Joseph Morris Receives Star Garnet Award

Joseph E. Morris, chief executive officer of Kootenai Medical Center since 1981 and former assistant administrator beginning in 1975, has been chosen to receive the Star Garnet Award from the Idaho Hospital Association in recognition of his outstanding contributions to health care in Idaho.

Morris, who helped form the North Idaho Hospital Consortium linking together the five northernmost public hospitals to share management and clinical expertise and reduce health care costs, is the first hospital employee to receive the award in the past 29 years.

He was cited for exemplary effort and dedication to promote health care and hospitals on the local, state and national levels and was cited in Hospital Magazine as a “leader of the 21st Century.” He was named as “an emerging leader” by The Healthcare Forum and also received the Voluntary Hospitals of America National Leadership Award and the American Hospital Association (AHA) Grassroots Advocacy Award.

Morris, who was elected earlier this year to serve a four-year term as the chairman of AHA’s Regional Policy Board 8, representing hospitals in Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and holds a seat on the AHA board of trustees and chairs the AHA’s Organizational Ethics Initiative, has also chaired and is a member of the Voluntary Hospitals of America/Mountain States board.

He also sits on the boards of Blue Cross of Idaho, the North Idaho Health Network, and the North Idaho Hospital Consortium and chairs the IHA’s advisory committee for Farmer’s Liability Insurance Group.

The Idaho Hospital Association is a trade organization representing acute-care and specialty hospitals in Idaho.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: Contact for Idaho Achievements is Sherry Adkins. Tell us about your achievements by writing to: Achievements, The Spokesman-Review, Suite 200, 608 Northwest Blvd., Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814. Pictures must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.