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Meet Emanuel’s newest CEO, Mike Klepin
Mike Klepin
Emanuel CEO Mike Klepin, right, talks with Dr. Ali Reza in the hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab (KRISTINA HACKER/The Journal).

Mike Klepin has been the chief executive officer of Emanuel Medical Center for a total of four weeks — and one of those was a holiday week — but he already knows that the best thing about the Turlock hospital is the people who work there.

“The staff and the physicians and their connection with the community, and their true desire to provide great care to patients,” said Klepin when asked what Emanuel’s biggest strength is. “I mean, they take care of people they know in this community. They take care of family members. So there's a real sense of family and that's somewhat unique in the cultures that I've been a part of. So, I see that as a real strength.”

Central Valley Doctors Health System announced in October that Klepin would become the new CEO of Emanuel Medical Center effective Nov. 4, replacing Dr. Murali Naidu, who left to become the new CEO of another Tenet Health facility in San Ramon. Klepin is the fourth CEO to take the reins at Emanuel since 2018.

Originally from Ohio, Klepin came to EMC from St. Joseph Medical Center in Houston, Texas, where he was the CEO for the previous two years. Prior to that, Klepin served as the CEO of Southern California Hospital in Culver City, California, from 2018-2022.

The administrator — who shared that his best experience so far has been working at a 200-bed community hospital in Greenville, Texas, population of around 20,000 — said he was shocked at the quality of services that Emanuel provides while being in a relatively small town.

“We have what I would consider a world class cancer center. And just the services we're able to offer to this community, I mean it's unusual to be able to offer the breadth of services that we provide here to the folks of Turlock…We have a neonatal ICU, again, that's something that you don't typically see in a smaller community. We have a great stroke program. There are a lot of programs and services that we have here that I haven't seen in similar sized communities,” Klepin said.

He also knows Emanuel’s biggest weakness is patient access to primary care physicians.

“It's becoming more challenging as we've all struggled with inflation and the cost of everything. Really trying to focus on access is something that I see as a need,” he said.

Klepin went on to say that healthcare overall is struggling with greater demand and limited resources.

“We're always challenged with finding clinical staff, finding physicians. I don’t know if that's related to the pandemic, or just kind of the nature of how things have progressed…I think that's part of the dynamic of how healthcare has changed. And so you're seeing a lot more things like telemedicine, where maybe you don't have direct access… And again, it's just figuring out, how do you take those scarce resources and create a model where you know you're still providing access or improving access, but not compromising care?”

Looking ahead into 2025, Klepin said he’s focused on access to care and patients’ experiences while at Emanuel.

“What programs and services are we offering that we could improve access? What programs and services are we not offering that we should be considering? How do we meet the community need? And that's why I think being involved in the community helps me understand, on a one to one basis, what issues are out there in the community, and how can we meet them… and how do we improve the experience of the patient? Because that's part of the healing process, you know. I think we get caught up in the tasks of making sure that we're doing everything that's necessary so that you get better. But how do we make you feel through that process? So really going to try to focus on that, that experience, and make sure that you know we're improving the community's experience with our hospital, because that all actually improves quality of the outcomes,” he said.