New Mercy president happy to be back in rural health care

Becoming president of three rural hospitals in the midst of a pandemic might not be for everyone, but Dan Barbee is making it work. Last spring, Barbee was named president the rural market of Mercy Health - Toledo, which includes hospitals in Tiffin, Willard and Defiance. "I picked a very unusual time to change jobs," he said in a phone interview Friday morning. "Health care is totally different than it was six months ago." He said COVID-19 has changed almost everything about daily operations. "Every decision made is based on protecting the staff and the patients," he said. "They had a pretty good plan in place before I started." The Mercy health care system includes 53 hospitals. He said one hospital in Toledo was chosen to care for regional COVID-19 patients, which allowed specific doctors and staff members to learn about the illness and how to best manage it. "COVID behaves differently than other kids of pneumonia," he said. Overseeing safety is one aspect of his job, Barbee said, along with quality, patient experience and financial performance. He said he divides his time between the three hospitals and spends one day a week in Toledo. "We're doing a lot of Zooming these days, and Skyping," he said. "I hit all my areas at least once week. I'm doing a lot of windshield time." Last week, he said he drove 1,800 miles. He and his family live on a cattle farm in Sandusky County near Gibsonburg, which places him central to the three hospitals. In addition to learning the new parts of his job and meeting new people during the past four months, Barbee said he is becoming reacquainted with people he used to know when worked in the Mercy system early in his career. A nurse by training, he said he started his career in cardiac nursing and worked in the Mercy system before taking a job for 10 years at the University of Toledo Medical Center. "I like the role of the small hospital," he said. "There's a deep culture here - more of a culture of family. You have people who have been here forever. There's a sense of ownership that you don't get at bigger hospitals. They're just really good people." Another plus about the rural hospital market is less competition than in cities, he said. "There's no other hospital in town so we're not spending all our time competing with other hospitals," he said. "Our resources can go toward making them a better place." Specifically, Barbee noted that Tiffin's hospital is becoming well known for its obstetrics, and was recognized by Newsweek magazine in its Best Maternity Hospitals in 2020. "We're really blowing up in OB," he said. "We had 500 deliveries in the last year, and we're on track to have more than 1,000 next year." He said the hospital is expanding the number of beds and staff member in obstetrics. "I never thought of Tiffin, a town that small, would have that many babies," he said. However, he said the excellence of the program is drawing people from the region to choose Tiffin as their birth hospital. "After being in inner city Toledo for 10 years, it's a blessing to be in the rural markets," he said. "I hope this is my last job. "I love going to work. I love my job. I love these people," he said. "The greatest blessing is to have a job you love going to in the morning and family you love coming home to at night. I have both."