[StBernard] Despite challenges, St. Bernard Parish Hospital 'on right track, ' chairman says

[Westley Annis]

Despite challenges, St. Bernard Parish Hospital 'on right track,' chairman
says
By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
on January 23, 2013 at 4:47 PM, updated January 23, 2013 at 4:48 PM Print

Despite the St. Bernard Parish Hospital's staff and management turnover
since its opening, Wayne Landry told St. Bernard community leaders on
Wednesday that the hospital "is on the right track and much further ahead of
schedule than anticipated." And with the former management group long gone,
Landry, chairman of the board that oversees the St. Bernard Hospital
District, remains the interim Chief Executive Officer.

Landry acknowledged that running a hospital isn't easy - "this thing, it's
like riding a wild bronco, it takes a lot of attention." Previously, the CEO
was provided by the nonprofit Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health
System, but it pulled out of its agreement to manage the $70 million
facility in Chalmette soon after its September opening.

As part of the hospital agreement with Goldman Sachs, which provided much of
the hospital's financing, the hospital board had signed an agreement that
the hospital would be run by a third-party manager. Now, the hospital is
trying to get out of that clause, Landry told the audience at a St. Bernard
Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

Goldman Sachs has been reviewing the hospital's operations and will submit a
report in the coming weeks that could determine whether the hospital in fact
can hire its own internal CEO.

"It will either allow us flexibility in the contract with Goldman Sachs to
allow us to hire our own CEO, or we will have to continue to look for a
third-party manager," Landry said. "And I think, if we have to stick with a
third party, all of us on the board are now better prepared with what we see
we would like a third-party manager."

If it can hire in house, Landry said the board likely would choose to groom
Charlie Lindell for the CEO post. Lindell, who previously was the hospital's
cardiopulmonary director, was given the chief operating officer position
after the Franciscans' and other staff members' departures.

Landry said the hospital has seen 7,557 emergency room patients since it
opened, and has had 407 in-patient admissions. The pharmacy, he said, has
filled 43,763 prescriptions and its doctors have conducted 139 surgeries.

Landry said that the hospital is on pace to see 22,000 to 24,000 patients a
year.

In fact, he's urged fewer people to visit the emergency room if they are not
in need of emergency medical care, saying "a lot of the people in these
numbers are people that don't really require emergency services."

The emergency room wait right now, he said, is four hours - better than the
metro New Orleans average of six hours. 

Within its first month, the hospital saw nearly half of its administrative
managers leave or resign, in addition to the departure of the Franciscans.
But Landry and other board say the turnover has not affected daily
operations at the hospital.

Landry has called the changes "growing pains of a start-up hospital," and
said on Wednesday that the turnover allowed him and the other board members
to streamline the hospital's management structure and thereby save about
$6.5 million.

"We don't have layers of layers of management anymore and we have had to go
through the process of refining the process of how care is given," Landry
told the crowd. 

In the last few weeks, at least three more directors have stepped down from
their posts. The chief nursing officer, the case management director, and
the food and nutrition director each are leaving their posts. Landry said
the case manger is moving to a new post in the hospital, the food position
will be combined with another position and that the nursing officer post
will soon be filled.

The Wednesday afternoon meeting was held in the hospital's adjacent
60,000-square-foot medical office building, which Landry said is expected to
wrap up construction in the next month. He said in the next few days the
final piece of the main hospital will be complete - the fourth operating
room.