The 'Maximizer'

COEUR d’ALENE — Jon Ness has taken an online test formerly known as CliftonStrengthsFinder about five times. It assesses a person’s talents and, for Ness, the answer was always the same.

“Maximizer.”

Such a person is one who focuses on making good things better; who focuses on strengths, not weaknesses.

“Everybody has weaknesses,” Ness said. “My focus is on what are you really good at, what’s your strength? I’ll find a way for you to take advantage of what you were born to do.”

The 68-year-old employed that strategy in his 13 years as CEO of Kootenai Health. Friday, his last day on the job, a relaxed Ness sat down in his almost empty office for an interview with The Press.

Staff wore aloha shirts, a festive farewell, of sorts, to their boss. In the corner sat two boxes.

“That’s all I’m taking with me,” Ness said.

But he leaves much more behind.

Kootenai Health is a highly regarded regional medical center that has grown dramatically since he came on board in September 2010.

When he arrived, it had 1,800 employees and an annual budget of about $280 million. Today, Kootenai Health employs more than 4,000 and has a budget of more than $900 million.

Ness said he knew one thing for sure from day one: “This health care organization is going to grow. It’s going to need to grow.”

It would need more physicians, more clinical programs, bigger facilities, better technology and more employees.

“I could just see what was going to happen,” he said. “A hospital is a good reflection of community growth. You can literally just track that.”

As if to prove it, he pulls out a few sheets of paper, each with the heading, “Kootenai Health — Our Journey.” It lists some of the accomplishments of each year under his watch.

They include:

2011: Total Joint Program begins.

2012: Opened a patient transfer center.

2013: Surgery expansion, one new operating room, one OR expanded and six pre/post patient bays.

2014: ACS Level III Trauma Designation.

2015: Established Kootenai Care Network.

2016: Established Wound Care Clinic.

2017: Gallup Great Workplace Award.

2018: Rehab services deployed in Post Falls.

2019: Acquired 100% ownership of Kootenai Urgent Network.

2020: Signs Epic Care Connect Agreement with Multicare.

2021: Magnet for Nursing Excellence.

2022: Established Forensic Nurse program in region.

2023: Completed $40 million Heart Center and main operating room.

“You can see the evolution of the organization each year,” Ness said.

He takes pride in how far Kootenai Health has come and, most importantly, what it has meant for the health of the community he knew would attract people from across the nation.

“It’s our responsibility to make sure we continue to grow to support that community,” Ness said.

He said they were able to achieve so much because staff agreed on why they were there and what they were doing.

“People are more focused on execution and implementation rather than disagreements about how to do things,” Ness said. “It was something we all did together. It wasn’t something I did myself. It was a team effort and a lot of people contributed to it.”

He said Kootenai Health's conversion from public hospital district to a private not-for-profit corporation “was a really good move and will help us continue to grow.”

He said the best part of his time with Kootenai Health was the people. There was a culture among staff that what they did was important to the broader community in North Idaho, and they give it their best every day.

His biggest challenge?

Without hesitation, he said, “Easily COVID-19.” It went on for two years. It left staff fatigued, stressed and, at times, uncertain.

“That was a really difficult time, but we came through and recovered,” he said.

As a CEO, Ness said that, at the end of the day, he believed “the most important thing you can have is your own credibility."

“If you say you're going to do something, you need to do it, and you need to do it well," he said.

Ness said a career in health care is complex and never-ending, where one must be constantly thinking not just about today’s needs, but tomorrow’s, next month’s, next year’s and beyond.

"It’s all-consuming. You have to be here. It makes it difficult to just go up and go on vacation," he said.

Still, he said he enjoyed it for 38 years.

“There is always another challenge,” he said.

Ness said, in retirement, he plans to do something he has never done: Have a blank page for the days ahead. He wants to consider his options, spend time with wife Pam, perhaps go to the Kentucky Derby, hike the Grand Canyon or attend a March Madness game. 

“I have no commitments to anything,” he said, smiling.

But Kootenai Health will never be far from his thoughts.

“I’ll always think about it. It’s important to me. I want the next CEO to be very successful. There’s nothing more important to me than Kootenai Health continuing to be successful, but it will be in somebody else’s hands."

Jamie Smith starts Monday as Kootenai Health's new CEO. For the past eight years, he served as president of Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver, a 400-bed, faith-based teaching hospital and speciality referring center. 

Despite trying to keep up with all the technological advances in health care and managing thousands of talented medical professionals, Ness said there is something very basic, but very essential, to being a leader in health care.

“At the end of the day, it is important in this role to have empathy for other people,” he said. "There’s a lot of needs out there in the community. Always remember why we’re here — and that's to serve everybody. A lot of people are in difficult situations and circumstances. So think about their perspective of what they need. The same is true of our employees.”

At 6-foot-5, Ness is trim and fit, feeling good, with high hopes and expectations for what life brings his way. He is ready.

“My lovely wife is a health and fitness expert. She’s got me in a good place," he said.

You could say Jon Ness did the same for Kootenai Health.