If Knoxville’s UT Medical Center is any example, Erlanger Hospital should see plenty of positives in going from a public not-for-profit entity to a private not-for-profit operation, members of the Downtown Chattanooga Rotary Club were told.
Current Erlanger CEO and former board member Jim Coleman said in a speech to the club Thursday that when Erlanger was looking at changing its structure, he and fellow board member Vicky Gregg visited with UT Medical Center officials.
That hospital had changed its structure way back in 1999 after being the only other public hospital authority in the state and found many positives, he said.
“They were very adamant about the fact that was the single thing that helped them be so successful in Knoxville in the last decade in going from a medium level hospital to the leader in the market there,” he said. “That really helped me make the decision.”
Mr. Coleman’s comments came as he was explaining at the Convention Center meeting the various factors that made the hospital decide to change its governing structure beginning July 1.
He said another reason was that being a governmental-affiliated structure – as Erlanger had been since the authority was formed in 1977 – caused the hospital to move more slowly in many decisions compared to other health facilities.
“It was very cumbersome because it was a government structure and you had rules on having a quorum and had to be in person to make decisions,” he said. “There were lots of things that slowed us down.”
He said much of that can go away under the new structure. For example, video meetings on short notice can be held and electronic signatures made quickly, helping supply chain and purchasing issues be resolved more easily.
Also, the changing nature of outpatient or one-night services being done at satellite facilities instead of longer stays at the downtown facility requires the need for more capital expenditures, and the older public model did not work as well for that, either. He feels that being a private, not-for-profit authority can help bring in additional philanthropic gifts to aid some projects.
He also believes the changes should help with better patient experience and being able to bring in and retain even more outstanding doctors and nurses and other team members, including in the teaching realm.
Mr. Coleman added that another issue that hurt Erlanger in being a public authority was that it had to publish data about its finances and other information, and he knew that was giving the competition, which did not have to do that, an edge. He even remembers checking out the Erlanger published data while he was the COO at Parkridge Medical Center.
“That goes away and levels the playing field,” he said of the new setup.
In a brief question-and-answer session after his talk, Mr. Coleman said in response to two different questions that Erlanger has looked at offering both concierge medicine (membership-based services) and joining with other smaller hospitals in a loose alignment to compete more evenly against the large hospital corporations or networks. But nothing has materialized or come to fruition with either idea, he said.
Someone asked him about an acquaintance who had to stay in emergency care for a normal-than-longer time while waiting on a private room, and Mr. Coleman said that was because of a shortage of available rooms due to a lack of staff. Since the pandemic, health care workers, particularly nurses, have left the profession across the country in larger numbers, he said, although adding that Erlanger is working hard to slowly catch back up with pre-pandemic levels.
“This is the most stressful labor market I’ve ever seen in health care,” he said. “That’s not the way you want to treat patients.”
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