New officer to lead Vista expansion

Joe Hurshe has seen expansion before, guiding major projects in his nine years working for Centegra Health System.

Now he'll begin seeing those projects through for a different company, as he became the chief operating officer at Vista Health System in Waukegan on March 30.

In his new role, Hurshe will be responsible for all ancillary clinical departments, all external locations, support services, and growth and development. That includes building new buildings and leading expansions for the company.

"It was an opportunity to advance and grow in my profession," he said. "I'd been in my previous role for close to seven years, and this represented an opportunity to advance my career."

Hurshe said he began looking for new opportunities at the end of last year.

"I had seen [Centegra's Huntley campus] through fruition, and I was very lucky to be able to lead those developments and open those centers, so to speak," he said. "The timing [of the Vista offer] after the first of the year was exceptional. It allowed me to look at an opportunity to develop further as a leader and guide a pretty aggressive growth strategy for Vista."

That growth strategy will begin with an 8,000-square-foot intensive care unit coming to the Vista Medical Center East campus in Waukegan.

"We're looking at strategies that are of ambulatory in nature, through physical integration of external locations to the hospital ambulatory services," Hurshe said. "It's the western market for Vista, the Lindenhurst surgery center there we want to grow and develop volume there. And we have hopes there someday could be a hospital there."

The hospital has a center for surgery, diagnostic imaging, rehab and primary care in Lindenhurst. It has presented plans for a hospital there that were turned down in January by the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board in a 2-2 vote.

"We're continuing to evaluate that strategy," he said of the hospital plans. "The support we've received from the community has been phenomenal. I'm very lucky to work with some of the most tremendous physicians and clinicians in health care."

Hurshe said his background had prepared him for leading these initiatives.

"I learned really how to apply my project management skill set, business development strengths and 15 years of health care experience – 10 years of work with the state of Illinois leading construction and development and integrating all development – and apply all of those skills to a project or initiative," he said. That was what was really attractive to me about Vista."

Hurshe's family, including wife Kelly and children Allison and Ryan, are planning to relocate from their Woodstock home in the future.

"I'm big into family," he said. "My wife is always very involved in the organizations we work with through our philanthropic committees and health care fund-raising. And we're big into community; we just look forward to doing that in a new organization."

As for his career, he credits much of that to his family as well.

"It starts probably with my upbringing," he said. "My parents always have been influencial with education and encouraged me to play sports growing up; that taught me to compete. My aunt is a nurse and a cousin is a health care planner, and they helped to form the path."