Southern Ohio Medical Center: Large providers/insurers

Portsmouth, Ohio, is, like many old industrial towns, trying to keep people from moving away. Cowboy singer Roy Rogers lived in Portsmouth as a kid, but his family left to find work. There was an NFL team in town, but it moved to Detroit in the 1930s and became the Lions. But Southern Ohio Medical Center, serving the community since the early 1950s, is a beacon of local pride, letting healthcare workers advance and fulfill their career goals without packing their bags.

The hospital, No. 1 among large providers/insurers on Modern Healthcare's list of Best Places to Work in Healthcare for 2016 and No. 34 overall, encourages people to stay by offering tuition assistance, flexible scheduling and other support to further their careers. They call it “growing our own.”

That let the hospital hold on to Katy Stephens, who started as a nurse intern and was encouraged to become a registered nurse, with help from the hospital. Sixteen years later she's a nurse recruiter, visiting schools, and now she's the one working to keep people at home.

“They have this mentality of, 'I can't wait to get out of here,' ” Stephens said of the well-rounded students she sees in Portsmouth and the surrounding Appalachian foothills. “But you don't have to go anywhere to find a great employer right here.”

Those who do work for the 2,400-employee hospital tend to stay. Stephens marvels every year when the company awards long-serving employees. “There's always a 45-year (employee), some 30s. One year there was a 50,” Stephens said. And growing their own makes for a better work environment, she said.

The hospital doesn't use staffing agencies. “We don't have people who just come in (temporarily), who don't know where anything is,” she said. Those who decide to stay to work at SOMC “are really invested.”