close to home.”
“Terry certainly was helpful for anything we ever needed,” said Stayton Mayor Hank Porter. “Attracting more doctors and clinic people, the addition on the hospital – a great guy. He was an asset to the community. We’re sorry to see him go.”
Steve Poisson, president of Revitalize Downtown Stayton, has heard that the hospital exists because of Fletchall.
“It has been his dedication that has grown SH to be what it is today,” he said. “I have also heard good things about Maggie Hudson. I was glad to hear that she would be his replacement.”
Highlights of Fletchall’s career include the growth and successes as well as, he said, “the relationships that bind
it together.”
Over the years, the hospital has doubled its size twice, expanding from a single one-story building on four acres to a four-story replacement hospital, home to the new Medical/Surgical Unit, Intensive Care Unit, Birthing Center and Surgery Center. Renovation of the original hospital building accommodated the expansion of Ancillary and Emergency Services. Eleven on-campus primary and specialty care clinics were renovated, with three primary care satellite clinics built to serve surrounding communities: Aumsville Medical Clinic (2001), Sublimity Medical Clinic (2008), and Santiam Medical Clinic in Mill City (2009).
The hospital is currently under construction to accommodate an expanded comprehensive orthopedic clinic, specializing in total joint replacement. Today, Santiam Hospital and clinics occupy 16 acres.
Investments in technology for diagnosis and treatment are evident in the hospital’s full-service lab, which uses state-of-the-art equipment to run over 400,000 tests each year, and the Diagnostic Imaging Service, which features the latest digital imaging technology, including the recent addition of 3D mammography.
The Intensive Care Unit utilizes virtual telemedicine in a direct partnership with Oregon Health Sciences University.
“Understanding the unique intricacies of an acute care hospital and the constantly changing healthcare paradigm, developing and carrying out plans, responding to change and investing in people, infrastructure and technology, together with timing, relationships and a little luck are the keys to success,” Fletchall said of
the challenges.
In an era of mergers and acquisitions, Santiam Hospital has remained an independent, community-based hospital – one of only three independent acute care hospitals in Oregon that is not owned by another hospital, nor owns another hospital, officials said.
Fletchall said he will now use about 60 percent of his time to do the same things he did before retiring and 40 percent on things he hasn’t tried yet, “like going on a ruby mining expedition in Burma [Myanmar].”
“To all the wonderful people in the communities served by Santiam Hospital, who have been so supportive of the hospital over the years,” Fletchall said. “Thank you and bless you all. I am humbled by my experiences.”
“Together we embrace a culture of responsibility, dependent on each
individual’s strengths… The value of this cumulative strength is priceless.”
– Terry Fletchall
