Before starting in this position April 2, FitzPatrick was president and CEO of Mercy Medical Center – North Iowa in Mason City, a position he held for the past 11 years. He assumed that leadership role when David Vellinga left that position to head up Mercy Medical Center – Des Moines. Prior to that position, FitzPatrick headed the rural hospital network for Mercy – North Iowa. In his new role, he is responsible for a network of 17 rural hospitals in central and southern Iowa. He has received numerous awards for his community involvement and leadership, among them the Mason City Distinguished Citizen Award last year.

There’s not a perfect time, but 11 years into it, there was a lot of neat stuff we had advanced; we had gotten some national attention for our work in lean health. Also, I think there is a shelf life for CEOs. I wanted to give somebody else an opportunity to put a twist on it at the leadership level. And this is an opportunity for me to work more closely with someone who’s been very supportive of my development over the decades.

Explain your new role as senior vice president of network development.

My job is to make sure that we effectively remove barriers (for the rural network hospitals) as we run into them, and make sure we are delivering value as a management contract company. We have 40 to 50 different affinity groups, where (various specialists) meet with their respective groups to try to problem-solve and work on different things together. Our challenge is to deliver the right product at the lowest cost per unit while creating the wow experience with highly engaged staff for every person, every time.

How do you fit into Mercy’s recent leadership restructuring?

In the dyad partnerships, physicians and administrators partner together for different functional areas of the organization. I’ll be partnered with (Dr. Bill Young) with responsibilities for the rural hospital network. We want consistency in care, we want to eliminate defects in care – defects cause people to get hurt and they add cost in the system.

What led you to choose health-care administration?

My dad practiced oral surgery for about 30 years. I had actually started out in a pre-law track, but got soured on that early on in my education. I had spent the summers helping my dad in his office, but didn’t want to get into medicine necessarily. The business element was something that attracted me, being in a position where I could make a difference and relate to people.

What role does technology have in rural hospitals?

We have a very rural state with some sparse territories in between. We’ve got to be leaders in examining how to make use of virtual technologies to make sure patients are able to access specialty-care providers. The Midwest Rural Telemedicine Consortium is almost 20 years old; both of our rural networks got wired very early, way before it was the cool thing to do. Now it’s kind of coming of age. … I think Central Iowa is going to be at the core of examining that and how to pilot some of these things in our rural communities. That’s exciting.

What’s your philosophy of community involvement?

I’m more wired toward being an extrovert than an introvert, and it’s kind of an “if not us, then who?” philosophy, particularly for those of us in leadership roles. It’s the shadow we cast; we’re not going to be driving other people to get excited about becoming involved if we’re not leading by example.

What do you like to do for recreation?

I was told when I came down here that there would be lots more time for golf, but I don’t believe that. Right now, we’ve been really focused on getting our children raised and getting them planted. Our oldest just got married last summer; our middle daughter is a senior at Dordt (College) in northwest Iowa and our youngest is a sophomore at Azusa Pacific University 20 miles east of Los Angeles. We both love to travel and we’d like to do more of that. We had a 15-year-old beagle that passed away right when we were trying to make a decision about this, and an aging dog had put a barrier on a lot of traveling.