OAHHS Spring Summer 2019

8 » A magazine for and about Oregon Community Hospitals. By Jon Bell THE RIPPLE EFFECT Oregon’s hospitals and health systems continue to make ever-larger economic impacts in the communities they serve. Asante, which has three hospitals in Southern Oregon, has a service area of more than 600,000 people, and it sees 100,000 emergency department visits and 25,000 inpatient admissions every year. Asante doles out $489 million in salaries and benefits annually—about $1.3 million per day—and is the largest employer in the entire Rogue Valley region. And yet, according to Kelly, president and CEO at Asante as of January, a lot of people in the community may not know just how large an impact the health systemmakes on the area. “I think when people hear that we are the largest provider and the largest employer in the region, they are pretty shocked by that,” he said. “A lot of people think of us as just what we were when we started—a single individual hospital—but we’ve definitely continued to grow and thrive in our communities.” Hospitals across Oregon have indeed been expanding to meet increased demands of an aging and growing population. With that growth has come an ever-larger impact that hospitals and health systems have on the communities they serve, and not just in terms of providing care. From direct and indirect jobs to community donations and drawing massive amounts of federal dollars into the state, hospitals are making huge economic impacts all around Oregon. When Scott Kelly joined Asante nearly 20 years ago, the Medford-based health system had about 2,200 employees. Today, that number is up to more than 5,800.