David John Baltzer is an experienced health care executive whose mission in work life is to provide high quality patient
care. Baltzer believes that quality patient care is the basis for a healthy population, patient and staff satisfaction,
and institutional success.
David Baltzer is a native of St. Louis, Missouri. David and Joanne (Jody) Burke
were married in 1971. The Baltzers have two children, Margaret and Joseph Baltzer, who are undergraduate students at
the University of New Mexico.
David Baltzer is the oldest of 5 children. Baltzer grew up in the parsonage
next to the church where his father was the minister and his mother was the organist, choir director and Sunday school teacher.
At an early age he accepted financial responsibility. As a young man Baltzer worked at the following non-health
care jobs in St. Louis:
- rack boy in the Grand & Victor pool hall at age 12
- Clerk at McCracken's
Drug store above the pool hall
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch paperboy
- Book room clerk at Roosevelt High
School
- Door-to-door salesman of Ecko pots & pans
- Nick's Catering truck route runner
- Tennis
instructor for City of St. Louis Parks Department
- Imo's Pizza delivery boy
- Library file clerk at the
University of Missouri
Baltzer began his health care career in 1968 at the age of 17 as a Hospital Attendant
I at the St. Louis State Hospital. To get the job Baltzer rode a St. Lous city bus downtown to take the civil
service test. His score was so high that he moved to the top of the hiring roster. The interview process included
an extensive battery of intelligence and psychological tests. Baltzer worked as part of a specially funded Hospital
Improvement Program to determine whether providing extra resources would show measurable benefits for chronically ill psychiatry
patients. Psychotropic medications such as Thorazine and Mellaril had been only recently developed and the State of
Missouri had begun deinstitutionalization. Baltzer received on-the-job training that included administering medications
to 45 male patients on Unit I-3. Other duties included shaving and showering patients, feeding patients, and taking
patients for outings and walks. During the 6 months that Baltzer worked full time at "State" making money
for college, he absorbed the values of rank-and-file hospital staff who struggled to support their families on a monthly paycheck
of $305. This understanding would later help Baltzer, as a health care executive, to foster excellent staff morale.
Baltzer returned to full time student life at the University of Missouri in St. Louis where he fell in love
with Jody Burke. The Baltzers were married. David needed to earn money for college and remembered the hospital
job he had enjoyed. He was hired as a Central Supply Technician at Deaconess Hospital in St. Louis. During this
year and a half, Baltzer realized his lifelong interest in health care. It was an important career decision to
move into the professional ranks of nursing.
Baltzer graduated with a diploma from the St. Louis Municipal School
of Nursing in 1975. During his 3 student nursing years Baltzer worked part-time and summers at St. Louis City Hospital
as a laboratory posting clerk, operating room scrub and circulating nurse, and recovery room nurse. He also worked one
summer as a night shift admitting clerk at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Baltzer maintains an active Missouri registered
nursing license.
The Baltzers lived in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland from 1976 to 1978 while Jody completed a diploma
as a Montessori Directress with lifetime international certification. Baltzer worked as a student nurse at St. James'
Hospital, Dublin and earned lifetime Irish general nursing registration. It was during this time that Baltzer decided on a
career in health care administration. Baltzer had served two full terms on the board of trustees of a credit union
and felt that his interest in finance would be coupled well with his clinical background.
Upon return to the United
States, Baltzer concluded a bachelor's degree in business from Webster College while working as a psychiatric nurse
for the St. Louis Veteran's Administration Medical Center (SLVAMC).
Baltzer was accepted into the Washington
University School of Medicine Health Administration Program for the Fall of 1979 and graduated with a Masters Degree in Health
Administration in May of 1981. During his two years in graduate school he worked as a research assistant in the medical
school and performed a summer internship with the SLVAMC. Baltzer's administrative residency was with the Evangelical
Hospital Association, now known as Advocate Health Care in Chicago.
From 1982-1985 Baltzer worked as
administrative assistant for Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. At Memorial, Baltzer was responsible
for strategic planning, safety, and special projects including creating the region's first ambulatory surgery unit and
implementing a corporate-wide productivity system.
In 1985 Baltzer began 10 years of service with
Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother's (SSM) Health System in the United States. This began with 5 years at St. Mary's
Regional Health Center in Roswell, NM from 1985-1990 during which time he was promoted from assistant administrator to administrator
and CEO. Following the merger of St. Mary's with Eastern New Mexico Medical Center, Baltzer was transferred within the SSM St.
John Ministry Corporation to St. John Medical Center, Tulsa, OK where he worked as Vice President for Patient Care (CNO)
for almost 5 years until the fall of 1994. For St. John Baltzer initiated kidney dialysis services, opened a geriatric
psychiatric unit, and created an angioplasty recovery unit while implementing many divisional operating efficiencies.
In
1994 Baltzer was recruited to become president and CEO of Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services (RMCHCS)in Gallup,
NM where he served until 2005. During this time RMCHCS became recognized as a high quality provider of comprehensive
health care services. RMCHCS developed an integrated delivery system that grew from 9 employed physicians to 55 employed
physicians in 3 multi-specialty clinics. RMCHCS joined the VHA. An HMO was formed that accepted full capitation
for hospital and physicians. RMCHCS was the hub for a Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) with 4 neighboring hospitals in
a 60 mile radius. This PPO was called VIP Select. VIP Select contracted directly with McKinley County's two
largest self-insured employers, Giant Industries and the Pittsburgh & Midway Mining Company. When in 2003 the malpractice
crisis in the United States forced RMCHCS's carrier, St. Paul Insurance to stop insuring hospitals, RMCHCS became
a charter member of a Mountain States regional consortium that owns a self-insured onshore recriprocal captive with headquarters
in Vermont for hospital and physician malpractice claims. RMCHCS has very low loss experience for malpractice claims.
Following
is a list of some of the capital improvement projects completed during Baltzer's 11 years at RMCHCS:
- The
first major construction project in more than 20 years was the building of a 4 story new addition to the main hospital that
houses the Intensive Care Unit, Laboratory, Inpatient Dialysis, and Emergency Department
- remodel of Medical-Surgical-Pediatrics
Unit with addition of 11 beds
- remodel of Diagnostic Imaging department with replacement of all equipment including
new interventional radiology suite, MRI, nuclear medicine gamma camera, ultrasound, Breast Center, 2 Radiography and Fluoroscopy
rooms, and installing rural New Mexico's first 64-slice CT scanner installed in January 2005
- converted to enterprise-wide
Meditech computer system
- expanded Zuni dialysis center from 11 stations to 38 stations in several phases.
This center has been rated #1 for patient outcomes in the U.S.
- constructed new 10 station outpatient dialysis center
in Crownpoint, NM
- started the region's first sleep lab
- developed a comprehensive campus plan by purchasing
more than 25 acres of land on multiple sites, acquiring 18,000 square foot medical office building, acquiring several adjacent
houses, and doubling the number of parking spaces while improving traffic flow
- built rural New Mexico's first
rooftop helipad
A major part of capital funding came from the RMCHCS subsidiary Western Health Foundation
(WHF). In 1998 the WHF completed its first capital campaign that raised $2,350,000. The WHF raised a total
of more than $7M during Baltzer's presidency.
RMCHCS provides clinical experience for medical students from the
University of New Mexico and the University of Pennslylvania and nursing students from the University of New Mexico-Gallup
among others.
Following is a list of six national acknowledgements received by RMCHCS during the time
that David Baltzer served as president:
- Modern Healthcare Top 100 Integrated Health Networks
- Hospitals
and Health Networks 100 Most Wired
- 2002 AHA Circle of Life Citation of Honor for Hospice
- 2003
Trustee of the Year for Arlene High, Chairman
- 2005 AHA Hospital Award for Volunteer Excellence (HAVE)
- #1
in U.S. for Zuni Dialysis Unit patient outcomes www.rmch.org
In the 11 years that Baltzer served as CEO of RMCHCS, Baltzer witnessed the poverty of Native Americans and
Hispanics in the region. He served on the Blue Ribbon Task Force that recommended to the Navajo Nation Tribal Council
privatization of Indian Health Service hospitals on the Navajo reservation. He was later appointed to serve as the only Anglo
on the Navajo Health System Board of Directors. Baltzer also interacted with the Zuni Pueblo Council. Baltzer learned
first hand the enormous challenges of finding resources and operating a complex health system in a town bordering on sovereign
nations within the United States. Recruitment was particularly difficult. Fortunately RMCHCS experienced favorable retention
with annual employee turnover averaging 15% during Baltzer's tenure.
Baltzer served as a member of the Gallup McKinley
County Chamber of Commerce board of directors for 5 years and as chairman in 1999.
Baltzer served as a member
of the Rotary Club of Gallup board of directors for 7 years and as President in 2002. www.rotary.org
Baltzer served on the New Mexico Hospital Association (NMHA) board of directors for 8 years and served as chairman
in 2000. He received NMHA's most prestigious award, named for its founder, the Frank Gabriel Award in 2001. www.nmhhsa.org
Baltzer served the American Hospital Association on two national committees, the Committee on Volunteers (2000-2002)
and the Committee on Governance (2002-2005). He served as AHA Region 8 Policy Board delegate (2004-2005). www.aha.org
Baltzer is a fellow of the American College of Health Care Executives (ACHE) since 1990. He has served on numerous
ACHE committees and served as New Mexico Regent (2002-2003). Baltzer received the ACHE 1999 New Mexico Senior-Level
Health Care Executive Award. www.ache.org
Baltzer is author of articles on a variety of health care management related topics including governance, volunteerism,
fund raising, telecommunications, and multi-institutional systems theory. David Baltzer can be found in www.zoominfo.com which displays some articles additional to those under the Publications tab.
In 2007 Baltzer worked as an interim CEO
for Phoenix-based Banner Health helping to solve problems at hospitals in Colorado and California.
David and Jody
Baltzer live in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
