Best, Brightest and Most Beautiful 2005: Kira M. Carter

Kira M. Carter, Chief Operating Officer of Sparrow Specialty Hospital

     Kira M. Carter, of Lansing, is Chief Operating Officer of Sparrow Specialty Hospital.  The Hospital is located at 1210 W. Saginaw in Lansing, Michigan and resides on the 3rd floor of Sparrow Hospital’s St. Lawrence Campus.   The Hospital was designed to treat critically ill adult patients with an average stay of 25 days.
Carter served from 2000 to 2004 as Senior Planner at Sparrow Health System, a non-profit regional tertiary teaching facility. She was responsible for the hospital’s benchmarking tools, trained departments on planning techniques, developed market share and utilization reports to monitor the Health System’s activities, developed a physician supply and demand study to assess the needs of the community, assisted departments with business plan development and financials forecast and oversaw and assisted the Health System in its day to day planning needs.
Prior to joining Sparrow Health System in 2000, Carter spent a year at Trinity Health located in Farmington Hills, Michigan.  Trinity Health developed out of a merger between Mercy Health Services (Farmington Hills, Michigan) and Holy Cross Health System (South Bend, Indiana) and consists of 44 hospitals and dozens of other healthcare organizations in seven states.  During her year spent with Trinity Health, she assisted in the closure of a hospital and aided in the development of the current Trinity Health organization structure.
She began her health administration career at Saint Louis University Hospital in 1997. From 1998 to 1999, she assumed various administrative in training roles. During this time she began to acquire her knack for health care and was instrumental in developing a physician referral tracking system at Saint Louis University Hospital and under her supervision and writing St. Mary’s Hospital of East St. Louis was awarded a $100,000 grant to open a community clinic.
Carter moved to the Lansing area at the age of three and is a product of the Lansing School District.  She attended Woodcreek Elementary School, Dwight Rich Middle School and is a 1993 J.W. Sexton High School graduate.  Carter went to further her studies in South Bend, Indiana where she received her Bachelors of Science from the prestigious University of Notre Dame.  After undergrad Carter earned a master’s degree in Health Administration from St. Louis University, where she was awarded the Paul R. Donnelly, Ph.D. Academic Achievement Award, for being the top student in her class and was inducted into the Alpha Delta Chapter of Delta Omega, which is a Honorary Society in Public Health.
Outside of work Carter is very active at her home church Bethlehem Temple Church, located on 1518 S. Washington Ave. Lansing, Michigan 48910, where the Pastor is Bishop Alfred Singleton.  She serves as the assistant chair of the Youth Ministry and serves as the Founder and Director of the Bethlehem Temple Church After School Tutoring Program, which meets every Wednesday from 6:00-8:00 PM.