Val Verde Regional Medical Center CEO Jack Houghton on Del Rio's Hospital

February 13, 2008
By SW TEXAS LIVE
Special to LIVE!

Jack Houghton, the CEO of Del Rio’s Val Verde Regional Medical Center has been under fire over the past year for perceived problems at the facility. In this Podcast, Houghton discusses the staffing challenges, this year’s late flu season, and we find out how Houghton decided to pursue a hospital administration career.

On the issue of the number of nurses, Houghton is keen on a “grow our own” program the hospital is facilitating, and talks about the hospital’s increased funding for training entrants into the nursing field in Del Rio. He also discusses the traveling nurses and their cost, which “is a very expensive solution, but when you need nurses, it is one of the solutions.” Reluctantly, Houghton says. “We have been able to cut that back now, and we’re having fewer temporary nurses on board because we have been able to hire more nurses.”

Houghton arrived in Del Rio in 2006 from a similar position at the primary hospital in Natchez, Miss., with a service area population of about 85,000 people. I asked him how Natchez compares to Del Rio. The primary difference, he says, is the availability of qualified people to staff the hospital.

On the financial end, Houghton says Medicaid reimbursement is 20 percent and Medicare reimbursement is 45-50 percent of VVRMC’s revenue. Tricare, which services the military and retired military, is five to eight percent of the hospital’s revenue. Houghton explains briefly how the hospital manages its revenue when 70 percent of its revenue is derived from the government. And he says it’s not all that much different from a Dallas hospital, except that in the big city, there is more volume. But, Houghton warns, “The days of money falling out the cash register in the health care business is long since passed.”

This interview was conducted Feb. 7, 2008 at The Val Verde Regional Medical Center boardroom.