The WahZhaZhe Health Center has hired a new Chief Executive Officer, this time a man with nine years of experience leading the Absentee Shawnee Tribal Health Authority and stints as the administrator of six different hospitals in Oklahoma before that.
The announcement that the Si-Si A-Pe-Txa Board (Health Authority Board) had hired Mark E. Rogers, came two days after he began work on July 13.
Rogers, who is Cherokee, is taking over the clinic after it has had a rocky year but is poised for unprecedented growth with a new clinic planned for Main Street in Pawhuska that will be five times the size of the existing clinic.
“It is a great privilege to be here working with the Osage Nation Health Services,” Rogers said in a prepared release. “The strategic vision of the Osage Nation, the Health Board, and the Health Leadership Team all working together to take the Tribe’s Health Services to new heights, was an opportunity I am humbled, and honored, to be a part of.”
At Absentee Shawnee, Rogers appears to have been well-liked. He was well-praised by colleagues when the tribe announced his departure, and one employee, a therapist named Jon Lee Soap Jr. was particularly effusive: “See you later to the best employee ever hired by the Absentee Shawnee Tribe.”
In June, the Absentee announced the expansion of its Little Axe Clinic, and it has developed two mobile dental and vaccine clinics that go to patients rather than have patients travel for medical care. The tribe compacted its healthcare system in the early 1990s, making it one of the first to do so.
Rogers has been the CEO of the Absentee Shawnee health system since 2014. According to his resume, the AST clinics increased revenue and assets from $27 million to $107 million under his leadership and reduced workforce turnover from 300 percent to less than 2.5 percent. During that time span, AST also had no lawsuits, Equal Employment Opportunity or labor law complaints, and failed no surveys from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
Before AST, Rogers was CEO at Oklahoma City’s Kindred Hospitals, which he helped stabilize after the two hospitals were damaged by an EF-5 tornado. At Kindred, he also increased revenue and was noted for his help retaining special providers, his resume said.
Between 2002 and 2012, he was CEO at the 49-bed Pushmataha County Hospital. He came in to that job as the hospital was facing closure and implemented a turnaround plan that restored the hospital to profitability within a year – and earned it a clean audit, his resume says.
He has also worked for Assiniboine, Sioux and Choctaw nations as well as with Alaskan Natives on Kodiak Island.
Rogers is currently getting a doctorate in healthcare administration and is an adjunct professor at the University of Oklahoma’s School of Public Health. He was part of a team that attended a forum at Harvard University’s School of Public Health to revise a national healthcare program – that later became the Affordable Care Act. He has also garnered several awards for his work with elders and veterans as well as for the AST’s response during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He has a master’s level certificate in healthcare administration from the U.S. Air Force, in which he has served for 37 years. A decorated Gulf War veteran, he is currently a lieutenant colonel in the Oklahoma National Guard as the senior health services administrator with the 137th Special Operations Wing, Special Operations Medical Group. He is from southeast Oklahoma, is married, and has three children and three grandchildren.