ORANGE PARK – Clay County’s largest hospital has found a new chief operating officer in Pete Long-Innes, who’s been with the Hospital Corporation of America for 12 years.

Orange Park Medical Center is one of many hospitals in the HCA chain and it’s a natural fit for Long-Innes, who has long had his eye on the rapidly-growing hospital. When the position for OPMC COO opened up, he promptly applied.

“I said, ‘No time like the present,’ and here we are today,” Long-Innes said.

A colleague of his who worked in the same HCA division office had been filtering opportunities as they opened up, and he’d been watching for an opportunity at OPMC. With the recent opening of a 101,435-square-foot, five-story patient tower, he said OPMC is a hospital that’s rapidly moving forward and he was excited about the prospect of being a part of it. He also was looking for a place to put down roots. The Orange Park Medical Center and Clay County community was a perfect fit, he said.

His new position is a bit of a reunion with CEO Lisa Valentine. He’s excited to work with her to help the hospital’s current and future expansion plans.

Long-Innes started as an administration intern in Nashville. During his undergraduate years, he then became EMT certified while in college with the goal of working as an emergency room technician. He did so for about a year and a half in northern Virginia. His original plan was to become a doctor, but he quickly became allured by the broad stroke applications of healthcare administration.

Instead of helping a single patient at a time, Long-Innes could help an entire hospital and in turn, an entire hospital’s patients. He wanted to put in some ER tech time, though, because he “wanted to have some credibility with knowing what care delivery is like on the actual floor.” He jokes that he learned more in that year and a half on the ER floor than he did in his master’s program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

He continued to work part time for HCA healthcare during his time working toward a master’s and upon graduation, he did a residency between that HCA division office and one of the larger hospitals in the Richmond area.

“I spent time at both [facilities] and saw increasing levels of administrative oversight in doing so,” he said. “I was accepted into HCA’s executive development program and that was exciting because HCA is really strong about internal development and promoting from within to grow our own. It did so much for me in terms of readiness and preparing me for a role like this.”

That opportunity took him to Kentucky and he was there for nearly three years. Now he’s at Orange Park.

“Orange Park Medical Center’s one of those opportunities you look for in terms of a great position to land at,” Long-Innes said. “It has all the opportunity in the world. It’s a growing hospital in a growing community.”

He also spoke of the center’s complex surgery halls and renowned doctors like Dr. Michael Horowitz, whose special skill set focuses on neuroendovascular and intracranial neurosurgical disease. To build a program all around that is an incredible opportunity, he said.

“Orange Park Medical Center recently opened a $126 million expansion project housing 48 private patient beds for medical and surgical patients, as well as areas for patient registration, outpatient testing and imaging services,” according to an OPMC press release. “The expansion is adding more than 100 jobs for the community. The hospital is also scheduled to break ground on a 60,000-square-foot medical office building this spring.”

Long-Innes said it’s an extremely exhilarating time to join the organization due to the growth.

“It’s great to see this hospital continually advance to meet the needs of our community,” he said.

He hopes all of the recent construction and upcoming construction allows OPMC to fully transition to a hospital where patients have private rooms, rather than semi-private. He’s not sure if that’s going to happen soon. If not, he hopes a majority of them soon will be private.

Long-Innes said his new position tasks him with managing day to day operations of the facility while making sure clinicians and caregivers have the resources necessary to provide high-level care.

“I think to describe where I see this organization going...I think of depth and breadth, especially of our services,” he said. “It’s about really bringing high-quality advanced care to this community consistently and growing to meet the needs and the footprint of Clay County and surrounding areas.”