Forty Under 40: Jeremy Barclay

Jeremy Barclay’s efforts helped NMC-Bentonville raise its employee satisfaction scores from the seventh to the 94th percentile in the country from 2014 to 2015.

The 1,242 percent improvement was the biggest turnaround out of more than 5,600 hospitals in the nation. Barclay, hired to oversee the 128-bed hospital in the spring of 2014, described the turnaround as one of the most fulfilling moments of his career.

“If we can create an environment where the people who take care of patients feel great about coming to work, then everything else falls into place,” he said. “It’s been rewarding to build that kind of culture.”

Barclay, a Springdale native, earned a business administration degree from Arkansas State in 2002 before starting with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as a management trainee.

After two years, a desire to further his education led him to the University of Texas at Arlington where, in 2006, he earned a master’s degree in health care administration.

“Business is my passion, and the health care layer on top of that, being able to help people, was a best-case scenario,” he said.

Barclay, a board-certified health care administrator, has worked for Community Health Systems since 2009, with stops in West Virginia and Texas before returning to Northwest Arkansas.

He oversees roughly 515 employees at the hospital, and keeping up with the area’s growth by recruiting new doctors and adding new service lines has also been rewarding, he said.

Married with two sons, Barclay recently graduated from Leadership Benton County and volunteers with several civic organizations, including the March of Dimes.

A self-admitted “shoe freak,” Barclay has a collection of roughly 40 pairs of Nike tennis shoes, and another 40 pair of Air Jordans.

“I’ve never even put those [Air Jordans] on my feet,” he said.