We are at episode 7 on the H&H Impact, and today we have Mark Augsburger, who is the CEO of Edgerton Hospital and Health Services. And we are excited to speak to him about his leadership journey, the great things that are happening at Edgerton, and kind of his vision for healthcare there, not just in the hospital, but also within the region as he’s a regional healthcare leader. Mark, excited. I spent the last couple days with you, excited to spend time with you, just hearing your story and navigating Contributions back to healthcare itself. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Charles. Great to be here. Yes, it was great to spend the last couple of days with you getting through board meetings, some things like that. So, always appreciate spending that time with you. So, I’m really, really happy to be part of your podcast and talking about everything great going on in healthcare.

And maybe some not so great things, of course, uh, but, uh, certainly, uh, all of the enjoyable things, like you said, not only at Edgerton Hospital and Health Services here in Edgerton, Wisconsin, but things going on regionally for us as well. Absolutely. You know, I, I reflect on meeting you. I think we’ve been- we met a almost 2 years ago, if you remember correctly, as we were just getting to know each other. And I think over that first year, we recognized value in each other’s relationship.

And I got to meet your team about a year and a half ago, going through some organizational transformation. I’ll call that funny word optimization, trying to take it to the next level. And it’s been very, very awesome to see an organization with the spirit of core, that can-do attitude as you’re working to take them to the next level. So I got to tell you, your shop, your organization, your community, your people are top-notch to work with. And I’ve been blessed to be a part of that journey with you.

Wow. Much appreciate that. And yes, I would agree your memory does serve you correct. About 2 years ago and, you know, 16-ish months ago, maybe a little bit longer, we developed a stronger relationship. Of course, Edgerton Hospital engaged with you and Stephen Arts from H&H in helping us with a journey forward from, from where we were at to, my gosh, the huge steps and probably larger than steps of, of where you’ve helped to lead us today.

I’m really thankful for your guidance and leadership, not only in securing a couple of new people in our rep cycle, but taking a deeper look and work some help with us on maybe some challenges that we have been experiencing over the last few years, both in our financial department and just helping to strengthen our overall leadership development. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s exciting to see the work that’s going on just for our audience’s sake.

The work that we’re doing, we’ll say executive coaching, maybe program development. My partner in crime, Stephen Hart’s leadership development cohort work where we transform the leader and invest in that leader to be a service line leader, a business leader, to know their business. And the reward of the journey is not just for those leaders, but it’s for us as well. Yeah, no doubt. I know that the new cohort that has been developed, I believe we have 7 of our director leaders in the cohort led by Stephen and, and your participation with that as well, has jumped off to a great start.

I know that they’ve already experienced their second half-day session of the cohort. And all reports back is that a lot of great learning and development into leadership, leadership growth, leadership function, leadership vision is really coming to fruition early in their cohort discussions. Yeah, I think if you and I reflect on our leadership journey, much of that was examples on how not to lead and/or touching the stove. And this is a program where you are actively investing in your leaders, probably in ways that you and I never were invested in at the time. And so no doubt, Their, their strength is growing and their vision is developing and their desire to be successful is stronger than ever.

Yeah. You know, I look back, as you mentioned, on early parts of my career and, you know, I was really excited to start out my career as an associate degree nurse 37 years ago. And, you know, it was 12 years of some great work before I went back to school and got my bachelor’s in nursing. And then 2 years later, you know, earned my MBA. And while those courses were all great, nothing had the leadership cohort component that you and Stephen now bring in the cohort work.

And we learned a lot through major pain and effort, right? There was definitely a significant amount of learning to be done. There wasn’t much hands-on. It was sort of more in the trial and error kind of work that we had to do. And You know, while trial and error is always sort of going to be there, certainly with the cohort development work, you can mitigate a lot of those factors and perform at a much higher level quicker and more easily, probably based upon mistakes that we made in the past.

Yeah, several ways to learn leadership. Good examples, bad examples, touching the stove and/or getting that level of investment. I love that you’re a nurse. When I look at the statistics, there’s about 5-6% of hospital administrators are clinical-based, either physician or nurses. And it’s- I’m a nurse as well, and I I wear glasses, and it’s very clear you wear the same glasses, but a little bit more fashionable than myself, of patient-centered care.

It’s because you were at advocacy, at the bedside, providing patient care. It’s what was drilled into us. It’s the calling that not everybody can answer fully, and you’ve done that. And how has that clinical experience really formed your leadership? Yeah, so, you know, I think, Charles, as nurses, we go back to the importance ultimately of patient care.

At the end of the day, that’s why we’re always here. And it’s really great to have that clinical understanding and component to be a major piece in the role that I now play, you’ve played as the CEO, as the administrator of a facility. You know, and there’s probably 3 big laurels that I, you know, put as high parts of my you know, leadership, number one is high quality. Of course, highest quality is super important for number one, our patients, and then for the facility. And that’s what healthcare should be, right?

We want the best, highest quality patient care possible, you know, and then I think it’s important now that with our high quality, we also have a wide variety of services. That’s very important for our patients, especially those of us in the critical access world. You know, we’re here for the, you know, residents of the communities that we serve. And it may not be quite as large of a community, obviously, as in a major city or something like that. But our folks like to stay home.

They don’t want to travel to the city, if at all possible. So, you know, there’s, again, wide, wide base of services that can make sense. And then, you know, having, you know, serving great people, having great people on staff, and provide the highest level of compassionate care as possible. I think those 3 pieces really fit together well to complete that whole circle of health and wellness. You can’t forget the wellness side.

Again, you know, quality care is all about keeping people well. We’re gonna be here as a hospital when the illness comes, right? But there are so many tests and therapies Factors that we can help folks with to keep them well as long as possible before the, the actual healthcare side kicks in. So again, you know, talking about that whole completion of the circle, they’re all terribly important. I heard a couple of things in there, love it.

And I think they’re like taglines, as you know, and of course, keeping care local. Let me speak a little bit about that and brag on your facility. Edgerton, Wisconsin, which is a stone’s throw away from Madison, a large market, and a stone’s throw away from Janesville and Beloit. You’re, you’re not rural remote. And so you’re a choice for the region.

Yes, 100%. And not just for the township. You become a choice. And the other thing that I observed about your leadership is We’re not just waiting for patients to come to us. You actually proactively care for your community.

So it means it’s providing those services that are relevant to your folks and fully getting engaged, which leads me to one other part, fully engaged in the community and within the region. Love to hear where you’re putting your fingerprints on as you participated at chambers and different civic organizations and definitely from a state and regional point of view. Yeah, absolutely. So I agree as a, you know, as our CEO, I feel that I’m both feet in. It’s very important to be a part of the piece of the face of the hospital into the community.

So folks have, you know, that extra attachment feeling like that they know the hospital a little bit better. So, Again, you’ve mentioned places like Rotary and the Lions Club and Chambers of Commerce and being parts of other groups in the communities that you serve. So not only does that mean, you know, the city of Edgerton, 6,500 people, it means that we, you know, have branched out and have primary care in the Milton area, which is 7 miles to our south. And we’ve just opened up fairly new urgent care in Whitewater, which is about 20 miles to our east. And then just this week on Monday, we opened up a super exciting extension of our pain and spine center.

Boy, I tell you what, The residents of Whitewater could not wait until we got that in place and open because, you know, people with chronic pain, it’s not always easy to get to a doctor’s appointment miles and miles away. And if we can start their journey to healing close to home, that’s what’s really What? Yeah, um, I had been extremely impressed because you’re a 24/7 leader. I mean, literally, um, you are there, boots on the ground, shoulder-to-shoulder work with your team, but also in the community, and also in the evenings, and also on the weekends. I think you are fully dedicated.

I had a chance to meet your missus, and bit of your family. And, uh, not only you’ve been able to, my observations, balance it at work, but definitely balance it at home and really engage that family aspect that no doubt is supportive of the journey that, that you’re on right now. Yeah, you’re right. Um, it’s hard. I know it’s hard for you, it’s hard for me, but there is that careful balance that you have to put into place.

Uh, family is important. Family, always, we try our best to always keep it first. You carve out time to make sure that you can enjoy family time. And our youngest daughter actually spends time, a lot of time away from home, going to high school and living on campus. School about 40 miles to our north.

And so, you know, carving out even that extra time to make sure that on weekends when we get the chance to see her or follow her forensics that she’s super involved in and other great activities there, my wife and I are very passionate about, you know, following them. And then again, you got to take the time. I have two grandchildren who live about 8 hours away in Ohio with our oldest daughter and her family. And, you know, we don’t get a lot of time to see them in person, but FaceTime works really, really great. And getting to spend some time to see them and interact in their lives as well.

And then take some great opportunity when we do get to see them in person, you know, to really gobble those hugs and kisses up and, and really get, get to know them too. So, yes, family is super, super important. Gives you that peace of mind. Moves you away from work for a little bit. But then, you know, you and I have that 24/7 knowledge of what’s going on in your facilities too, for your business.

And, you know, with today’s technology, it’s, it’s pretty nice. It’s evil sometimes too. But, but really, it’s pretty nice to be able to keep your finger on the pulse virtually from wherever you’re at today? Well, um, the man behind the leader with many hats. I’ll talk a little bit about those hats here.

Of course, a leader, um, family man, uh, spouse, father, grandpa. And for those who’ve been in the area during the holidays, I can call you Santa too. Do those things. That’s right. Yes, sir.

So it’s great to see. I can give testament to your leadership in the organization as well. In the last year and a half to 2 years that I’ve been a part of your team working through, I’m privy to be able to see parts of the organizations that many are not. The hard work of the people. People, number one, the cornerstone.

And the culture that you’re building. I’m able to see the numbers and the growth that Edgerton is happening by adding more services and transforming that offering, not just to the, the township of Edgerton, but becoming a competitor within the region. So much so over the last couple years, you’re also an award-winning organization, aren’t you? Yeah, we are. I am so proud of our staff because they are the ones that do all of the work.

You know, we can provide great leadership and you hire right, but at the end of the day, the high-quality patient care, compassionate patient care comes from our amazing staff. So for both ’24 and 2025, Edgerton Hospital was named a top 20 critical access hospital in the nation for our patient satisfaction. A couple more. Oh, go ahead. I wish I had, and I don’t, but you know those little sound effects, the hype sound effects like the clap or the drum roll?

So I’ll throw those in there. But being a top hospital in the nation on satisfaction, it’s pretty good. Like, your top service, top notch. That’s absolutely what we believe in. And, you know, it wouldn’t be without saying that our department director leadership is top-notch.

They really provide that in-depth staff training, education, making sure that patients are cared for the way that we want ourselves cared for and our own family members. You know, we, we talked to- talk often about, and for years, Charles, I know you know this too, that We’ve talked about now, remember, you know, we want to treat people like we want our family members to be treated. Well, that’s really true. That’s really true here at Edgerton. And, you know, the scores that our patients mark us on our Press Ganey patient satisfaction surveys just go to tell how well our staff is doing.

You know, I’ll add to that, you know, this last year, 2025, we were also recognized as a Best 100 Hospital Women’s Choice Award for patient experience. And further in that top 100, we also were notified that out of the 100, we were number 5 in the nation. What a huge- that’s huge. Yes, huge. Yes.

That’s Women’s Choice. And then you also have the American Heart Association Award. I mean, they just keep coming. Yeah. Yeah.

The American Heart Association awarded us their Target BP Gold Level for 2025. We had their Silver Award in ’24. So we continue to grow and build on our experiences and best patient care possible just to keep upping that bar for us, right? It’s, it’s hard to stay up there and it’s not hard to stay up there, right? When your mindset is all about providing that high-quality, again, compassionate care.

That’s what keeps you there. I love it. Congratulations on all that success. And no doubt the cornerstone of that success is the people pillar. And you’ve led that people pillar with such success.

I probably have two core questions a little bit for you. Probably outside of the box. We all are leaders within the industry. And so in how we identify ourselves, hey, I’m a leader within my hospital, I’m a leader within my region, but I would argue that we’re all leaders within the industry itself. So for, well, I’ll scale it down, rural health, what’s your vision for rural health?

How do you see it going? You know, what’s your local and national and just overall thoughts on where we should go? Yeah, so I really believe that rural health must stay strong. You know, we can’t go away. I know that there are a lot of challenges out there, whether it’s challenges in getting the reimbursement that we need, challenges, you know, then that lead to, you know, equipment and services that we want to provide.

The especially rural circumstance is our communities want our services locally. And we need to keep that core in our mind. Because we’re here for one reason, we’re here to serve the patients in the communities that we serve. And, you know, that not only is my rural and local thought, but that happens nationally, whether you’re a frontier hospital that has a lot more challenges, both financially and with distance, than even I have here at Edgerton. There are a lot of things that it does come down to that rural can be challenged with.

And, you know, a lot of people don’t understand that the importance of helping to keep us local is that that is also really beneficial to the larger health systems. Because what we do is we take pressure off of them for the services that they’re overwhelmed with and can’t necessarily perform in as timely a manner that they would like to. So we’re feeders into the larger systems. And that’s so important that we can work together with larger systems, larger hospitals, by taking, again, the best care of the patients that we can. Are we the do-all, end-all for everyone?

Well, of course not. There are specific kinds of patient care we’re never going to do. I’m not going to take care of brain surgery. I’m not going to take care of any kind of transplants here. You know, I’m not going to take care of major cardiac cath labs going in, and that list can go on and on.

But we still provide a ton of services that help to keep congestion out of the large systems. And then the patients that really need that extra high level of care, we can get them to the system in better time.

It’s a collaborative, if I’m hearing you correctly, a collaborative approach. Of course, there’s a competitor approach, but a collaborative approach because we can’t do it by ourselves. And when we look around the region in your area specifically, you have a number of tertiary cares that we all have to be a one-team model to care for those patients. Yes, absolutely. You know, and some of those kind of things that we’ve really then expanded into that we’re caring for here is that we have an extensive orthopedic program at our hospital.

We have an extremely vibrant pain and spine center here at our hospital. I just talked about a few minutes ago about expanding that into Whitewater, Wisconsin, and, you know, we are always looking, you know, to look at the possibilities for, you know, future growth and expansion where we can help our patients the most. You know, a lot of the times we’re taking care of those tests, such as adding PET CT that we have recently. It- we, you know, we know for a fact that it can be 3 to 4 months to get an MRI at one of the fairly local large hospitals. Actually, all of them are having issues getting people in for MRIs, PET/CTs, stress tests.

Those things we can often get in in 1 to 4 weeks, and that really helps with patient diagnostics. We don’t have all of the micro specialists that are available out there, right? But again, being visionary and looking to what can help our local residents, you know, receive their care here, and then more tertiary care, you know, can go out then.

Bob, I think it’s the complexity of healthcare active in operations. It’s really that regional integrated leader at all levels of the region, of the nation. Because I know you do a lot of leadership investment for yourself with conferences as well. And it just gives you a stronger toolbox to be able to tackle the challenges that end I, you know, I’d like to wrap this up and, and just ask you one or two things on either leadership advice or leadership lessons, you know, from your journey. What can you contribute back to our industry on some lessons learned that you’ve experienced that you would like to offer to others?

Sure. You know, number one, I would say We all know that you can’t know everything. You don’t know everything. You never will. But you touched on the topic of continuing and continual education.

I think that’s super important for us. You know, we have a couple of opportunities, whether it’s your state hospital association, We have the, you know, Wisconsin Center for Rural Health. We have the Wisconsin Hospital Association. We have the American Hospital Association. We have the National Rural Hospital Association.

And, you know, there are certification programs out there that we can learn from. And I tell you what, the importance of getting out there is just not all of the sessions that you might sit through. But you know what, really, that’s rubbing elbows with other people that are experiencing some of the same kind of issues that you are. Looking at something like the National Rural Hospital Association CEO Certification Program. There’s other certification programs that they host, like, you know, there’s board member certification, CNO, COO, CFO.

I think those give you great opportunities to learn and think a little differently than what your day-to-day mainline thinking may be. Investment is a wonderful thing for everyone. Student is a forever long thing. And being humble as you are in your leadership style. Well, Mark, you know, one of the things that I know from your area, because I grew up in those areas, there’s a lot of other organizations as well.

Name one more that stands out. Yeah. One other big one that we’re a major part of is the Rural Wisconsin Healthcare Cooperative. It’s amazing the work that they do with all of the small and rural hospitals in Wisconsin, and they play a huge part in our lives and the education of executives as well. I think I’ve participated in some of their functions over the last couple of years and very impressive.

They help equip leaders. With resources and a bit of discounts on services and investments. So absolutely agree, they’re a phenomenal organization. Mark, it’s been a pleasure spending a little bit of time with you. Also blessed to be kind of a part of your team and along this journey in this section.

And I’m awed by the work that you all are doing and very impressed with the people, the people that you have and what they bring to the table and their hunger to do better. Been speaking with Mark Augsburger from Edgerton Hospital and Health Services out of Edgerton, Wisconsin. He’s not only CEO of his own healthcare system, he’s a nurse, he’s a region leader, he’s a dad and a husband. And it’s been a pleasure spending time with you. Thank you, Mark.

Hey, thanks, Charles. Really appreciate it.