From bedsides to the boardroom | News

Edgar Curtis was 17 and a junior at Lanphier Excessive Faculty when an aunt he was significantly near died from most cancers at 47 after a 100-day keep at Springfield Memorial Hospital.

Through the many visits he made throughout her decline, Curtis mentioned he observed “the sort coronary heart and compassionate care” that his aunt obtained from the hospital’s nurses. The expertise impressed him to pursue a profession in nursing, despite the fact that lower than 3% of the nation’s nurses had been male in 1970.

The Springfield native – the primary individual in his working-class household to go to varsity – mentioned his perspective as a nurse helped information him throughout a 50-year profession at Memorial Well being to maintain the deal with sufferers and neighborhood.

Curtis, 72, who capped off that profession with a 17-year stint because the five-hospital well being system’s president and chief govt officer, retired March 31. His successor is Mandy Eaton, former govt vp and chief working officer of Cone Well being, a nonprofit that features 5 hospitals and quite a few outpatient areas serving a five-county space in North Carolina. Eaton, 47, was born and raised in upstate New York.

Although leaders inside and outdoors of the well being care trade regionally and statewide mentioned Springfield benefited from Curtis’ work ethic, competency and kindness, he was fast to credit score others for any good issues that occurred throughout his tenure on the helm of the town’s largest non-public employer.

“The individuals of Memorial are what has stored me right here for 50 years,” Curtis advised Illinois Occasions, “and what I am most happy with is what we have achieved collectively. I believe the successes we have skilled as a company whereas I used to be right here will not be my private achievements, however the work of the entire group.”

Curtis’ tenure at Memorial, a $1.6 billion-a-year group with the equal of seven,200 staff, greater than 5,000 of them in Sangamon County, was characterised by development and ongoing partnerships with different gamers within the native well being care market.

He handled workforce and monetary challenges at Memorial earlier than, throughout and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

And as chair of the board of the Illinois Well being and Hospital Affiliation in 2017, he was a pacesetter statewide and nationally within the in the end profitable effort to beat again efforts by Republican members of Congress and President Donald Trump in Trump’s first time period to “repeal and substitute” the Reasonably priced Care Act.

Curtis led Memorial Well being because it navigated monetary constraints throughout a document two-year state finances deadlock from 2015 to 2017. And he marshaled Memorial’s assets and labored with HSHS St. John’s Hospital, Southern Illinois College Faculty of Drugs, Springfield Clinic and different suppliers as they handled a once-in-a-generation pandemic.

Staffing, monetary challenges

COVID-19 claimed the lives of greater than 1,000 sufferers at Springfield Memorial simply within the pandemic’s first 12 months.

“I noticed the most effective of individuals through the pandemic,” Curtis mentioned, noting that COVID-19 first hit Illinois virtually precisely 5 years in the past. “There was lots of trepidation in regards to the unknown.”

At a time when a vaccine wasn’t obtainable and amid all of the chaos and fears for their very own well being and the well being of their households, “the individuals of Memorial stepped up and by no means mentioned ‘no,'” he mentioned.

Because it did nationwide, the pandemic took a monetary toll on Memorial Well being. It led to employees burnout and lowered curiosity in jobs at hospitals and different well being care facilities needing expert practitioners across the clock, Curtis mentioned, and it made the nursing scarcity worse. Memorial needed to rent much more short-term, or “touring,” nurses and different employees, and pay everlasting staff extra, to assist fill the hole.

Memorial initially noticed a 40% improve in labor prices – amounting to $250 million yearly – for Memorial’s hospitals and different websites in Springfield, Decatur, Jacksonville, Taylorville and Lincoln. And reimbursements from Medicaid and Medicare, which account for about two-thirds of the system’s revenues, have not stored up with the price of labor, Curtis mentioned.

Memorial Well being skilled a document lack of $107 million on operations, and a complete of $227 million when together with funding losses associated to the downturn within the inventory market, within the fiscal 12 months that led to September 2022. That state of affairs paved the best way for about 300 layoffs in September 2023. The cuts had been estimated to avoid wasting the system an estimated $40 million a 12 months.

The layoffs, which eradicated one in each 5 management positions on the 128-year-old group, adopted layoffs of about 140 staff in 2020, the primary 12 months of the pandemic.

“My largest remorse as a pacesetter is that it must come to that,” Curtis mentioned.

The employees reductions, and inner effectivity efforts which have saved tens of millions of {dollars}, have helped Memorial return to the black. The system posted an working lack of 4.8% in fiscal 2023, amounting to $74 million, however noticed a 1.8% optimistic margin of $29.5 million within the fiscal 12 months that led to September 2024. The system’s flagship hospital, 500-bed Springfield Memorial, made $30.4 million, or 3.7% within the black, primarily based on $831 million in whole revenues that 12 months.

“It is nonetheless going to be difficult as a result of we nonetheless haven’t got sufficient workforce to satisfy all of the calls for and wishes,” he mentioned, “and it nonetheless requires us to complement with short-term employees, that are dearer than everlasting employees.”

Prices for short-term employees have eased however nonetheless are greater than earlier than the pandemic, Curtis mentioned.

“The brand new regular is, financially, we’re secure. We’ve got been for the final 12 months and a half,” he mentioned.

Educational partnerships with Memorial to develop native nursing education schemes are starting to yield dividends, Curtis mentioned. These partnerships embody establishments corresponding to Lincoln Land Group Faculty, Mennonite Faculty of Nursing at Illinois State College, Richland Group Faculty, Illinois Faculty, College of Illinois Springfield and College of Illinois Chicago Faculty of Nursing.

Not the entire graduating nurses are becoming a member of Memorial, he mentioned, “however them coming into the neighborhood helps everybody. That could be a actual blessing.”

He famous that each Springfield Memorial and Jacksonville Memorial have achieved and maintained “magnet standing” from the American Nurses Credentialing Middle, the distinguished designation that acknowledges a piece tradition that helps nurses and the nursing career.

Curtis spearheaded a tenfold improve in monetary assist for SIU Faculty of Drugs from Memorial, from about $7 million in 2007 to about $70 million per 12 months at the moment.

Curtis mentioned SIU is a “nationwide treasure” and has had a profound impact on Springfield, contributing to the rise of medical doctors practising in the neighborhood from 100 in 1970 to greater than 1,000 at this time. SIU was important in making Springfield a downstate medical hub for specialty care, and he mentioned SIU has created a pipeline to provide new medical doctors for the area.

A CEO with bedside method

Considerations a couple of international pandemic and aspirations for a profession within the higher echelons of well being care administration weren’t in Curtis’ thoughts when he graduated with a bachelor’s diploma in nursing at SIU’s Edwardsville campus and began his first job in 1975, working as a Springfield Memorial registered nurse on a medical/surgical ground.

He labored as a Memorial bedside nurse for 15 years earlier than working in a collection of administration jobs. Curtis earned a grasp of enterprise administration diploma from the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was named senior vp and chief working officer of Memorial Well being in 1993, the No. 2 place below Robert Clarke.

Clarke was president and CEO for twenty-four years earlier than retiring in late 2007, and Curtis grew to become the highest chief in 2008. Curtis is the highest-paid chief and obtained $1.4 million in base pay, bonuses and monetary incentives in fiscal 2023, in keeping with the latest knowledge obtainable by means of the Kind 990 report that Memorial filed with the IRS.

Curtis, who mentioned, “I felt like I used to be referred to as to Memorial to serve others,” by no means needed to apply for any of the roles he was promoted to on the group. He was requested to serve and mentioned, “I loved each function I’ve had at Memorial.”

Mike Aiello, president of Memorial Well being’s board of administrators, mentioned, “CEOs with bedside nursing expertise are very uncommon, but it surely’s particularly significant to have a pacesetter who has spent his whole 50-year profession with the identical group in his hometown. His dedication and dedication to the well-being of the individuals of central Illinois has had an incredible affect on so many lives.”

Dr. Jerry Kruse, SIU medical college’s dean and provost, has recognized Curtis for 30 years. Kruse referred to as Curtis a visionary and a “grasp at partaking different organizations” to profit neighborhood well being.

Curtis remembers individuals’s names and household circumstances and genuinely cares about individuals, Kruse mentioned.

“He is aware of all people and would not overlook anyone,” Kruse mentioned. “He and the crew at Memorial are devoted to constructing nice locations to work for the physicians and different well being care professionals. … He has simply had an astounding affect on constructing higher well being care training.”

Jen Boyer, CEO of Springfield Clinic and a registered nurse, mentioned, “Ed Curtis has been a powerful chief and advocate for distinctive well being care in our neighborhood and throughout Illinois.”

Boyer mentioned she “had the privilege of working below Ed’s management” in Springfield Memorial’s emergency division, and the expertise “deeply formed my very own path in well being care. His function in rising and supporting the following technology of physicians has helped Springfield change into – and stay – probably the greatest locations within the state to obtain care. His steering, compassion for each sufferers and employees, and dedication to well being care training are examples of what management in well being care ought to be.”

Kruse mentioned Curtis has been a mentor for a lot of younger individuals in well being care. A kind of beneficiaries was A.J. Wilhelmi, a lawyer and former Democratic state senator from the Joliet space who’s president and CEO of the Illinois Well being and Hospital Affiliation, which advocates on behalf of hospitals statewide.

Wilhelmi mentioned Curtis, who served on the all-volunteer IHA board for 10 years, “has a full appreciation and understanding of the intersection of coverage and politics, and he has simply been an incredible chief for IHA.”

Wilhemi, 56, mentioned Curtis “epitomizes servant management, and he has mentored lots of of younger individuals as they pursue their profession path in well being care through the years. He has been a mentor for me and an expensive buddy.”

Wilhelmi mentioned Curtis has a “real need to assist individuals develop and be the most effective model of themselves. He’s an incredible chief, however a good higher individual. … He has had a profound affect on the Illinois hospital neighborhood.

“There is not any query that his coaching as a nurse, and actually his real compassion for individuals, has made Memorial in Springfield a top-notch tertiary middle that gives high-quality care to its sufferers,” Wilhelmi mentioned.

Chatham resident Jay Sexton, a former laptop methods supervisor at Springfield Memorial, was among the many staff laid off in 2023 however mentioned there have been no exhausting emotions about his layoff.

“It is easy guilty individuals for selections you did not have to make,” Sexton mentioned.

Quite the opposite, Sexton, 51, who labored for Memorial 23 years, together with a number of years as an emergency room nurse, mentioned he thought-about Curtis a mentor.

“I believe Ed’s a improbable individual and chief,” mentioned Sexton, who’s now a full-time enterprise teacher at Illinois Faculty in Jacksonville. “I’ve nothing however optimistic issues to say. … He was very even-keeled in his method. He handled me properly and guided me properly. I look as much as him nonetheless.”

Mayor Misty Buscher and the Springfield Metropolis Council issued a proclamation that made March 18, 2025, “Edgar J. Curtis Day” within the metropolis. The mayor mentioned Curtis’ profession is a “story of success from an area one that stayed in the neighborhood to make that success occur.

“He retains a stage head, no matter how tense the state of affairs is, and he additionally understands that management is not all the time excellent news,” Buscher mentioned. “It’s important to ship dangerous information, too, however he delivers that dangerous information with caring and compassion.”

Curtis has served on the boards of the Springfield City League, United Manner of Central Illinois and Central Illinois Foodbank. He at the moment chairs the Springfield Sangamon Progress Alliance, which promotes financial growth within the Mid-Illinois Medical District and different components of the neighborhood.

“Ed understands the significance of getting a strong regional economic system,” mentioned Ryan McCrady, president and CEO of the Progress Alliance. “Throughout his service as board chair to SSGA, our neighborhood achieved billions of {dollars} of funding and important job development.”

Curtis lives together with his spouse, Sharon, in Springfield, and so they do not plan to depart. The couple have two grownup youngsters, and their 5 grandchildren all dwell within the Springfield space. Curtis’ surviving dad or mum, his mom, is 98 and nonetheless lives in Springfield.

“My last message to Memorial is one in every of nice gratitude,” he mentioned. “Whether or not it is the great instances or the difficult instances just like the pandemic, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances, it is the individuals of Memorial who make this group what it’s.”

Dean Olsen is a senior employees author for Illinois Occasions. He may be reached at [email protected], 217-679-7810 or x.com/DeanOlsenIT.