Search for hospital CEO begins
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 25, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Bob Enders is serving as interim president of Wayne Memorial Hospital as it and University of North Carolina Health Care System officials conduct a national search over the next three to six months to find the hospital's new full-time CEO.
Over the next three to six months Wayne Memorial Hospital, along with leadership at the University of North Carolina Health Care System, will be conducting a national search to find the hospital's new chief executive officer.
That is one of the first tasks under the managed services agreement the hospital signed with UNC Health Care, the state-owned not-for-profit integrated health care system based in Chapel Hill, on Dec. 30, said interim president Bob Enders.
The hospital was not sold, said Enders, an employee of UNC and president of Chatham Hospital in Siler City, part of the UNC Health Care Network Hospitals.
He will continue working at Chatham Hospital in a limited role.
The financial aspects of the agreement are proprietary and will not be made public, Enders said.
He said Wayne Memorial Hospital will pay a flat fee to UNC and the costs associated with his salary and benefits.
"Part of my job, in addition of trying to run the day-to-day operations, is to identify where the needs are and then get that need connected up with a potential solution up at UNC," he said. "What made this a little bit different than maybe some situations is to lose both the COO (Chief Operating Officer Tom Bradshaw) and CEO (Bill Paugh) at the same time.
"The remaining vice presidents here have all taken responsibility for the various departments primarily that Tom Bradshaw was responsible for."
Enders has an apartment in Goldsboro.
"I come Mondays, sometimes Sunday evening," he said. "If there is nothing pressing, I might leave Pittsboro early Monday morning and get here fairly early on Monday, and I work through Thursday. Then I go back to Pittsboro and go back to Siler City to my second hospital."
There may be times when he will need to be at Chatham Hospital more, of if needed, he said he will stay at Wayne Memorial on Friday.
Enders said perhaps his biggest challenge will be trying to quickly learn the ways of Wayne Memorial Hospital.
"As large as it is, there are lots of moving parts and trying to become familiar with all of those moving parts -- identify the important things that we need to concentrate on and weed those out from things that need to be worked on, but are not the highest priority," he said. "You get a lot of feedback from everybody that you talk to and, of course, in their mind their particular issue is the most important thing that needs to be done.
"You have to be able to use that judgment and say OK this is the high priority, and this is something that is just going to have to wait a little bit."
Visitors will not notice any changes immediately, Enders said.
"If they don't notice something within a reasonable amount of time, I am talking a year or two or whatever, then we and UNC are not doing our job," Enders said. "It is a great hospital here, and I think everybody should be proud of what they have. The hospital is really in a good position. It has positioned itself well. It has done well in the past. It is doing well in the present.
"The issues are, as I told some departments, that the world and the ground have shifted from beneath the hospitals and health care. The whole world has changed, and the old models just aren't working anymore, and they won't work when you get into the future population health.
"That really, I think, is the main reason why the (hospital) board chose to move in this direction of affiliation. But as I said they have done a great job here and continue to do so."
One area will be working on things like enhancing the patient's experience, he said.
Enders said he couldn't yet say exactly how that will be done, but UNC has programs that will help train staff on what to say and what to do.
Hopefully patients will see a change or improvement and walk out the door more satisfied than they are right now, he said.
"Again not that people are dissatisfied, because they are not," he said. "The scores are good, but everything can be improved."
Physician recruitment is another area that will receive attention, he said. The affiliation with UNC is a selling point, since in more rural areas attracting and retaining physicians is hard, he said.
"We are going to concentrate a lot on physicians and physician recruitment, looking at services that are not currently provided locally," Enders said. "Maybe we can enhance and start providing those locally to keep people in town. To remedy that situation Chapel Hill has developed an entire new department -- physician recruitment and relations for the affiliate hospitals.
"The first thing is that we will try to connect all of those great physicians that are being trained in Chapel Hill and now graduating and coming out of residencies and fellowships to let them know there are opportunities in the affiliate hospitals of UNC. If that falls short, then they will have a full staff of people whose only job is to what they call source physicians -- go out and talk with doctors from other training programs or practicing doctors."
Other areas are more behind the scenes such as working to find ways to purchase goods and services at lower cost than the hospital is currently able to, he said.
"Wayne has done all of the right things in joining group purchasing organizations," Enders said. "However, its affiliation with UNC should enable it to purchase at even lower costs."
Also under the agreement, Enders said UNC will be able to help the hospital with information technology; supplement its dealing with insurance companies and managed care; expand locally available hospital and community-based patient care services to enhance patient care; enhance operational efficiency; and provide access to cutting-edge research and treatments at UNC Health Care.
Prior to serving as Chatham Hospital president, Enders previously served as administrator of Pioneer Health Services of Patrick County in Stuart, Va., from 2009 to 2011.
He also served as president/CEO of Morehead Memorial Hospital in Eden from 1987-2008.
Enders is a graduate of the University of Virginia and has a master's in health care administration from the Medical College of Virginia.