Steve Eiss, vice president of Construction and Real Estate Development at Northern Arizona Healthcare, spoke at Yavapai College about NAH’s commitment to care in the Verde Valley.
NAH is the largest health care organization in the Verde Valley, with 980 employees and 80 providers based in the Verde Valley.
Overall, the company has 3,000 employees serving a Northern Arizona’s population of over 1 million people. It has three facilities in the Verde Valley, Verde Valley Medical Center in Cottonwood, Camp Verde Medical Center and the Sedona campus of VVMC.
Eiss stressed the importance of provider recruitment and retention. During fiscal year 2022, NAH added 12 physicians for 477 total. It has invested over $12 million in infrastructure at the Verde Valley Medical Center and is also putting together a master plan to figure out the needs of the community.
Eiss discussed the proposed Health and Wellness Village that will replace the current Flagstaff Medical Center facility and how this will affect residents of the Verde Valley. He stated that the Flagstaff hospital has outgrown its current campus and is unable to efficiently serve patients in spite of multiple expansions.
During the past year, FMC had to defer 5,600 patients because it had reached unit capacity, meaning roughly 15 patients per day had to go to Phoenix or elsewhere instead.
Eiss pointed out that the current hospital is inefficiently laid out across five different buildings and cannot integrate ambulatory care or expand services efficiently. The new center will integrate many services under one roof and allow easy transport of patients from inpatient to outpatient facilities. The new hospital will improve access to specialized tertiary care and reduce travel to Phoenix and other cities. NAH also hopes to create an environment that will improve recruitment and retention of health care professionals.
Eiss reiterated that NAH will continue to invest in VVMC and that the specialized tertiary care available at the new center will complement NAH services in the Verde Valley. In planning for the next three to five years in the Verde Valley, NAH will focus on recruitment and retention, as well as expanding secondary specialty health care services and planning for long-term development in the Verde Valley.
