Southeast hospitals: small hospitals are big economic engines.

• Author: Swagel, Will
• Position: HEALTH & MEDICINE

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Small hospitals are the main economic engines in rural communities nationwide and this is even more true in Alaska's panhandle. Whether it's Ketchikan General Hospital with 429 employees or Petersburg Medical Center with 100 employees, the local hospital inevitably ranks as the second or third largest employer in every major Southeast community. The largest private employer in the region is the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, known as SEARHC, with nearly 1,000 employees in 18 Southeast communities.

Furthermore, unlike nearly every other economic sector, health care spending is on the rise. Forget layoffs--instead, the CEOs of Southeast hospitals describe problems filling jobs and how they are forced to use expensive "travelers"--doctors, nurses and technicians who work for agencies that deploy them on three-month or six-month contracts. Support is strong for a raft of programs aimed at convincing Alaska youth that careers in health care will allow them to have well-paying jobs with good working conditions and excellent benefits right in their hometowns.

The hospital CEOs--with varying degrees of optimism--see their institution as having been, and continuing to be, the beneficiaries of foundation and government grants that allow for construction and large equipment purchases. Case in point: Sitka Community Hospital's new 16-slice CT scanner's $800,000 price tag. There is some hope that hospital construction and development of hospital programs will benefit from the federal government's stimulus efforts.

"You hear a lot of press about the bridges and other infrastructure pieces that need to be replaced around the U.S.--hospitals are right along with them," said Noel Rea, CEO of Wrangell Medical Center, pointing out his 40-plus-year-old facility, which employs 60. "A stimulus package rebuilding some of our aging hospitals--especially in Alaska--would be a really good investment. It creates jobs in a small town and it meets a real need for infrastructure development--it's not just building something for building's sake."

KEEP MONEY IN THE COMMUNITY

Operating room nurses, imaging technicians, pharmacists, dentists and primary care physicians--that's just a partial list of the medical personnel in demand nationwide. The biggest demand may come from rural hospitals, which have to compete with higher-paid positions in more fashionable cities.

"People no longer concede that because they live in these smaller...