{"id":385347,"date":"2026-01-01T19:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T19:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385347\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T19:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T19:57:12","slug":"meet-skowhegan-hospitals-new-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385347\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Skowhegan hospital\u2019s new CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

While most of Maine\u2019s hospitals are struggling to make ends meet, Redington-Fairview General Hospital is expanding.<\/p>\n

Newly appointed CEO Tiffany Comis wants to continue defying the odds.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tiffany Comis was named CEO of Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan in December. (Submitted photo)<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly think my main focus is just to maintain the culture here at Redington \u2014 maintaining staff retention rates that we have, and morale. My major focus, obviously, is to increase access to care, with the goal in mind to only do that if we can do it extremely well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiffany Comis<\/p>\n

The hospital serves more than 30,000 patients hailing from Somerset County to the Canadian border. It offers birthing services, emergency services, primary care and is one of the northernmost providers of oncology services.<\/p>\n

Comis, 45, lives with her family in Belgrade and prefers to spend what down-time she has outside, ideally on a lake. She started at the hospital as a nurse in 2004 and moved up through leadership, working closely with former CEO Dick Willett, who she says successfully led the hospital for more than three decades by promoting a positive workplace culture and making cost-effective decisions.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the hospital started an $18 million project to build a 24,000-square-foot medical office building<\/a> and two parking areas. Comis says the space will increase access to primary care, which is especially important for those with transportation issues and rural patients with few care options.<\/p>\n

Already, Redington-Fairview has seen an increase in patient volume, emergency department visits and birthing numbers following the closure this summer of Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville. For Comis, it underscored the importance of maintaining services long-term.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur birthing numbers certainly did go up after that closure, which is great,\u201d Comis said. \u201cWe are very dedicated to maintaining our birthing services here. And I think with that small increase in numbers, that certainly helps for some sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tiffany Comis, shown in 2020, was lead administrator of the hospital\u2019s vaccine clinic. She was named CEO of Redington-Fairview General Hospital in December. (Submitted photo)<\/p>\n

The hospital employs more than 900 people, and Comis says she is determined to maintain its \u201crelatively unheard of\u201d staff retention numbers, including a vacancy rate that ranges between 2.5% and 5%. The national hospital staff turnover rate was 18.3% in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She hopes investing in staff will help the hospital weather federal cuts and Medicaid work requirements mandated by the new federal budget, which state officials say will cause tens of thousands more Mainers to be uninsured once the requirements take effect Jan. 1, 2027. Comis said care management staff are already working with patients to ensure they have the most beneficial insurance coverage.<\/p>\n

One of her first steps will also look at expanding telehealth appointments and meeting more rural residents where they are. Comis said she will make decisions with patients at the forefront, continuing a decadeslong pattern of success at the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we make good decisions in regards to what best serves our community,\u201d Comis said. \u201cSo sometimes that is not bringing on extra service lines or extra staff. The decisions are really made both from a patient quality, as well as financial stability, standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While most of Maine\u2019s hospitals are struggling to make ends meet, Redington-Fairview General Hospital is expanding. Newly appointed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-385347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}