Born and raised on his family’s farm in southern Idaho, Pearland Medical Center CEO Matt Dixon said he did not always know he wanted to pursue a career in hospital administration.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Brigham Young University, Dixon got his first look at the medical industry while pursuing his master’s degree in business administration at the University of Michigan. Dixon helped produce business plans for a physician at the school who was working on a new skin cancer treatment.

Also during his time at UM, Dixon met with recruiting representatives from Hospital Corporation of America, which owns 160 hospitals nationwide, including Pearland Medical Center.

“That really was my first exposure to the health care side of things,” Dixon said. “That, coupled with my conversations with HCA, really drew me into wanting to be on the path to lead hospitals.”

Dixon accepted his first hospital administration position 13 years ago at St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, another HCA medical facility.

For the last two years Dixon has been in charge of Pearland Medical Center, the city’s first hospital, which opened in February.

Before the facility was built, Dixon said he was tasked with overseeing construction, hiring leadership and staff, applying all of the operational plans and policies and recruiting experienced doctors.

“We wanted to build a hospital that was ‘right’ from the ground up, which to me means being focused on the patient,” he said.

What attracted you to the Pearland Medical Center position?

[HCA] was recruiting a CEO to start a new hospital. I thought it would be exciting to start a new facility where you weren’t necessarily inheriting something that somebody else had set up and run. [I wanted] to be able to start something new, and that’s what drew me in.

What does it mean for Pearland Medical Center to be the city’s first hospital?

The hospital I came from before I worked here, St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, was the first hospital in Utah. It was founded in 1872 and had been there for close to 145 years. There’s a lot of history in that organization to look back to and continue to build on that tradition to draw upon the work that the predecessors had put into that facility and continue to carry that into the future.

I look out 50, 75 and 100 years in the future and think, “What we’re doing now is going to have an impact on what happens 75 years from now.” The culture we establish, the standards we set, the reputation we establish with physicians, our staff and patients, to me, is exciting. It has meaning. I’m thrilled to be a part of it.

What challenges come with opening a hospital, and how are you addressing those?

I think there are two challenges in operating a new hospital. One has to be the sheer amount of work that’s involved in it and trying to prioritize that work to have it well-planned out so everything is being done on time. I think we’ve done an excellent job at that. I can’t say enough about the staff that works here. There’s no way I could do this [by] myself.

I think the other thing that is a challenge is putting a culture in place where it’s a culture of not just doing things clinically right for the patient but also doing things right from a personable standpoint: communicating with [the patient], understanding their needs and adapting what we do to meet the needs of an individual.

How is the medical field changing in the Pearland area, and what do you see for the future?

One thing that’s pretty undeniable is that the access to health care is becoming easier for Pearland residents. You don’t have to drive to the [Texas] Medical Center or the Clear Lake area or the Sugar Land area [any more]. All of that [health care] is coming here now. Great care is right here in your own backyard, and maybe that’s debunking a little bit of a myth that you have to travel far away from home to get great medical care. I think in five [to] 10 years you’ll have other types of [health care service] providers. Acute-care hospitals, subacute-care, skilled nursing facilities, rehab facilities in addition to your general practitioners and specialists. All of that is going to be here [in Pearland].