CEO of Saline Health System of Benton
Before joining Saline Health System as CEO on Nov. 30, Michael Stewart was the CEO of Navarro Regional Hospital in Corsicana, Texas, a position he had held since 2014. Before that job, he spent two years as the COO and administrator of Northwest Health System in Springdale. He also has five years in executive leadership roles at hospitals in California and Florida. Stewart spent four years as a member of the U.S. Air Force, where he rose to the rank of captain while serving at two Air Force bases in Texas.
Stewart received his MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University in College Station.
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You recently were named CEO of Saline Health System. What’s at the top of your to-do list?
Steven Covey in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” encouraged us “to seek first to understand.” I plan to do just that, spend my first few months getting an understanding of my team, the market and its demographics. I want to make sure I understand the needs of the community, the staff and the physicians and, most importantly, our patients. The second is seeing what we can do to meet those needs, and the third has to be how do we grow in our impact in meeting those needs?
What areas of the hospital are you going to target for growth?
Because we are in health care, we are always targeting continued growth in our quality and customer experience. As a community hospital, we want to ensure that we provide just as good if not better quality and patient experience as any other facility in the state. Our job is to take great care of patients in an efficient, effective and evidence-based manner. That’s our mission — to be the hub of this community, to partner with players that are coming into this community and those who have been in the community.
Health care is local and it is about trust. It’s about making sure we develop the relationships with the local community and letting them know that we see it as a privilege to serve them and, in that, they can trust us.
Would you like to see any changes made to the Arkansas Works program?
While I am new to the state, my understanding of Arkansas Works was that it was created to give access to health care resources for Arkansans. I think it would be wise to ensure that it continues to be strengthened through a broader network and ease of use for all stakeholders.
What attracted you to the health care industry?
Service has always been a mantra of my family, so it was the mission of serving people. Health care is service oriented and you have the opportunities to manage operations and be involved in emergencies and in economic development in communities like Benton and Bryant. This is a great spot for me to merge all of the things that I have done up to this point.
What was your biggest career mistake and what did you learn from it?
Not ensuring my team understood and was executing on the most important things for our organization and the community to be successful. We are in the business of saving and improving lives. It is imperative that I support my team by giving them the tools they need and encouraging them to implement the programs and procedures necessary to improve the outcomes and the experience of our patients, employees and physicians.
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