New Prescription For A Healthier Hospital District

DAYTON - In what could be seen as a breakthrough on the part of the Columbia County Public Hospital Board of Commissioners, member Ted Paterson acknowledged last week that the board "may have become complacent" in the face of recent management practices, staff decisions and unsatisfactory work environment within the system.

"Maybe we didn't ask the right questions," he told the audience at the Catholic Church in Dayton on Thursday. "Maybe we were just looking at the dollar signs and seeing, 'it's black, it's black, it's black.'"

Paterson spoke following a presentation Thursday by consultant Susan Newton, who was recently hired by the health district to assess the system, looking into personnel disagreements, rumors regarding recent action taken by human resources and charges against the health district's CEO, Charlie Button, and the board itself.

Newton's findings were gathered through dozens of interviews with board members, executives, staff and community members over several weeks.

Her goal was to gain insight into the "actual situation in a neutral and unbiased manner, identify recurring themes and validate or find false, test the viability of the health system and confirm or reject the ability of the CEO to continue in his current capacity."

Forty-eight one-onone interviews were conducted, four focus groups met and a myriad of documents were reviewed (including board bylaws and minutes, employee handbooks, all human resources polices, financial reports and more).

What Newton discovered was more optimistic than she'd expected. Employee morale was higher than anticipated given comments and testimony at recent board meetings and letters sent - the average was 4.3 on a scale between one and six.

"People at Dayton General Hospital are judgmental and reluctant to accept new staff from outside the community," Newton said. "And the term 'lynch mob mentality' came up quite a bit."

But that didn't surprise her, given the size of the community. Human resources processes don't always make people feel good, she said in response to employee demands to know more about various staffing decisions. "But they're in place to protect the business and individu­als." Turnover has been high in the district lately, and the rumor mill, which Newton classified as "penitentiary quality," has gone into overdrive. Many at Thurs­day's

presentation were frustrated that the board hadn't stepped in sooner to try and curb the talk and perhaps keep things from reaching a level where someone like Newton was needed to step in and as­sess the situation. Newton found that a core group of people are dissatisfied and are "absolute" in what they want in order to be satis­fied, which is resulting in threats to service. "And everyone agrees on the importance of keep­ing the hospital in Dayton and the potential impact on the community were they to lose it," she said. Newton reported that many in the district ex­pressing opinions "have not personal knowledge of the situation and admit to having heard things from those that were ter­minated, have left, others in the community, or from staff." Outside the district, Newton said, community stakeholders (or business owners) were highly in support of Button and what he's done for the commu­nity and the hospital. Newton did suggest that having 22 people di­rectly

under Button was "ludicrous" within the business world and that he and his core group of directors would have bet­ter luck working as a team if that number were more like seven to 10. Following Newton's presentation Thursday, the board decided to take a week or so to digest her assessment. The board will have a special meeting on Thurs­day, Sept. 2, at 6 p.m. at the Catholic Church Fel­lowship Hall, 112 South 1st Street, Dayton, for an executive session for one hour. After the executive session, the meeting will reopen to the public if any action is to be taken.

Summary and Rec­ommendations: (1) The issues are severe and threaten the long-term viability of the system.

(2) Board bylaws need to be reviewed and up­dated/ amended as needed.

(3) People need to fo­cus on the work needed for the good of the organi­zation

rather than on their own level of satisfaction or relationship with those that have left.

(4) The district needs a strong HR person familiar with HR policies and law that can support the CEO appropriately.

(5) Get a coach for the CEO in the short-term to help him better under­stand the impact of his behavior(s). (6) The CEO is "guilty" of having terminated em­ployees with strong com­munity ties; few seem to care whether there is strong reason to have done so. His full ability to do his job should be restored.

(7) The board needs to "own" decisions made and not undercut the deci­sion.

(8) Staff and commu­nity members need to look at what role they have played in getting the organization to where it is today. "No matter what has happened, one indi­vidual has not brought the community to this point, I guarantee it," Newton said.