I, too, am a former Erlanger employee. I loved my 28 years there and was devastated when I was
laid off three years ago.
Roy, I find it incredulous that you think that Erlanger’s downward spiral began in the few short months that Will Jackson has taken the helm.
It started when Kevin Spiegel started the “ no divert” policy. This policy put undo pressure on every department in the hospital, nurses especially
, and morale plummeted. Of course, a CNO with a backbone would have helped tremendously.
Kevin managed by chaos, which is no way to run an organization. We never knew which end was up, who was going next, and saddest of all, never felt we were able to do a good job - the kind of performance we expected of ourselves because there were too many patients and not enough staff. We lost so many great nurses, true professionals, because there was no nursing leadership.
I can think of one truly bonehead hire at the executive level that had absolutely no added value to the organization. The salary could have paid for several nurses. And it took years to rectify the situation, which was immediately apparent to everyone.
There were repeated decisions to build and expand, without any thought of how to staff these endeavors. This is also when you heard repeated complaints of people spending days in the ED and patients lining the halls of the hospitals .
I was thrilled to hear that Erlanger finally hired a leader in the CNO position. I worked with Rachel Harris for years and I have always been impressed. The same day I heard about Rachel, I heard that Martha Weeks was named CEO of Erlanger East and North Hospitals. Martha has been an unsung hero at Erlanger for decades. She’s often been called in at the 11th hour to save the day... and she always does.
Give Will, Rachel and Martha a chance to right the ship. There are now some adults in the room.