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Wrangell Medical Center has a new interim Chief Financial Officer.
Dana Strong is coming to Wrangell from Maine. He has a strong background in healthcare finance.
“I’ve actually worked at a couple of other critical access hospitals, a little bit larger than Wrangell. And then I was an interim controller and I’ve been a CFO at the second largest visiting nurse association in Massachusetts. I’ve had experience doing a variety of things including working in public accounting for four years. I was a Medicare auditor for 10 years. I just really love working in healthcare finance and auditing.”
Strong says he’s worked in Alaska before and he’s looking forward to living in a small town.
“I actually had done some work in Juneau about 10 years ago with another firm to help them get their Medicare cost reports done for most of the hospitals in the state and loved it. Maine’s very similar to Alaska in some respects. There’s a lot of coastline. We have lobster- you have king crab. People are very friendly. Wrangell is fantastic from what I’ve seen. They’ve really rolled out the red carpet. My wife loved it and we’ll hopefully be moving up before you know it.”
Strong says he knows the hospital has faced challenges in the past few years, but he’s hopeful for the future. Getting the new hospital finished is a goal for the whole staff.
“I think we’re headed in the right direction. If we can get the new hospital finally built that would be a big boost to morale for everyone. That’s ultimately the goal.”
Strong is the interim CFO. He’ll be in the position for six months to begin with. At that point the hospital plans to look for a full-time CFO.
