Neff, Brodie push experience in bids for Kootenai Health trustee re-election

Two longtime members on the Kootenai Health board of trustees announced they will both seek re-election in the May 18 election.

In a joint statement, Terence Neff, M.D. and Katie Brodie said the demands unimaginable growth continue to place on the area’s health care system require experienced leadership in the years to come.

“Kootenai Health cannot relax on its laurels,” the statement reads. “The area is seeing unprecedented population growth in Kootenai County. With this growth, Kootenai Health will be challenged in new ways. You need knowledge and experience as a patient, a medical provider, a board trustee, and as an advocate of the uninsured and underinsured, to help guide Kootenai Health into the future.”

In an interview Monday with the Coeur d’Alene Press, Neff and Brodie both stressed how the pandemic of the past year, the activity within the Health Corridor and the job creator that Kootenai Health has become makes the May election one of the most important on record.

“This is probably one of the more pivotal elections Kootenai Health is going to have,” Neff said. “We’re at a crossroads right now with where we want to take the hospital. Coming out of COVID, the hospital is faced with challenges we’ve never been faced with before: regulatory challenges from the government, reimbursement challenges, competition pressure from other places.”

Dr. Neff, a retired pediatrics specialist, has served 13 years on the board of trustees and currently sits as its chair. He said the board’s job of guiding the strategic future of Kootenai Health has evolved to the point where strategic long-range planning now requires a mindset that allows for change on a day-to-day basis.

“That’s where experience comes in,” Neff said. “The strategic planning for medicine is both short-term and long-term. In health care, people used to say, ‘You’ve got to think outside of the box.’ There isn’t even a box in health care anymore, and that’s where experience can make such a difference.”

Brodie, meanwhile, is running for a third term, having finished six-year and two-year stints. The board secretary and former special assistant under then-Gov. Butch Otter said the perseverance that took Kootenai Health from its origins to the economic driver it is today is what will catapult the organization forward in the years to come.

“Think about Kootenai Health as a community hospital,” she said. “It’s the little brick building we all remember. This community is very, very proud of what they have built. What they have built now has become a regional medical center with almost every specialty you can imagine.”

The Kootenai Health board of trustees is a nine-member body that oversees the strategic planning of the community hospital and its assets. While many equate Kootenai Health with the Health Corridor created to generate taxable growth around the hospital campus, the board of trustees and the urban renewal district are actually separate entities.

“The role of the board is to set the culture of the facility and to develop strategic planning for the facility,” Neff said. “We take that and we give it to the administrative staff and say, ‘This is what we want.’ It is up to the administration to make that happen.”

Brodie said ignite cda’s interest in developing the area around Kootenai Health only makes sense, considering the nearly 3,600 jobs the hospital brings to the table.

“[Kootenai Health is] an economic driver …” she said. “Urban renewal, to some, is a dirty word. I look at it as the biggest boon to Coeur d’Alene. I mean, you’ve got McEuen Park. You’ve got Riverstone. They played a part in the Kroc Center. And now, there’s 4,300 feet of public access to the water in Atlas [Waterfront Park]. It’s amazing. My faith is what can happen in the area due to urban renewal.”

Neff and Brodie, the two incumbents running in the upcoming election, not only announced their campaign plans simultaneously but also started a cooperative website for their campaign run, electNeff-Brodie.com .

Six candidates — Neff, Brodie, Chris Nordstrom, Robert McFarland, Duke Johnson and Stephen Matheson — have all declared their candidacies. There are three open positions. The top three vote-getters will be elected.

Catherine Hoffman and Christian Schmalz both filed but then withdrew their candidacies.

Election Day is May 18.