photo by: Contributed

LMH Health's main campus at 325 Maine St.

Story updated at 4:28 p.m. March 25:

LMH Health President and CEO Russ Johnson will retire in August, the hospital announced on Tuesday.

The pending change means the hospital will be looking for new leadership for the first time in nearly a decade, as the regional health care market becomes more competitive and as LMH works to remain an independent, community-owned hospital.

“The (LMH) board asked me what are my thoughts, as I step away, for it to consider,” Johnson said Tuesday in an interview with the Journal-World. “At the top of my list is that we can and should remain an independent community hospital.”

Johnson said remaining an independent hospital — LMH Health is run independently of Lawrence City Hall by a city-appointed board of trustees — is critical because it “allows you to determine for yourself what your community needs.”

“If we lose independence, we don’t have a new cancer center,” Johnson said, pointing to construction work underway at the hospital that will add additional cancer treatment capabilities this summer. “That wouldn’t happen.”

photo by: Submitted

Russ Johnson

Johnson’s departure from LMH, though, doesn’t come as the result of any shifting winds in the health care market. Rather, Johnson, 66, said it simply is time to spend more time with his family and focus on other life goals.

“I really love what I do, and in some ways, I feel like I’m at the top of my game,” Johnson said. “But you get older and become mindful of the other things in your life that you want. Being with my family and my kids is a real strong pull for (wife) Isabel and I.”

LMH’s Board of Trustees will conduct a national search for Johnson’s replacement, the hospital announced.

“We are grateful for Russ’ visionary leadership and commitment to the mission of LMH Health,” said LMH Health Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Shari Matejka Quick. “Being a hospital CEO is a demanding job requiring a highly honed set of skills and the ability to navigate a range of issues every day that are unlike any other industry. Russ led LMH through unprecedented challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic. We are grateful for his service, and we will confidently support him until the end of his tenure.”

Johnson’s last day at LMH is scheduled to be Aug. 28, he said. Johnson will have been with LMH Health for just more than nine years at the time of his retirement.

The president and CEO position at LMH is one of the largest community leadership positions in Lawrence, overseeing not only the 174-bed hospital but also 28 doctor’s offices and specialty clinics that are owned by LMH Health. Johnson, who has a compensation package in excess of $500,000 per year, oversees more than $1 billion in gross revenues. The nonprofit health system, at times, has been strongly profitable but also went through a period prior to 2024 where expenses exceeded revenues four out of the last five years. LMH ended that streak in 2024, with operating revenues exceeding expenses by about $6 million.

Johnson, who grew up in Merriam, has been in the health care industry since 1984, when he began working for a network of hospitals in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He came to Lawrence after having served as the CEO for San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center in Alamosa, Colorado, for 13 years.

During his LMH tenure, he oversaw the construction of the LMH Health West Campus near Sixth Street and the South Lawrence Trafficway, and will oversee the opening of a new cancer center at LMH’s Sixth and Maine hospital campus in June.

Johnson also led discussions that created a new strategic partnership with The University of Kansas Health System. The partnership has included doctors from KU’s Kansas City, Kan. medical center campus providing services in Lawrence at LMH facilities. It also has included provisions that make it easier for Lawrence patients to receive some care at the large KU hospital, while also having other portions of their care remain based in Lawrence at LMH.

The partnership became a key strategy in LMH determining how to remain an independent hospital as hospital chains continued to grow their footprints in Kansas City and Topeka. Johnson said that changing competitive environment was one of the first big issues he noticed upon taking the LMH job nearly nine years ago.

“For a number of years, we had a strategy of being Switzerland, where we were friend to all but not aligned with anyone,” Johnson said of LMH. “That was our strategy for protecting our market and keeping people away.

“But my belief was and still is that our industry has shifted from colleague to competitor. I didn’t feel like that collegial relationship would work much longer.”

In other words, if LMH did nothing, Johnson was concerned Kansas City and Topeka competitors would set up operations that siphoned off the most profitable parts of health care in Lawrence, leaving LMH greatly diminished.

The partnership agreement with the KU health system, signed in early 2023, created a new middle ground. The agreement gave the KU system an inside track to providing the more advanced medical care — open-heart surgery, burn care, advanced cancer treatments, among others — that LMH doesn’t offer and likely won’t in the future.

However, the partnership did create questions among some community leaders about whether the deal was a prelude to KU health system ultimately gaining control of LMH Health. On Tuesday, Johnson said he understood those concerns. They floated through his head too as the deal was developing.

Johnson, though, said he feels good about where the partnership stands, and believes KU’s health system may be “getting the best of both worlds” by being able to have good access to Lawrence patients without the need to make major capital investments to buy the hospital system outright or create its own facilities in Lawrence.

“That relationship is starting to blossom for us,” Johnson said. “I probably am more confident in it now than I was a couple of years ago, when I maybe had a little bit of trepidation of what it would be to partner with a big health system … But it really feels like we have a genuine partnership with them.”

Johnson said he understands there will be a “temptation” for some to believe that a change in leadership at LMH will be the point where a bigger partner steps in, but he doubts that will be the case.

“I think the board and the medical staff are very resolute about maintaining our independence,” Johnson said. “And I think our community wants that. It really does.”

As for what’s next for Johnson, he said he and his wife are still developing plans for their future, including whether they relocate closer to their children on the East Coast. But Johnson said he expected to remain passionate about the advancement of health care, and said he’d continue to be greatly appreciative of the many people who have made a career of it.

“I have a lot of gratitude to the 1,900 people who work here, who every day take care of patients,” Johnson said of LMH’s workforce. “You know, I don’t know how to take a blood pressure. I couldn’t even take your blood pressure. I’m deeply grateful to the clinicians and nurses and physicians who work here.”