The CEO of a MEDIC Regional Blood Center is being recognized for his decades of service to improving health care. The Greater Knoxville Business Journal named Jim Decker as a 2017 Health Care Hero. Decker won in the category of administrative excellence after being nominated by his peers.
Decker has been leading MEDIC for the past ten years. He is one of only three CEO’s in the organization’s sixty year history.
MEDIC provides tens of thousands of lifesaving blood products to 28 hospitals in the East Tennessee area thanks to the help of nearly 25,000 volunteer blood donors. Before coming to MEDIC, Decker served as a CEO and Administrator of several Tennessee hospitals. He earned his master’s of business administration from the University of Tennessee and his doctor of health administration from the Medical University of South Carolina.
Only seven people received a Health Care Hero award this year in various categories across the health care industry. Decker says, “I get gratification from the fact that I know what we’re doing is helping people on a daily basis. We’re an integral part of the health care system here locally because of the nature of what we do to make sure we have a sufficient blood supply. It’s important that we continue to operate and continue to be here to support the hospitals’ needs.”
Decker is also on the board of Community Blood Centers Exchange and is a former board member of America’s Blood Centers.
