Trustee: Hospital Filled with Passionate People

Boone County Hospital
Boone, IA

Like any community business person and leader, Troy Thompson of Boone has done his share of volunteering and committee work. He started to look for something more important and fulfilling — and he found it at the community hospital.

“I remember saying to my wife, ‘I’m just done with these committees that don’t have a meaningful purpose. Unless somebody asks me to do something important, I’m just not going to do it anymore.’ And about a week later, our CEO at the hospital called and said, ‘I want to talk to you about being a trustee.’ So the rest is history.”

Now he’s proud to serve his community through the Boone County Hospital board.

“I just think any time you live in a community, you get an instant sense of how important the hospital is for a lot of different reasons and a lot of different ways. So it was an easy thing to say yes to.

“I think people drive by the hospital dozens of times throughout the year and don’t even think about it until something happens and they need their hospital. And then it becomes the most important thing in their life right at that moment. It’s a big responsibility, and it’s important from top to bottom.

“Before I got involved at the hospital, I just had no idea of what the culture of Iowa as a state relative to hospitals and health care would be. And I now think I’m really in tune with that. I think the culture is fantastic. When you talk to other trustees, maybe it’s at a Iowa Hospital Association meeting or something like that, everybody takes it very seriously. When you talk to providers around the state, the bar is very high in Iowa for health care.

“You don’t run into people that are sort of just phoning it in and just — it’s not just a job. It’s someone’s very important career or it’s a trustee who is passionate about keeping the level of care very high in their communities. So I think the culture in Iowa is excellent.

“One of the things that makes it fun to be a (trustee) at the hospital is you get to interact with people who have a great deal of passion about what they do, people who just oftentimes really want to help others. And now they get to carry on in a daily basis here in our hospital. I’m impressed with the passion of the people that work at Boone County Hospital.”

Share this story.