When Javon R. Bea (MHA ‘78) joined Mercy Hospital in Janesville, Wis., as president and CEO in 1989, he initiated a remarkable 30 year transformation that turned the single community hospital struggling to make payroll into a thriving, nationally recognized integrated health system serving more than 2.4 million patients a year. Today, Mercyhealth Corporation includes seven hospitals, 89 primary and specialty care facilities, a home health and hospice division, and a wholly owned and operated insurance company that all together produce gross revenues of nearly $3 billion.
Under Bea’s leadership, Mercyhealth has been honored with numerous awards, including the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award presented by President George W. Bush.
To honor the almost unprecedented organic organizational growth and success Bea has achieved, the Mercyhealth Corporation Board of Directors recently announced that it would name the soon-to-open Mercyhealth Hospital in Rockford, Ill., the “Javon Bea Hospital.”
The new $505 million tertiary and specialty referral hospital and clinic will serve 15 counties in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. It will have private pediatric and adult inpatient rooms and extensive specialty services, including a high-risk, state-designated Regional Perinatal Center; a Level I emergency/trauma center; a Level II Pediatric Trauma Center; a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; and the area’s only Small Baby Unit.
Bea’s visionary leadership and drive has not only transformed the regional health care landscape, but it has also jump started the careers of many University of Minnesota MHA fellows. In 1991, Bea began a Fellowship Program at Mercyhealth in partnership with the University of Minnesota and that has mentored more than 55 Administrative Fellows and hosted 13 summer residents from U of MN and other MHA programs. Since the program began, every Mercyhealth fellow has been placed following their fellowship, with 100-percent of fellows being offered jobs with Mercyhealth.
As an MHA alum, Bea has maintained a strong, influential connection to the program as well, serving on the University of Minnesota MHA Alumni Association Board from 2010-2016, as President of the Board from 2013-2016, and by leading the integration of the Alumni Association/Foundation and the MHA Program into one management structure in 2014.
