For Hilton Raethel, outgoing president and CEO Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi, healthcare is “sacred work” that is motivated by passion and gives purpose.
“I’m so fortunate; this job is best job I’ve ever had, the best team I’ve ever worked with, the best board I’ve ever worked with … and I’m going to miss it,” he told Aloha State Daily.
Raethel plans to step down from the role he has held for nearly a decade on Jan. 15, 2027, due to personal reasons.
As a leader, he says his management philosophy is to provide clear vision, hire the best people, and give them the tools, training and equipment they need to thrive. An added perk is seeing his staff also find joy in their work representing HAH’s more than 170 members statewide, including hospitals, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, home health agencies, hospices, affiliates and more.
He gave an example of a tenured executive he hired early on who had the technical skills but had never worked in the sector before. In time, she “became a huge believer in what we do," he said.
He told ASD that one quality he would expect to see in the next CEO is a similar passion.
“I believe we have a successful model here, where [stakeholders] work together and collaborate daily, and I hope the next person continues that win-win model.”
The national search for a successor is being led by HAH’s board of directors under chair Stephanie Nadolny, who serves as president and CEO of Rehab Hospital of the Pacific. Click here to learn more about the CEO position.
“Hilton has made a profound impact on Hawaiʻi’s full continuum of care,” she said in a statement. “He has consistently grown the organization and built strong alliances on the local, state and federal level. He leaves behind a legacy of exceptional leadership.”
Raethel, who holds two master’s degrees in public health and health administration, began his career in healthcare in 1988 while finishing graduate school in his early 30s. He initially took a part-time job at the same Southern California-based hospital as his wife, Kathy, who was, at the time, a nurse being recruited for an administrative role.
“They offered me the job because they really wanted Kathy and three weeks after that, they offered me a full-time job,” he said with a smile. “I had been searching for meaning in my life and I found it in healthcare.”
The pair, originally from Australia, moved to the Islands in 2000. Kathy eventually became president of Adventist Health Castle in Hawai‘i and retired in March 2021.
Raethel previously served as vice president of contracting and decision support at Hawaiʻi Pacific Health and executive vice president and chief health officer at Hawaiʻi Medical Service Association, or HMSA, before joining HAH in 2017.
He set out to expand the organization's advocacy initiatives to include regulatory, judicial and community advocacy efforts, in addition to legislation, by “going straight to them.”
“We just call them up, talk to them and we don’t have to wait for the next legislative session, like most other states do,” Raethel explained. “The beauty of having these four areas of advocacy is that when our members come to us with an issue, we can jump on anything. We can go to payers, regulators and businesses and say, ‘Look, we got this issue, can we sit down and talk about this?’”
For example, HAH works directly with Med-QUEST, or Hawaiʻi's Medicaid agency, in addition to the state Legislature and others to improve reimbursement for its members.
Hawaiʻi healthcare providers had a long-documented shortage of healthcare workers, among other challenges, that were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Raethel.
To combat Hawaiʻi’s non-physician healthcare workforce needs, HAH has implemented high school healthcare employment programs and learning labs; worked with community colleges and universities to support “earn and learn” glidepath programs for nursing professions; and offered other educational and transitional support spanning from 8th grade students to adults.
More data about the demand for healthcare positions can be found in the organization’s Healthcare Workforce Initiative Report.
In early 2020, Raethel could not have predicted just how visible HAH would become for providers and patients in need as hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units became overwhelmed during the early days of the pandemic. During Covid, the organization collaborated with county, state and federal agencies to ensure the state had adequate oxygen and supplies.
“We got news Friday morning that by Wednesday we’d run short of oxygen because the consumption rate had gone way up. By Friday afternoon we had a first series of meetings with major players in the room and worked through the weekend. By Monday, we had a plan for how we were going to address this.”
HAH also delivered a coordinated response with the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency (HIEMA) and its partners during the 2023 Maui wildfires, as well as the Kona Low storms and hurricanes this year, among other disasters in recent years.
“You continually learn because each disaster is something different,” Raethel said. “No matter how prepared you are, there’s no way you can be prepared for everything.”
He says that another focus is to help reduce bureaucracy and administrative burdens on state agencies and payers, so more resources can go back to patients. Improving access to care statewide remains a goal.
In retirement, Raethel is looking forward to spending more time with family, traveling, being out in the water and working on home improvement projects. He and Kathy plan to stay in Kailua since “Hawaiʻi is home.”
Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros can be reached at kelsey@alohastatedaily.com.
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