As Avera Queen of Peace’s top official nears retirement, he says there’s Work left to be done

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Tom Rasmusson, president and CEO of Avera Queen of Peace Health Services in Mitchell, speaks with The Daily Republic during a recent interview in his office. Rasmusson said his retirement will come “maybe next year, maybe the year after” and added he has numerous goals left to achieve. (Laura Wehde/Republic Photo)

Talk about it

Tom Rasmusson knows he’s nearing retirement. But the Avera Queen of Peace Health Services president and CEO isn’t quite ready to set the exact date yet.

“I don’t know yet. Maybe next year, maybe the year after,” Rasmusson, 65, said during a recent interview at his office. “I want to see how we’re doing here.”

There’s a lot to accomplish before he calls it a career, he said.

Queen of Peace — the largest employer in the city, with upwards of 700 on the payroll — is in good financial and medical shape, Rasmusson said. But there are challenges. Bad debts have skyrocketed during the national economic downturn, he said. In the past 11 months, the hospital has seen its bad debts rise from $1.2 million to $2.5 million.

While some bad debts are turned over to a collections agency, Rasmusson said he doesn’t want to hound people who are short of money.

“We really try to write it off,” he said. “We try to refrain from that.”

The hospital conducted a survey in early July to determine if an urgent-care clinic is needed in Mitchell. Rasmusson said he will meet with the medical staff, review survey results and weigh all the options before deciding if such a clinic is needed.

He wants to see the wellness center, an 80-yearold building, removed from the hospital campus. It costs a great deal of money to heat and maintain the building, Rasmusson said.

He’s an avid supporter of the proposed community center, which would be created with support from Avera Queen of Peace, Dakota Wesleyan University and the city of Mitchell.

The proposed $18 million facility would provide a walking track, wellness programs and other facilities while offering a regulation-size indoor pool. Youth and recreational basketball, volleyball and wrestling teams could play there and hold tournaments, he said.

Rasmusson said it would be a “showplace” for Mitchell.

“From my perspective, I’m really excited about it,” he said. “This is something the community needs.”

He said ground could be broken by spring 2012. It would be located on the DWU campus. While it would not be on the Queen of Peace campus, it would fulfill its mission to serve the community, Rasmusson said.

The hospital, which states in its literature that it is rooted in the Gospel, was founded in 1906 when a group of Presentation Sisters came to Mitchell to care for the sick. Rasmusson, a Lutheran, said religion plays an important role in his life and he’s proud to work for Avera, which was formed when the Presentation Sisters of Aberdeen and the Benedictine Sisters of Yankton joined their health ministries and became cosponsors of a new organization called Avera Health in 2000.

“We always say we’re just carrying on Jesus’ mission to care for the sick and poor,” he said.

Rasmusson has been very active in the community in addition to his work on behalf of the community center. He has served in a variety of roles at First Lutheran Church, including as president when an addition was built.

Rasmusson founded the United Way Day of Caring in Mitchell and has seen it grow as more volunteers get involved to perform work to help people and agencies. He said he’s proud of how it has taken root in Mitchell.

While Rasmusson is known as the leader of Avera Queen of Peace, he has several other medical facilities to oversee.

As the regional president of the Mitchell area for Avera Health, he is in charge of clinics in Parkston, Plankinton, Wessington Springs, De Smet, Howard, Salem and Corsica as well as four physicians’ clinics in Mitchell.

While health care is the reason these facilities are open, Rasmusson said it’s important to operate in a professional and businesslike manner. He said the hospital aims for a 4 percent profit, but it also borrows money to conduct business and depends on a good bond rating to keep interest rates low.

“Even though we are a nonprofit, we are still a business,” Rasmusson said,

That’s been his career for more than three decades — working on the business side of the medical industry.

His brother, Jim, persuaded him to consider it for a career. They were both in the military in the 1960s, with Tom Rasmusson serving as a first lieutenant in Vietnam in 1968-69.

He was an electronics maintenance officer and said with a laugh that he was “just lost” while trying to figure out his duties and responsibilities.

Rasmusson said he was working with an intelligencegathering crew and was one of the few people at the base in Hue Phu Bai without flight training.

So he did paperwork and whatever else was needed. He also flew in the co-pilot’s seat in about 250 missions, where he flipped a few switches and got an up-close look at the war. That left him with an aversion to small planes, he said.

His brother was assigned to a medical unit and told Tom to consider entering the field himself. It was an area with tremendous growth, he learned.

Rasmusson said he earned an undergraduate degree at the University of North Dakota and then a master’s degree in hospital and healthcare administration from the University of Iowa.

His first job in the medical field was from 1973 to 1977 at Catholic Hospital in Breckinridge, Minn. From 1977 to 1995, he was chief operations officer for Dakota Hospital in Fargo, N.D.

While there, he was part of a team that opened an offsite clinic. That’s akin to what he’s pondering now as he studies an urgent-care clinic for Mitchell.

After 18 years in Fargo, he took a job as vice president of professional services at Rapid City Regional Hospital, a post he held from 1995 to 2003.

In July 2003, he came to Mitchell and has been in charge of business for the Avera medical community since that time.

Medicine is also a part of his private life. His wife, Ann, is a pharmacist, and their daughter, Sarah, is a registered nurse.

Another daughter, Arin, chose a different path and is a costumer for a theater company.

An Underwood, N.D., native, Rasmusson said he plans to remain in the Midwest when he retires. He and his wife own lake property in Minnesota and plan to build a home there.

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