Valued Voice

Five Wisconsin Rural Hospital Leaders Make Beckers “CEOs To Know” List

Two of those recognized serve on the WHA board of directors

Wisconsin hospitals continued to shine this week when Becker's Hospital Review named five Wisconsin rural hospital leaders in their recent list of “CEOs to know," announced Sept. 11. The list included 67 critical access hospital CEOs from across the U.S. who "successfully navigated their organizations through the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to focus on growing access to care as a valuable community resource."

The five Wisconsin rural leaders include:

• Tom Borowski, President, Hudson Hospital & Clinic
• Steve Massey, President/CEO, Westfields Hospital & Clinic
• Bruce Roesler, CEO, The Richland Hospital, Inc.
• Mike Schafer, CEO, Spooner Health
• Brian Stephens, CEO, Door County Medical Center

L to R: Tom Borowski, Steve Massey, Bruce Roesler, Mike Schafer, Brian Stephens

These leaders and members of their organizations actively participate in WHA's various councils and committees, including Schafer and Stephens serving on the WHA Board of Directors.

In August 2022, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) ranked Wisconsin’s rural hospitals as the second best in the country for health care quality. HRSA’s measures are from its Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project (MBQIP), in which all 58 of Wisconsin’s critical access hospitals participate. The MBQIP reports allow hospitals to look at their own data, measure their outcomes against other critical access hospitals and partner with other hospitals to improve outcomes for patients. 

The news also comes on the heels of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid's Updated Hospital Star Ratings, released in July, showing Wisconsin hospitals’ health care quality tops the national average and has the fourth-most five-star rated hospitals in the country. The ratings reflect 46 measures across five categories of quality: mortality, safety of care, readmissions, patient experience, and timely and effective care.

Wisconsin hospitals have sustained quality and value excellence for many years. For more information on Wisconsin's health care value, click here.