New JCH&L CEO Knew The Value Of Rural Health Care At An Early Age

By Gordon HopkinsRural hospitals have struggled for decades with everything from staffing to government regulations to reimbursements from insurers and government programs that don’t keep up with the financial realities of providing healthcare in a sparsely populated county. Many, perhaps most, of these struggles stem from the failure to understand, by the public and decision-makers, the differences between a hospital serving a big city and one serving rural America.That is why the board of Jefferson Community Health and Life (JCH&L) breathed a collective sigh of relief when they found Holly Wolff, MHA, to take over as CEO.Wolff took the reigns at the end of 2024, replacing Bill Welch, who served as interim CEO since September that year. Wolff’s background gives her a much-needed understanding of the trials and tribulations of a rural hospital.Stepping into a leadership role for any hospital, least of all one facing the unique challenge of a rural facility like JCH&L, is a time-consuming prospect. Nevertheless, Wolff took time off from her busy schedule to speak to FJN.Here is what she had to say. ChildhoodGrowing up in small-town Montana, Wolff understood at an early age the challenges of rural living with limited access to health care.“It paints a picture as to why I’m here,” said Wolff. “It goes back to how I was raised in a small town. That definitely was hugely impactful. So. I lived in some very small towns, small as 300, kind of in that space where, if anything happened, you had to leave town and you hoped you were on good roads.”Wolff had firsthand experience, “My dad, he had a heart condition. And so, it was one of those things where he was always at doctors offices. Had a couple open heart surgeries over the years, and then eventually had a heart transplantWolff and her sister would often accompany their father on these long trips, “And so it was, sometimes, an all day outing for him to go to the nearest cardiologist in Montana. So, I spent a lot of times just on the road with him at doctors’ offices.”“And you know, those are kind of my core memories, just driving around with him to different places,” said Wolff.Wolff’s childhood was not spent exclusively in Montana. Indeed, she spent some of her childhood here in southeast Nebraska, “My dad was a Lutheran pastor, and so moved us around a little bit. That’s how I ended up knowing this area, because we were in Beatrice for a short time when I was really little. So, my earliest memories are Beatrice and the squirrels, which I thought were huge, because as a little kid, they are ginormous and they’re fluffy and they’re everywhere.”Wolff finished high school in eastern Washington, “And then I followed my sister back to Montana State University in Bozeman.” Career“Probably towards the end of my undergrad, I had some very influential mentors and an advisor that helped me kind of figure out where I felt like my strengths were. I took a whole lot of extra courses for pre nursing, pre PT, you know, really trying to figure out where maybe in the patient care space I wanted to live. And ended up doing community health, which is kind of a catch all in their Health and Human Services Department. And by then, I had really been looking at, what do I have to do next?” said Wolff. “So, I did my Master’s through the MSU (Montana State University) system, and was in the second class of their masters. And their master’s program was specifically crafted for rural leadership.”That led her to working for the AHEC (Area Health Education Centers) system. “Wolff said, “They’re in most states. Nebraska has a nice, strong system.”“So, I was working for that office while I did my masters and was able to apply a lot of us learning to that job and to the hospitals I was starting to work with, and that definitely clarified that I wanted to be in leadership in a critical access hospital,” said Wolff.Ashley Medical Center in the small town of Ashley, North Dakota, gave Wolff her first stint as CEO, “A little town of about 600, 700 people had a critical access hospital and a SNF (Skilled Nursing Facility) on the other side.Some of Wolff’s other prior work experience includes serving as CEO at Roundup Memorial Healthcare in Roundup, Montana; Family Practice Center and Family Medicine Residency Administrator at the Northeast Iowa Medical Education Foundation in Waterloo, Iowa, giving her plenty of experience with rural health care facilities.And those eventually led her to Alaska.See part 2 in next week’s issue…

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