SHELTON, WA – Always in a cheerful and positive mood, Kelly North does everything she can to make sure her staff knows that she is there for them. Her staff has grown in the past year — in addition to serving as Mason Clinic-Primary Care Manager, North now is the manager of Walk-In and Care Coordination services, with the Care Coordination team now integrated into Primary Care. Her eternal positivity and desire to go above and beyond for staff and patients are major reasons why her peers nominated and selected her as the June 2023 Employee of the Month.

“I try really hard, especially when my staff come to me, to drop what I’m doing and be there for them,” North said. “I try to have a positive attitude and sometimes it’s not easy. But I don’t want my team to know when I’m stressed. I want them to know I’m here for them.”

North joined Mason Health in November 2019, right when Mason Health was planning to merge three primary care clinics into the new Mason Clinic building in 2020. These plans stalled in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced the District to more slowly roll out plans for integration. North managed providers and staff at four different clinic sites until June 2021, when the last primary care clinic slated to move into Mason Clinic completed its move.

“It was really hard integrating the teams, trying to develop that change and shift the mindset to one of ‘We’re all in this together,’” she said. “We had to create standard work — three different clinics each had three different ways of doing things. It’s been challenging, but it’s fun to look back and see the progress.”

North is a Washington native whose medical career began in high school in Everett, where she worked part-time in a medical office (as well as part-time serving ice cream at Baskin Robbins). She explored Certified Nursing Assistant programs, but eventually worked for 24 years with the Western Washington Medical Group, where she did everything from filing to medical assisting to medical billing. She was the clinic manager the last eight years of that job. She then moved to Port Angeles in 2011 and worked for eight years as a Clinic Manager with Olympic Medical Physicians, where she oversaw the managements of the general surgery, women’s health and walk-in clinics.

In her time here, North has seen the Walk-In Clinic grow tremendously, and she is working on adding more providers to meet the demand. She is very excited about the integration of the Care Coordination team into Primary Care because now patients utilizing programs such as the Community Health Worker or Medicare Wellness will have improved access to those programs. In 2023, North became a Certified Rural Health Care Professional through the National Association of Rural Health Clinics.

“I love the community rural health setting,” she said. “What I love about Mason Health is that it is rural health care. It’s a small-town feel, but it operates like a professional hospital.”

North’s hobbies include yardwork and spending time with her granddaughters and grown children.

Mason Health, Public Hospital District No. 1 of Mason County, is celebrating 55 years of serving patients and the community this year. Mason Health is ISO 9001 Quality Management System certified by Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and is a licensed and accredited acute care hospital with a level four emergency trauma designation. Mason General Hospital and Mason Clinic are ENERGY STAR® certified and Mason Health is the recipient of multiple Practice Greenhealth Partner for Change and Greening the OR Environmental Excellence Awards. There are more than 100 physicians on staff in 19 specialties. For more information or to find a health care provider, visit www.masongeneral.com. To learn more about DNV, visit www.dnv.com/healthcare.