CEO Update: Moving forward with purpose

CEO Update
• 22 January 2026

CMH has had at its core a focus on a culture of excellence in everything we do. That really starts with our mission, vision and values. CMH has always been a value-based organization, and at the heart of our mission, vision and values is the patient.

As we move into our new facility and look to the future at CMH, the new facilities better reflect outwardly to the public what we already do as an institution inside. Over the last several years, we’ve really been focused on a culture of high reliability and ensuring that patients get that high level of quality every time. No matter where they go at CMH, we make sure that we go through all the appropriate steps to make sure you get excellent care every single time.

Continue reading the blog post or watch the video to learn more about ways CMH is planning for the future:

• Strengthening the leadership team
• Adding nephrology and dialysis services
• Building strong partnerships
• Growing in 2026 and beyond

Strengthening our leadership team

Recently, we hired a new chief medical officer, Dr. Staci Rogers. We’re changing the dynamics of that role with a vision to ensure that we’re leading with more of the physician voice involved in the way that we provide care across the system, allowing physicians to have more time dedicated to helping lead the organization. Whether it’s at the CMO level or the department level, I want to see physicians more actively involved in planning for the way that we provide care in the future.

We also have a new leader in the emergency department, Dr. Racheal Smith, who’s doing a fantastic job. We have employed physicians in the ED, meaning they’re all fully dedicated to CMH. Dr. Smith is strongly aligned with that vision to ensure that we have best-of-class care in the emergency department.

The ED group is very good about making sure that we’re very attentive to the needs of the patient and get them in the right place, for the right care, at the right time. The new facility will allow them to continue to elevate that.

Adding nephrology and dialysis services

One of the things that was really key was developing a nephrology service line and a dialysis center to meet the needs of the patients. The first step of that was the creation of the dialysis center, which took place when we opened the new center in December.

As the dialysis center grows, we’re going to be able to take care of inpatients in a better way. Patients who are in our long-term care facilities, patients who want to stay home and get home dialysis, all those things are going to be available. That’s an example of what we mean when we say that we’re highly reliable, excellent care, continuing to offer more things to our patients close to their home in a way they can get access to them, so that they get good outcomes.

Building strong partnerships

That’s our motivation for the partnership with the Central Care Cancer Center. As we look at a very difficult health care environment, the best way to ensure that we have these oncology services in our community is to partner with them, to leverage access to the hospital to ensure that we integrate that into our system so that we can share information more readily.

You’re going to notice that you still have the same physicians, you still see the same staff taking care of you, the same quality of care, but then with the support of the hospital. Continuing to elevate that care ensures that we have it five, 10, 15, 20 years down the road and we’re able to continue to grow it.

Another area that we’re really focused on is making sure we have access to behavioral care. As we’ve expanded those service offerings, we realized that we need a partnership to bring more services to Bolivar and the surrounding communities.

Burrell is one of the known and trusted partners in our region for providing behavioral services. We sat down with them and worked on a strategic plan for how we can work together to get more resources here in Bolivar. They’re very engaged with that and very excited to work with us in that endeavor.

The exciting thing about being a part of CMH is that we have so much community support. Community support is vital to what we do, because if patients are using us, if they’re trusting us with the care we provide to them, then we can bring more care opportunities here.

We have seen that continue to increase over the last several years, and it’s allowed us to have a growth vision. Instead of drawing back, we’ve been looking at how to expand services in the Bolivar and surrounding areas.

Growing in 2026 and beyond

What we have coming up this year and what we have coming up in the years ahead, it’s a very exciting time to be a part of CMH, and it’s an exciting time to be a part of the Bolivar community.

Because we’re growing to meet the needs of the community, that’s going to allow other aspects of the community to grow. It’s just a great place to be in Bolivar. The things that we have going on are very exciting. I’m very optimistic about our future.

Michael Calhoun shares the latest happenings at CMH in his monthly CEO Updates. He is the CEO/executive director of CMH and the Citizens Memorial Health Care Foundation.