From 50 Patients to 8,000: Meet Heath Bartness
Heath Bartness is the founder and chief executive officer of St. Croix Hospice, one of the Midwest's leading hospice organizations and one of the largest in the country. He founded St. Croix in 2009 with a simple but ambitious idea: people facing the end of life deserve exceptional care, and that care should be available regardless of where they live. His owners agreed to back the idea with one condition. He had two years to make it work, and the goal was 50 patients. Today, St. Croix Hospice serves nearly 8,000 patients across 10 states and more than 100 locations.
Heath's path to hospice didn't start in hospice. He began his career with the Iowa Department of Public Health and later served as secretary for the Iowa Senate Business and Labor Committee. From there, he moved into healthcare operations, serving as an administrator with Care Initiatives and later leading Arbor Springs, a long-term care center in West Des Moines. Running a nursing home in his early twenties, he came to love his residents and saw firsthand how much better end-of-life care could be.
Heath believes culture isn't created by words on a wall. It's created by the decisions leaders and employees make every day, and by how an organization treats the patients and families it serves. Under his leadership, St. Croix raised its minimum wage to $20 an hour for every employee, a move that gave one nursing assistant an $8 raise. He has also focused on bringing hospice to underserved communities and reaching patients earlier in their end-of-life journey. At St. Croix, he says, there is only one absolute: "We have to be the best."
Listen to the full conversation with Heath here.