Gloria Cooper Inspiring Loyalty, Demanding Efficiency, Administrator Keeps Hospital Humming

There’s more to the view from Mt. Carmel Hospital in Colville than its hillside location.

According to the Washington State Hospital Association, Administrator Gloria Cooper has managed her 33-bed facility with considerable foresight.

So much so that the trade group last month recognized Cooper with its Joe Hopkins Memorial Award, which honors achievements in hospital administration, particularly among those running rural institutions.

The award was the latest in a series for Mt. Carmel, which was founded by the Dominican Sisters 55 years ago.

The Sisters of Providence became the sponsoring organization in 1993.

Ron Schurra, head of the Dominican Network that includes Mt. Carmel, said Cooper has been the hospital’s saving grace.

“If it weren’t for her personal attention to the needs of that community, that hospital would have gone out of existence,” he said.

Awards and industry publications also cite the hospital as a model of efficient health care delivery because of its ties with local doctors and embracing of managed care.

Cooper said Mt. Carmel is one of few rural hospitals that tries to remain on a par with urban institutions by maintaining its certification from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, which awarded the facility 96 out of a possible 100 points after its most recent inspection.

She attributes the hospital’s success in part to a staff comprised mostly of natives to the Colville area, where she herself has lived since age three.

They make an extra effort because they understand the institution’s importance to the community, she said.

For example, Mt. Carmel appeared to be heading for a budget shortfall a few years ago, Cooper said. Instead of ordering cuts, a step she said is not her style, she asked her department heads to find ways of cutting expenses.

The results were so profound that, abetted by increased patient load, the hospital finished the year with a surplus. Each member of the staff was rewarded with a $100 bonus.

“There’s a lot of loyalty,” Cooper said. “We’re kind of like family.”

A mother of five children - her husband, George, works at Northwest Alloy in Addy - Cooper should know.

She began her career at the hospital 22 years ago as a part-time clerk and switchboard operator. Three months after she started, inspectors faulted Mt. Carmel for lacking a secretary, and Cooper got the job.

She did that for five years, then shuffled her way up the staircase.

“I kept getting promoted,” she said. “I’m one of those people who really likes paper.

“It’s not like I’ve gone a lot of places or done a lot of things.”

Cooper’s dedication to efficiency is so keen she eliminated her own job 10 years ago, when a change in the way Medicare compensated hospitals forced cutbacks at many institutions.

“It just happened that the administrator left,” Cooper said, and she was promoted one more time.

Her small office occupies a corner of the third floor. A few plaques hang on the wall, as does a picture of Cooper with former Rep. Tom Foley.

A replica of a gramophone sits behind her chair.

Out one window lies the Colville Valley, behind her is the Northeast Washington Medical Group clinic, home to 14 of the town’s 16 doctors. At the other end of the building is an independently operated nursing home.

That facility provides all the hospital’s meals in what Cooper said has been a cost-saving arrangement.

The clinic has become the gatekeeper for services the hospital provides under Washington’s Basic Health Plan. Mt. Carmel was a pilot facility for the plan, and Cooper said the experience has taught officials much about how to run the program for low-income residents.

“We didn’t really know what we were doing,” she said.

The providers try to teach clients through hospital and clinic visits how best to use the medical care available.

If someone, for example, shows up repeatedly at the hospital emergency room, they can be referred to a clinic doctor for a consultation, she said.

Mt. Carmel is also part of the North Side Physician-Hospital Network, a private health plan that incorporates the former Dominican hospitals, the Newport and Deer Park hospitals, and associated doctors.

There are 2,000 participants in the program now, Cooper said, but that number should grow with the changes in Medicare and Medicaid.

The network will make the providers more accountable and make better use of the available health care dollars, she said, adding “We really need these affiliations.”

Although rapid change in medical care is difficult for all providers, Cooper said the challenge is especially difficult for small, rural institutions.

“It’s really hard to be heard,” she said. “You’re just so vulnerable.”

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