North Dakota Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced that Vincent Roehr and Douglas A. McMillan have joined the agency to help guide the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP). This program is a five-year statewide investment to strengthen rural health care and help make North Dakota the healthiest state in the nation.
“We are building a high-impact team to transform health and wellness throughout North Dakota. These leaders bring the vision, expertise and commitment needed to strategically improve rural health care,” said HHS Commissioner Pat Traynor. “Their depth of experience and passion for serving tribal and rural communities will help us drive meaningful, lasting change across the state.”
As tribal liaison for the RHTP, Roehr will help ensure tribal perspectives, priorities and sovereignty are meaningfully integrated into the program, helping advance rural health care in tribal communities. He will help tribal nations successfully access multiple funding opportunities available through RHTP over the next five years.
Roehr has spent many years serving tribal communities through nonprofit leadership, higher education and state-level appointments.
Before joining HHS, Roehr served tribal communities in the private nonprofit sector with the Casey Family Foundation. As an enrolled citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, he served his community as the executive director of the Child Safety Center for Chairman Fox of MHA Nation and taught social work classes as an adjunct professor at Nueta, Hidatsa, Sahnish College. He also served as a board director with the Mountrail McKenzie Human Service Zone and was appointed by Gov. Doug Burgum to the Children’s Cabinet as the tribal nations representative.
Also joining the team is McMillan, a seasoned health care executive known for leading rural hospital systems and driving organizational transformation. As a RHTP advisor, McMillan will lead efforts serving North Dakota rural health care facilities assessing their current operations and building effective pathways from “survivability to thrive-ability.”
With McMillan’s experience he will work with rural critical access hospitals to improve fiscal operations, workforce recruitment, retention and improve use of technology and health outcomes for North Dakota residents.
McMillan has more than 40 years of leadership experience in health care administration, focusing on physician recruitment, financial stability, operational excellence and patient-centered care.
For more than 28 years, McMillan served as chief executive officer of Cody, Wyoming Regional Health, a rural health system with more than 145 beds and annual revenues exceeding $100 million. Under his leadership, the organization saw substantial revenue growth, expanded service offerings and major capital projects.
As a transformational and people-first leader, McMillan emphasizes lean process improvements, governance relations, physician recruitment and workforce engagement. McMillan received his master's in health care administration through the University of Colorado.
He received the American Hospital Association Rural Healthcare Leadership Team Award, a testament to his ability to transform hospitals into high performing organizations.
“We are excited to have both Vincent and Douglas join our team. Both will help tribal and rural health organizations successfully access multiple funding opportunities available within the RHTP,” Traynor said.