Mike Wilson’s inherent ability to bring people and ideas together played a significant role in shaping Spokane’s largest health care system.

The former CEO of Providence’s Inland Northwest region was actively involved in creating the Providence Heart Institute of Spokane, forming Inland Northwest Health Services, converting St. Luke’s into a regional rehabilitation center, and managing the creation of the Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital.

Born and raised in Oregon, Wilson, 73, attended Pacific Lutheran University, in Tacoma, Washington.

After graduating in 1972, Wilson took a job as a bedside social worker at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Seattle.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the complexity of a medical center,” Wilson says. “I liked my work, but I wanted to get into management of a hospital.”

Wilson eventually landed administrative roles with the VA hospital in Spokane for two years, and then in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Loma Linda, California.

While working in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., Wilson earned his master’s degree in public administration with a focus on health care from Southeastern University.

“My goal was to get my master’s degree, become marketable, and get back to Spokane,” Wilson says.

He did just that, accepting a job as vice president of Providence Holy Family Hospital, in North Spokane, in 1982.

Two years later, Wilson was promoted to president and CEO of Holy Family. He held that role until 1988, when he transitioned to Sacred Heart Medical Center as a vice president.

During his three-year stint as vice president at Sacred Heart, Wilson helped build the Heart Institute, a task that proved to be challenging, he says.

"I had to convene five groups of cardiologists and two groups of cardiac surgeons and get them all to agree to move into the Heart Institute,” says Wilson. “The seven groups of doctors were all competitive with one another, so to get them to coalesce into thinking a singular way, we had to design the corporate structure in a manner that was attractive to them.”

The Heart Institute is still among the best of its kind in the country, Wilson contends.

“If you’re going to have a heart problem, you are really well off if you’re in Spokane,” he says.

While still in his vice president role at Sacred Heart, Wilson was named president of the Heart Institute. In 1991, he stepped down from that position and became chief operating officer of Sacred Heart.

During his time as COO, Wilson and Providence did the unthinkable and formed a partnership with the rivaling Deaconess Medical Center, now MultiCare Deaconess Hospital.

The history between Deaconess and Sacred Heart, at the time, was one of significant competition, Wilson says, but Deaconess was experiencing some challenges.

“It became pretty clear that Deaconess was having some serious financial issues,” Wilson says. “We feared that Deaconess would ultimately fail and then a for-profit would come in and take over.”

Wilson sat down with one of Deaconess’s leaders and proposed merging the two health systems’ helicopter services. At that time, Providence was losing nearly $2 million from its helicopter services, while Deaconess was losing about $6 million from its own.

Deaconess ultimately agreed to the proposal, and a new entity, called Inland Northwest Health Services, was formed to manage the two helicopter services.

The partnership didn’t stop there, however.

“The moment we created Inland Northwest Health Services, we began meeting on a regular basis in a very collaborative sort of way,” Wilson says.

Sacred Heart had created a records system to manage patient records and hospital information, but it quickly became evident that the system wasn’t going to work and was going to cost the hospital more and more money, Wilson says. Deaconess, on the other hand, had a very successful electronic medical records system at the time.

Wilson and Sacred Heart leadership approached Deaconess and arrived at an agreement to share the Deaconess system.

“That’s about as revolutionary as there was in the country,” Wilson says. “Two competing hospitals deciding they would go on the same information system.”

The system was used by Sacred Heart, Deaconess, Holy Family, and what is now called MultiCare Valley Hospital. It was put under the INHS umbrella.

Also during Wilson’s tenure as COO, what is now known as Providence St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Medical Center was still owned by Deaconess.

“St. Luke’s was just bleeding red ink, and we were again afraid that they were going to sell St. Luke’s and sell it to a for-profit,” he says.

Wilson again approached Deaconess’s leadership and suggested it convert St. Luke’s into a competing rehabilitation hospital—something Deaconess didn’t have at the time. As part of the agreement, Providence closed its existing rehabilitation unit and purchased half of St. Luke’s, ultimately creating a jointly-owned regional rehabilitation center.

The center also was added to INHS, Wilson adds.

“Between us, we created at that time one of the best collaborative relationships for the purpose of really improving health care in the region,” he says.

Later on, Deaconess began struggling financially again and eventually was acquired by Community Health Systems, a national for-profit health care provider that had no interest in continuing collaboration with Sacred Heart and Providence, Wilson says.

The change in ownership at Deaconess led to the eventual unraveling of INHS, which is now integrated into Providence and no longer a separate entity.

Community Health Services later sold Deaconess and Valley Hospital to Tacoma-based MultiCare.

“Now we’re back to having two not-for-profit health care systems in the community,” Wilson says.

In 2000, Wilson was named president and CEO of Sacred Heart.

Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital was created a few years later, and Wilson was a driving force behind the management of that project, he says.

In 2006, Wilson was named CEO and president of Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital in addition to his role at Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Two years later, he became CEO of Holy Family in addition to his Sacred Heart roles.

Wilson briefly retired in 2009 before coming back in 2011 and serving as CEO of the entire Providence Inland Northwest region for about three years.

“I loved every single day I worked at Providence,” Wilson says. “When you run a medical center, you’re definitely not the expert in surgery, you’re not the expert in radiology, you’re not the expert in food services, you’re not the expert in supply management, but you’ve got to bring all these people together.”

In his retirement, Wilson says he enjoys golfing, fly-fishing, and traveling with his wife of 47 years, Carol Wilson.

He has two sons, one of whom, also named Mike, is CEO of Spokane-based RiverBank. His other son, Jeffrey, lives in Clarendon Hills, Illinois.

Despite working in different industries, Wilson’s influence had an impact on the younger Mike Wilson's leadership aspirations.

“Seeing his roles and responsibilities throughout my lifetime was always something I looked up to and had a huge respect for,” his son says. “That was a huge motivating factor for me and something that I was genuinely really proud of.”

The younger Mike Wilson says others in the Spokane community have referred to his dad as a “master strategist.”

“He sees both sides of a situation really well,” his son says. “That has made him a good leader, because he can work with multiple people’s best interests.”

Since retiring from Providence, Wilson has remained active in the community by serving on numerous boards.

He assisted in creating the University of Washington-Gonzaga University Health Partnership and still serves as chair of its advisory board.

Wilson also is the chair of the Community Colleges of Spokane board and is still on the Washington State Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Charities, and Washington State Opportunities Scholarship boards.

“If anyone on the earth ever caused me to have an interest in giving back to a community, it’s my wife,” Wilson says. “She really should be the board member every time I get appointed to one."