Banker Philip Butterfield has just been named a trustee of the John Hopkins Medicine Board, an honour that rounds out his increasing involvement with health care initiatives in recent years.

Mr. Butterfield, a Bermudian who has been chief executive of the Bank of Bermuda since February 2004, returned to the Island in 2000 after a 28-year career in the US most recently with Citibank, the world?s biggest banking group, with a $228.6 billion market value.

He says he has stepped up his involvement in health care areas because he sees this as a critical area for the Island.

?I see the issues of healthcare and education as being the primary challenges that we are going to have to deal with here in Bermuda,? Mr. Butterfield said in an interview, as he added being a John Hopkins trustee to his involvement with two Bermuda healthcare initiatives: director and president of the Bermuda Health Foundation and a member of the board of trustees for the Bermuda Hospitals Charitable Trust. He is also chairman of the Board of Education.

Mr. Butterfield?s first involvement with a health care initiative was in partnership with his brothers Deputy Premier Dr. Ewart Brown and Chief Fire Officer Vincent Hollinsid, who along with a family friend, Murray Brown, formed the Bermuda Health Foundation three years ago.

Since then, the Foundation has been holding an annual dinner and golf tournament, to raise scholarship money for Bermudians pursuing careers in the health care field.

The one-time annual awards have so far gone to three nursing students, one young Bermudian studying to become a doctor, another studying physiotherapy and the sixth student studying to become a mental health professional. The three scholarships awarded this year were for $10,000 each.

Now, Mr. Butterfield said can be even more influential ?an advocate for Bermuda?s interests? by joining the John Hopkins board. Mr. Butterfield said there were perhaps half a dozen principle illnesses affecting residents in Bermuda ? including varying forms of cancer, diabetes, asthma and coronary disease. ?There is a very singular profile to Bermuda?s health challenges.?

And Bermudians must look outside for help: ?Given our resources, these are not problems that we can take on by ourselves. We are going to have to have the support of other experts.?

As a John Hopkins trustee, Mr. Butterfield said he ?can represent Bermuda in a very formal structured way at the centre of the decision making process?.

John Hopkins, ranked the world?s number one hospital for the past 14 years, employs 33,000 people ? equal to one employee for every two residents of Bermuda.

Mr. Butterfield?s experiences with John Hopkins predate his appointment as a trustee, with two personal accounts of the care the renowned Baltimore facility provides.

In the 1990s Mr. Butterfield?s mother suddenly fell ill and had to be rushed to John Hopkins on a special medical flight.

He rushed to her side, and was assured by medical personnel that the surgeons due to operate on her would be the same ones brought in if the President of the United States was brought in for treatment.

As well, Mr. Butterfield is himself a patient of John Hopkins with the bank electing in its executive health plan for the leading hospital to provide for its senior personnel?s medical care.

At home, Mr. Butterfield is working to make sure Bermudians also have better care locally by being a trustee of the Bermuda Hospitals Charitable Trust, which is structured to provide oversight to the Bermuda Hospitals Board as it plans to construct a new, more modern hospital.

Mr. Butterfield?s appointment to the Trust came after the Bank of Bermuda Foundation conducted an audit how the public perceived King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

?It is an institution in need of change,? Mr. Butterfield said of the hospital, with its structure dating back to the 1960s. ?Its infrastructure is in its final stage of usefulness.?

He added that the size of the hospital property limits expansion possibilities, as the community debates where the new hospital should be built.

The three options on the table are in the Bermuda Botanical Gardens, which is adjacent to the present hospital location, or at the Montpelier Arboretum, another park area within a mile of KEMH, or to rebuild on the existing site.

?We need to find a solution, and what our study found was that the community knew something needed to be done but wanted it to be overseen, especially from a financial perspective, by a dedicated group,? he said, hence the Trust being established.

A decision on the new hospital?s development is due in the early fall, Mr. Butterfield said this week. ?We have to have a healthy debate on that because our need is pressing,? he said.

The suggestion that a new hospital could be built on green space has drawn fire from some in the community.

Mr. Butterfield said: ?I support the perspective of preserving green space but it may be that the green space comes later? with one of the options being to convert the old hospital back to green space after demolition.

?We have to be both cognisant of time and cost,? he said. ?Building on site is a longer project and probably a more costly exercise.?

Mr. Butterfield?s ties to John Hopkins have also come in handy when it comes to his KEMH affiliation.

Ed Miller, dean of the John Hopkins Medical School and the chief executive of the hospital, flew down to Bermuda to meet with hospital directors to share information, as part of discussions on the need for a new facility.

The ?sage and sound advice? Mr. Miller gave, according to Mr. Butterfield, was to make sure that whatever solution was agreed be designed to meet future needs.

Mr. Butterfield is also taking a stab at reforming the health care approach of Bank of Bermuda employees.

He said in the five years since he joined the bank, health care costs had escalated significantly.

To try and get costs under control ? with the bank like most companies paying 50 percent of the health insurance bill for staff ? the bank moved in the last year to establish a Wellness Programme for the bank?s 1,041 employees and family members.

Nurse Julie Harrington was hired to oversee the programme, providing information on how people ?can better manage their lifestyle, and in the long run, substantively improve their health, he said. ?I believe there is inadequate health information available leading people to make sub-optimal choices.?

He said he hopes in the next year the bank will be able to quantify the savings tied the programme, although he already feels ?intuitively? that the programme is having a positive impact.

?If we can improve the quality of everyone?s general health, hopefully the insurance costs will be less costly,? Mr. Butterfield said. ?Most people don?t think about if they need a particular procedure only once a year instead of every six months, or do they understand the benefits of a generic drug (which can sometimes be as good but cost less).

?There is an absence of data that people have at their disposal, that does not allow them to make effective choices. Julie can advise our staff in these areas,? he said.

Indeed, recognising the information void on healthy living could lead to a later project for the Bermuda Health Foundation, the registered charity he and his brothers established.

?It is an aspiration of ours to disseminate constructive information and to be seen as a source of support, but those are not things we will be embarking on anytime soon,? he said, with the fledgling three-year old foundation remaining focused for the time being on helping boost the number of Bermudians entering this vital field.