If You Snooze.....6/21

Well, campers, this is what greeted us in the Snooze on Sunday. More pap from the top, or actual changes? YOU decide:

CEO has big plans for PRMC

By Mary Madewell
The Paris News

Published June 17, 2007

Christopher Dux, Paris Regional Medical Center's new chief executive officer, told Rotary Club of Paris members Friday he plans to ignite a fire under hospital staff members who may have lost their passion for “care and compassion.”

Speaking about the hospital’s 1,000 employees, Dux told Rotarians the majority chose health care because “they have a burning compassion to help others.”

“In some of our employees that passion for care and compassion is burning brighter than others, but I believe all of them have an ember inside them,” Dux said. “We can rekindle that fire, and we will do that.”

In Paris a little more than a month, Dux said he has had many discussions about a number of issues.

“A lot of things need to be fixed,” Dux said. “I don’t believe anything I have seen here is unique to this facility because all the problems we have exist in other facilities as well.”

The administrator said he plans to put into place measures to encourage employees ”to start taking risks in terms of challenging the status quo.”

“Health care is constantly changing, and we have to adapt,” Dux said. “I don’t have the answers. The answers reside in the front line employees."

“You have to empower them to help us make the changes we need to make to stay current,” Dux said.

The administrator spoke about process improvement and said industry is ahead of health care in process monitoring and improvement.

“We have to teach people to see things through the eyes of their customer,” Dux said.

Change is possible, Dux said.

“It takes a culture change with people wanting to be the best and making a commitment to that,” the administrator said.

Dux said he is encouraged about the number of people who want the Paris facility to be among the best hospitals in the country.

“If we can get employees, physicians and the community to want that also, we can make it happen,” he emphasized.

Asked to give an example of a hospital he may have turned around during his career, Dux spoke of one in Virginia that was barely breaking even when he took the helm.

“Four out of five employees said on an opinion survey they would not recommend the hospital to a relative,” Dux said.

Five years later the hospital received Hospital Joint Commission Certification with a perfect score and patient satisfaction scores were in the 95th percentile, he said.

“The hospital went from a break-even situation to an operating income of $9.6 million and from a 27 percent to a 72 percent market share,” Dux added.

He has worked in hospital administration since 1977 with his career taking him to several states from North Carolina to Iowa to Arizona.

“I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere,” Dux joked, using the words of a once popular song. “Hopefully my traveling is over, and I will be here for quite some time.”


To which I replied-

In re: Christopher Dux's recent comment in the News on improving PRMC:

He is correct in that the desire to serve the patient must be rekindled, but the question is, how and why did that desire get lost in the first place? Granted it took a hit when the two hospitals became one, but it really came under fire when Essent bought the facility in 2004.

Ask yourself, if you have the guts, why a facility who claims itself to be a for-profit organization is losing money in four out of its five facilities; is turned down for ownership in its last three acquisition attempts (two of them being Muskogee, OK and Weatherford, TX); and has had three CEOs in town in the last 3 years. Couple this with the conditions Essent has let the facilities and equipment go to, and the low patient census, and then ask yourself (if you dare) if this is the right ownership for the area.

Attitudes must change, true, but in this case so must the management, from Machavellian policies to pro-employee, pro-physician, pro-patient policies. If the ownership cannot make these changes, perhaps it's time to change ownership.

Now between you, me and the fencepost, this letter has as much chance seeing the light of day in the Snooze as a snowball in Hell. But, again to keep the pressure on these clowns to do some journalism, letters like this one must be written, not by me, but by everyone (And I mean EVERYONE) who wants to see the truth out in the light of day.

No time for idle cynics, folks- start sending those letters into the Snooze via their website, snailmail, hand delivery, or however.

This comment was too on the money not to put in now...frank