News Photo by Mike Gonzalez MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena President Mike Erickson poses for a portrait at the hospital on Wednesday.

ALPENA — MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena President Mike Erickson reviewed the hospital’s past year, looking back at new surgery programs and the Alpena Community College courses that will bring new nurses to its staff.

Erickson started his annual review with what he considered to be the most important program introduced for the community’s well-being: the Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Program that launched on Oct. 23.

The new program helps patients with an ST-elevation myocardial infarction, also known as STEMI, which is the most serious type of heart attack. The Alpena hospital received a new certificate of need from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, staff there now can perform the procedure.

At the moment, Erickson said that the hospital has completed 11 PCI procedures.

The hospital wants to apply to do non-STEMI and elective heart operations, which requires that MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena completes 36 STEMI procedures within 12 months and that the hospital keeps the program up for 12 months.

“What I’m proud about is that 11 people’s lives are saved,” Erickson said. “That’s a big deal to us. Eleven people have had a positive outcome with us because the vessel could be opened up right here in town. I’d say that’s number one for me.”

Erickson reported that eight nursing students who were a part of the ACC’s collaborative nursing programs with MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena have graduated and joined the hospital’s staff.

He also said that 28 other students graduating in 2024 are committed to joining hospital staff.

“About 28 out of 48 students have already signed with us,” Erickson said. “I’d love for every one of them to come work for us, but I also recognize that I would love for someone to go work at the nursing home or at the Alcona Health Center. I want all of them to stay in the community, if we can. That benefits everybody.”

MyMichigan Health, the Midland-based nonprofit that owns the Alpena hospital, saw an $8 million loss in 2023. One of the challenges that the health organization faced was the reliance on so-called agency nurses, which are outsourced traveling nurses, to help around the hospital system.

Erickson hopes that the hospital will not need to use agencies to hire traveling nurses with the help of nursing programs seen at ACC.

The final major point that Erickson covered is a plan to open up another upstairs hospital wing by the end of the year.

“There are times when we’re full,” Erickson said. “There are times where we do have to transfer some people because we’re just out of staffed beds. We already have the licensed beds, we just don’t have enough nurses and PCTs and support staff to open all of those today. We’re hoping to have enough staff as part of that 28 coming on board.

“At the end of the day, we want to provide more quality services to the community,” Erickson continued. “We cannot do everything, everywhere, but I want to keep appropriate care close to home. That’s why I want to have more nurses, that’s why I want to open up another floor upstairs — it’s all about providing more care in town so that folks don’t have to drive three to four hours away to receive what we can deliver in a quality manner here, locally.”