Summer Internships: Great River Medical Center

By Jeremy Murdock

Hello everyone!  This summer I am working in Burlington, Iowa at Great River Medical Center as the Administrative Intern to CEO Mark Richardson. Great River Medical Center is a 378-bed hospital and is part of Great River Health Systems, an integrated health-care system that provides care for area residents that spans the entire care continuum including retail pharmacies, a new long-term care center, a hospice house, an outpatient renal dialysis center, a cancer care center, and a network of primary and specialty care clinics located throughout the region. They also contract manage a critical access hospital in nearby Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. 

My preceptor, Mark Richardson, is an Iowa MHA alum and a strong supporter of the program. He has been a CEO for over 25 years, 16 of those years at Great River Health Systems. His leadership and experiences in building a successful culture of engagement amongst employees and of focusing on the quality of patient care delivery have established strong relationships of trust with the community for providing respectful, accessible, high-quality, patient-centered care in Southeast Iowa. 

My main project this summer has focused on revenue cycle process improvement. Having identified certain “gaps” in the revenue cycle process, I have worked with several patient financial services teams from the clinic operations and hospital operations teams to implement new billing statements for these respective units that adhere more closely to HFMA Patient-Friendly-Billing principles. Aside from this project I have done research and analysis on the effect of Medicaid expansion in our local market, been trained to conduct environment of care audits throughout the health system for our quality department in preparation for an upcoming Joint Commission audit and I am in the process of reviewing and incorporating changes to the medical staff bylaws for Great River Medical Center.

I have been kept quite busy at Great River between projects and rotations throughout the various departments and care delivery sites, one of the more interesting rotations was spending a day with the CEO of a critical access hospital to observe the types of challenges he faces day to day in operating a successful hospital in a more rural area.

I have had the opportunity to attend the Iowa Hospital Association Summer Leadership Summit, play some golf, attend Burlington Bee’s baseball games (Single A affiliate of my hometown LA Angels!) and enjoyed some R&R on the beach in California with family during July 4th. 

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