photo by: Bremen Keasey/Journal-World

Shelly Kortkamp, the new CEO and president of LMH Health, hopes to create a cohesive team and goals across throughout the organization.

For most of her career as a physician, Shelly Kortkamp didn’t envision ever shifting into the C-suite.

But as she was working as a hospitalist at the Hospital Sisters Health System in Illinois, Kortkamp, said the CEO approached her to see if she would serve as the Chief Medical Officer on an interim basis, where she “fell in love with the administrative side” of medicine. Kortkamp said working as a physician, there was sometimes an “us vs. them” mentality between the decision makers and the people on the floor helping patients. Now in a position of influence, Kortkamp felt she could make a difference.

“I saw an opportunity as an interim CMO to really make an impact and lift that veil to bring the boots on the ground folks and the administrators running the business together,” Kortkamp said.

Since she shifted into administrative medicine, Kortkamp said she has “seen it all” by working in large medical systems as well as smaller, community hospitals, but she had a “strong affinity” for working at the smaller hospitals. That drew her to LMH Health, where she was recently named as the president and CEO, becoming the becoming the first physician and first woman to hold that position in the hospital’s 104-year history.

Kortkamp, who started working at the hospital in November, said she is looking forward to building on LMH Health’s strong culture and helping the system grow to serve the community’s needs.

Kortkamp said the first thing she noticed was the “genuine commitment” shared by the employees, noting that it is important that the people in the hospital are committed to caring for patients and the hospital’s mission. But she said there can be room for improvement in streamlining some of the goals.

Kortkamp said she asked many employees about the hospital’s mission or current focuses, and they could all come up with a focus that “means something to them,” but there were many varying goals and ideas. That kind of variation can be understandable in the health care industry, which is “convoluted and complicated” and has so many different facets, Kortkamp said, but it can feel like the hospital has hundreds of things to achieve instead of a few.

“When there are 100 goals to work on, it’s more difficult to achieve them than if there are a handful of goals to get behind,” Kortkamp said. “I see some opportunity in simplifying and clarifying (our goals) … so everybody can get behind them.”

The fact she has experience on both sides of the hospital — in the clinical setting and boardroom setting — is something Kortkamp believes can make it easier to streamline those ideas. Kortkamp said she often hears from many frontline workers saying they wished the “C-suite knew what (they) were going through.” Her background means that she understands more than other administrators and makes it easier to bridge the gap between those worlds.

“Being comfortable in the clinical spaces and … already knowing the processes I think helps a lot,” Kortkamp said.

One area that Kortkamp said she feels there is room for improvement is aspects of LMH Health’s clinics. Although it’s technically a separate part of the company on the books, Kortkamp said that those clinics should not feel like a separate experience for patients or the workers. She thinks there is some work to be done to better unify the structure and collaboration to ease communication.

Kortkamp thinks creating a more standardized experience at the clinics can improve the operations. She said she has a vision that any patient can enter any LMH Health clinic and have the exact same experience so they know they are at an LMH Health clinic. Kortkamp said removing variations can improve the patient experience, but reducing inefficiencies between different clinics can save costs. That financial responsibility is something she holds near and dear because of the hospital’s status as a community hospital.

“It is the community’s money, it is their health care dollar we are responsible for,” Kortkamp said.

As Kortkamp looks to build on the hospital’s current programs, she also is taking over at a time when the system is working to expand its offerings. The hospital allocated a total of $28.9 million to spend on various projects in 2026, including renovating the hospital’s cardiac catheterization laboratory and starting the expansion of the hospital’s heart center. The hospital also opened its newly renovated Cancer Center, which received more than $7.2 million in gifts from donors, foundations and community partners, earlier this year.

Kortkamp said the hospital’s work around cancer and the expansion of the Heart Center are “imperative” for LMH Health, and those two projects align with the community’s needs. As the hospital looks to find ways to grow, Kortkamp said it is crucial those services are “in (the hospital’s) wheelhouse.”

At the same time as the hospital is expanding some of its services, changes at the federal level could have big impacts on health care. During a town hall event in October, health care experts shared that House Bill HR1, otherwise known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” could lead to millions of Americans becoming uninsured in the next decade, including 180,000 Kansans. Additionally, the legislation included changes to Medicare, which will likely impact hospitals down the road, especially ones in rural areas.

Kortkamp said she and the rest of the hospital’s leadership team, which she said was a “very strong senior leadership team,” have already been working to ensure LMH Health remains on sure footing despite those changes.

Kortkamp said one benefit for the hospital is that its mission already is aimed at serving underserved populations and reaching out to rural communities. Those goals align with the Rural Health Transformation Program, a federal program included in the legislation that provides a total of $50 billion to support rural hospitals, so Kortkamp said it “should position (the hospital) well to receive the funding” and expand its services. She also said the hospital’s senior staff have been working on advocacy and getting an audience with legislators so they are making informed decisions when it comes to funding.

But Kortkamp also said that in the health care industry, they are “quite accustomed to mystery” when it comes to government payments or new programs. She thinks the best way to manage those changes is to stay dedicated to its mission.

“It’s been rare that we are absolutely certain what’s going to come down the pipeline from Washington,” Kortkamp said. “So, knowing who we are, what our mission is and where we stand will be how we navigate (uncertainty).”

While she is still in the early days of her tenure, Kortkamp said her vision is to have a cohesive team across the whole organization and create a shared sense of purpose. She said LMH Health already has a lot of important strengths and bright spots, and she is excited to continue the hospital’s mission of serving the community.

“There are certainly some things to work on; I’m excited about the work ahead,” Kortkamp said.