New leadership

Bill Porter picked a busy time to take over at Odessa Regional Medical Center.

Porter became chief executive officer three weeks ago as the hospital is in the middle of multimillion dollar projects to add eight beds to the neonatal intensive care unit and build a bridge connecting the east and west campuses.

And all that work is geared toward one objective.

"We want to be the health care provider of choice for Odessa and the surrounding communities," Porter said.

ORMC is also setting aside 14 beds for a new rehabilitation unit, which will serve patients recovering from conditions ranging from knee surgeries to strokes.

In addition, the hospital is adding a six-bed antepartum area, which Porter said would be set aside for women having difficulty during pregnancy. Both of those projects are expected to be complete within a month.

Porter comes to ORMC from Tempe St. Luke's Hospital near Phoenix, which, like ORMC, is owned by Franklin, Tenn.-based Iasis Healthcare.

He replaces Matt Roberts, who went to a hospital in the Nashville area, said Jacqui Gore, ORMC director of community relations.

Porter, 55, built experience as a hospital administrator during 22 years in the U.S. Army. Since entering the private sector in 1997, he's worked at hospitals in Kansas and Texas before going to Arizona.

He said both military and private medicine involve a "team" approach.

"There's really not that big of a difference," Porter said. "It's all geared toward the same thing. That's providing quality health care to the patients."

Along with doctors, nurses and administrators, Porter said patients are an important part of the "team."

"Patients now are probably more educated than they've been in the past," he said. "They understand that they need to take an active role in their care."

That includes an education program that helps patients in asking questions and knowing what to do to maintain their health, Porter said.

An important part of Porter's potential success at ORMC could be Levi Stone, who recently started as the hospital's chief nursing officer after spending 10 years at Medical Center Hospital, where he most recently served as divisional director for acute care and critical care.

"Bill's a really level-headed guy," Stone, 32, said of Porter. "He's easy to approach. He makes sound decisions."

Stone looks forward to ORMC expanding its minimally invasive robotics program. While robots have been used in cardiac surgery, the hospital is expanding it to areas like prostate and general surgery.

So far, Stone has been working to lower the number of nursing vacancies at ORMC. Since he became chief nursing officer, he said the hospital has reduced its vacancies in registered nurses from 52 to 21.

"It stems a lot in the teamwork we have," he said.

Nurse recruiter Sandra Subia said Stone has used his local ties to help bring in new employees.

"A lot of people who know him from other places have high respect for him," she said. "We do what we can to stay local as far as recruiting."