The Opportunity
A not-so-small miracle has taken place over the past ten years in Southwest Oregon.
Building on a legacy of over 50 years of service, the people of Adapt Integrated Health Care have quietly built a health care powerhouse, integrating science, compassionate care and innovation to promote the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities in Douglas, Josephine, Curry and Coos Counties, the four southwesternmost counties in Oregon.
In 1971, Adapt began offering addiction treatment and prevention in its hometown of Roseburg, Oregon. Since then, Adapt has continuously expanded its services to include primary care and mental health as well as addiction services.
Growth over the past decade has been remarkable, as indicated by the chart below. Importantly, that growth has been a byproduct of Adapt’s approach to community health, not a goal or strategic driver in and of itself.
Adapt has been led for the past decade by Dr. Greg Brigham, a board-certified clinical psychologist and Fellow of the American Psychological Association. In late September, Adapt’s board of directors shared news of Dr. Brigham’s decision to retire by May 2025, prompting the current search for his successor.
Adapt’s next CEO will inherit an organization with significant momentum: Operating revenues of over $80 million, a highly motivated staff of over 500, and a growing, intersecting array of primary care, mental health and addiction services provided through multiple locations across the region. The organization has an unusually strong balance sheet, with most of the funding in place for a new 40-acre campus in Roseburg expected to break ground in the first half of 2025, permitting consolidation of many services and expansion of others within one purpose-built campus.
Perhaps most importantly, Adapt has earned the trust of the people it serves, the partners, agencies and departments it collaborates with, and the regulators who monitor its quality.
Adapt may look quite different from what it did a decade ago, but the values that drive it have remained consistent: professionalism, caring, accessibility, excellence, respect, innovation and integrity. Far from being just slogans on a shelf, they inform everything Adapt does for its patients and its communities.
The Organization
Adapt Integrated Health Care is a CARF-accredited nonprofit serving the people of rural southwestern Oregon. While Adapt describes itself as “an Oregon leader,” the organization’s reputation is in fact national. For example, of Oregon’s 30 community health centers, Adapt is the only one to receive this year’s HRSA Health Center Quality Leader Gold Badge, placing it in the top 10% of all such facilities in the country.
Adapt is also certified as a Patient-Centered Medical Home
Adapt’s services are extensive, overlapping and, wherever possible, integrated. Among its core offerings:
Adapt’s extensive website offers numerous examples of its innovative approach to integrated health care. Here are just a few, some with systemwide impact and others distinctly personal:
Adapt’s latest annual report to the community, available here, contains a fuller summary of the organization’s approach and services.
Adapt Integrated Health Care has clearly evolved into a complex, multifaceted organization, but its overall mission remains straightforward:
To provide our communities access to world-class primary care, addictions treatment, behavioral health care and prevention services to promote health and restore lives
Experience Required
The Mandate Adapt’s next CEO will lead an organization of committed professionals providing life-changing and life-enhancing services to thousands of residents in rural Oregon who otherwise might go underserved, if not unserved. Following a decade of growth that an observer in 2014 could hardly have imagined, Adapt in 2024 is a trusted, dependable and even irreplaceable resource that impacts the region in multiple ways, all of them consistent with a commitment to improved community health. Adapt’s leadership team is an unusually humble group. To a person, they are proud of Adapt’s impact, and they relish the spirit of inventiveness and innovation that pervades their work and their collective aspirations. Admittedly, some are tired— growth can be exhausting—but the overall atmosphere is decidedly upbeat, dampened only by uncertainty triggered by the present executive search. Adapt’s next CEO can expect a mandate with several overlapping priorities, among them: Stability. Adapt’s leadership team is a highly tenured one. Several executives have been with the organization for decades, and only a few are within their first five years with Adapt. One senior leader will be retiring at the end of 2024,? and another long-serving leader has said she will be stepping down next August. There may be other opportunities for restructuring or realignment, but overall Adapt’s day-to-day operations are overseen by a devoted cadre of executives with enormous, shared respect for their CEO. The new CEO’s first mandate, therefore, will be to provide a steady hand, ensuring the stability of Adapt’s services following the change in top leadership. That is not to say anything is cast in stone, just that a measured approach to leadership will likely serve long-term goals best. Whatever the assets the next CEO brings to bear, reinforcing the existing climate of trust, collaboration and mutual respect—a “culture of kindness,” as one member of management put it, but also a culture of high expectations—will be important to a successful transition. Catalytic leadership. Adapt has proven itself to be an exceptional place, and its network of stakeholder—including providers, community leaders at county and state levels, program partners and individual champions as local chiefs of police—is accustomed to catalytic leadership with a soft touch. In short, the CEO will not have to create a mandate for progress; rather, the CEO will inherit one. High expectations can be a blessing or a curse; in this case, they come with the territory. Infrastructure. While strains on Adapt’s infrastructure are not obvious, the growth of the last decade inevitably means that some systems are not fully fleshed out and others may simply be new. The CEO must ensure that Adapt’s services and people are supported by the right systems and that decision-makers have access to relevant, useful data for integration and expansion
Salary
Salary commensurate with experience
For consideration or to suggest a prospect, please email Adapt@BoardWalkConsulting.com or call Sam Pettway or Patti Kish at 404-BoardWalk
Adapt Integrated Health Care
Roseburg, OR
C1EO