Alumni in the News
Mark Robert Stoddard – B.S. Finance, 1982
Nephi, UT, The Times-News (Nephi) - October 11, 2006 Administrative Excellence Award. Utah Business Magazine recently honored a group of individuals for outstanding achievements in the health care business. The event was held on Tuesday, September 19, at the Wells Fargo Building, in Salt Lake City.
Achievement is recognized in eight categories: Innovation in Health Care, Community Outreach, Volunteers, Health Care Providers-Physician and Non-physician, Administrative Excellence, Corporate Achievement, and Lifetime Achievement.
Mark R. Stoddard, CEO of Central Valley Medical Center in Nephi, and President of Rural Health Management Corporation, was a recipient of the Administrative Excellence Award. Mark was chosen because of his tireless efforts to help rural hospitals succeed. Mark understands the challenges of operating rural hospitals and has formed partnerships and networks with other hospitals to assist with cost savings, employee sharing, and supply contracts.
Operating hospitals in rural Utah presents several challenges, from attracting practitioners to forming partnerships with far away urban research hospitals. With more than two decades experience in hospital administration, Mark Stoddard, president of Rural Health Management Corporation and the Central Valley Medical Center, has watched rural medical practice evolve by taking advantage of new technology, such as electronic medical records. Even a simple fax machine, when we got the first one, allowed us to send fetal heart data to doctors in research hospitals, Stoddard remembers.
Recruitment and retention of medical providers continues to be the greatest challenge of rural hospitals. The wages we offer have to be competitive-we’re not that far from major Utah County hospitals, says Stoddard. In the future, rural health care will be able to provide more services locally and will be more quality oriented.
Mark Stoddard, with over two decades of experience in hospital administration, has seen the impact of new technology on the development of rural health care. His success in attracting practitioners and forming partnerships with more urban research hospitals has also led to a greater quality of care than has ever been available before. Despite these developments, Mark’s focus continues to be on the future as he works to make more services available locally and have more quality oriented goals met.