Hospital Board hears from another management company

January 26, 2012

The Memorial Hospital of Texas County Board of Control met Tuesday for its regular session, where it heard a presentation from Quorum Health Resources. QHR is a Tennessee-based hospital management/leasing company that works with 150 hospitals throughout the U.S., including hospitals in Southwest Kansas and Southeast Colorado, as well as the Woodward hospital.

Senior Vice-President Bill Donatelli said his company has key areas of focus and core values that would be of value to the hospital.

“We do think there are some key areas that you need, as an organization, to focus on,” Donatelli said. “Strategy and governance we think are pretty critical. We are strong believers in the quality of strategic planning, identifying needs and trying to meet those individual needs.”

Donatelli said a quality patient experience and good clinical delivery situation are also important.

“Are you giving care in the right place?” He said. “Is the patient you’re giving care to getting it here, or should it be in a nursing home or an outpatient setting?”

He also said the idea of a physician partnership and alignment is critical.

“First and foremost we have come to a realization, after doing this a lot of years, that you can’t operate a hospital without employees and you can’t operate a hospital without physicians,” Donatelli said. “We do think we’re pretty physician-oriented. We really advocate strongly that the physicians have to be part of the strategic planning.”

He also said that having a good management team in place, a good Chief Executive Officer and a good Chief Financial Officer, is critical.

Recruiting locally, “growing your own talent,” is also a factor to make a hospital successful.

“You’re not going to be able to go out and use dollars to attract somebody from a much-bigger hospital,” Donatelli said. “That’s not the way health care is set up.”

So how would QHR help the local hospital?

“We really think we bring value to you in two ways,” Donatelli said. “One is improving and developing your people, and secondly in the processes and systems that we bring in, that we’ve developed over 30 years of doing this, what we think are the best practices to run a hospital.”

In addition, the company is audited independently by auditors employed by the hospital board.

In response to questions put forth by Dr. Hianto Te in regards to what makes a good Chief Executive Officer or a good Chief Financial Officer, Donatelli said there needs to be good leadership and communication.

“That doesn’t mean you’re all going to agree, but there’s got to be open communication and a chance for good dialogue and there’s got to be a chance to put people together,” Donatelli said. “Obviously the board has got to get reliable financial statements, and that’s why some of our operating practices are in place. In a hospital your size, I would think your CFO is going to be cost-focused and be a little more strategic thinking.”

The hospital board is continuing to look at management/leasing companies, with a presentation by New Light, a management group out of Austin, Texas, set for Feb. 7.

“They, again, are basically a management company,” said interim CEO Charles Johnston.

Johnston said a leasing company called Red Rock, from Iowa, will be visiting the hospital Jan. 31-Feb. 1.

Johnston also said he had a phone conference with Bob Williams, president of Baptist St. Anthony’s in Amarillo on Wednesday.

“They also share an interest in us being a part of their system,” Johnston said. “We are going to start that discussion to see how much interest is generated from them.

“It’s going to be a little while to review all of this and then try to come with a decision whether we ought to do something with any of them or do nothing, or exactly where we should go. But the wheels are in motion.”