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Baumgardner retiring as Alcona Health Center CEO

News Photo by Jason Ogden Retiring Alcona Health Center CEO Chris Baumgardner displays a proclamation from the State of Michigan recognizing the agency being awarded the Quality Health Care Award by the Bureau of Quality Health Care. Baumgardner, who is retiring after 33 years with the agency, said it has been a long road to get Alcona Health Center where it is today.

ALPENA — After 33 years as the CEO of Alcona Health Center Chris Baumgartner is retiring.

The Hubbard Lake resident will be replaced by COO Nancy Spencer, BSN, MAOM to fill the role of CEO effective Jan. 1, according to a press release.

AHC officials said Baumgardner directed the expansion of AHC from one medical and dental site in Lincoln with two providers, to 12 clinic sites and 20 school behavioral health sites in eight counties in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. The agency now has 320 employees, 76 of whom are medical, dental, pharmacy and behavioral health providers.

Baumgardner is originally from Chicago but says Michigan is her adopted home. She came here with her husband Roger in 1970.

She has a Master of Arts Degree from Southern Illinois University and, prior to accepting her position at AHC in 1985, served for seven years as director of a nine-county Area Agency on Aging and taught English at Alpena Community College for three years.

According to Baumgardner when she started 33 years ago healthcare was more inaccessible in the region for many.

“I was teaching at ACC and my colleagues said I wouldn’t be able to get into a doctor, but they knew some (medical professionals) and said they could get me a doctor,” she said. “There were just not enough doctors around for the population.”

According to Baumgardner there were many forward thinking people in the community who worked to expand services to people and get medical facilities for the population.

“Healthcare in northern Michigan has changed so dramatically that is would be almost impossible, almost unimaginable, to go back to where we were in 1985,” Baumgardner said.

Baumgardner said of the many achievements made by AHC employees, herself and other agencies, was the increase of mental health care for the community.

“It’s very hard to find psychiatrists and it’s hard to convince people in that particular specialty to come up to an area that is rural and geographically really spread out,” she said.

Many of those professionals were convinced that they could make a life for themselves in the region. She said with the support of the government mental health care has increased for the region. Baumgardner said it is an important resource to have as needs increase.

“I never dreamed that behavioral health would be as critical as service as it is,” she said. “We do both middle to moderate behavioral health issues, we also have the services of tele psychiatry.”

That service allows the video conference doctor appointments between patients and doctors who are hundreds of miles away. She said there was also an increase in mental health care in schools.

“They are really helping the school environment helping kids who are experiencing difficulties in school or families, it’s really changing how they are able to get things done,” she said.

Baumgardner said medical attention currently and in upcoming years needs to be aimed at the ever-growing opioid epidemic that is hurting the community.

“If you look at some of the statistics about opioid utilization, northern Michigan ranks way up high, we’re up in some of the highest counties, there are solutions, they are not easy solutions and they require some real strong focus on dealing with people who are now suffering from addiction,” Baumgardner said. “We need to have better education to the public and to physicians and mid-level providers and what appropriate levels of (opioid) utilization are.”

Baumgardner said she was heartened and grateful for the community in her tenure as CEO.

“I took this job in 1985, I never would have dreamed it would be a 33-year career and had the privilege to serve so many communities in northeastern Michigan,” she said. “I don’t have a healthcare background, but I feel like I’ve been so honored to implement some of the services that we have been able to provide to people, it just makes me feel so good to know that we’ve really helped people and helped improve health care in Northeast Michigan.”

Baumgardner said she planned to remain active with several health organizations and boards and travel with her husband.

Jason Ogden can be reached via email at jogden@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5693. Follow Jason on Twitter @jo_alpenanews.

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