"Update" Program with Cedar County Memorial Hospital CEO Don Carpenter

0:00Good afternoon and welcome to today's update program on 97.5 FM double k country. I'm Thomas Singlish. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Today we're going to talk about the Cedar County Memorial Hospital announcing their new chief executive officer making changes in their leadership roles. Former senior executive at a top 20 hospital. Don Carpenter has been chosen as the new CEO of Cedar County Memorial Hospital and he is joining us today. Mr. Carpenter, thank you for joining us. My pleasure. Well, let's talk a little bit about your background in your career up till now. If you want to provide the listeners with a little bit of by yourself. Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned on Carpenter, my wife Diana and I have recently relocated to Cedar County to join the CCMA organization. Cedar County Memorial Hospital has chosen me through their board to take the organization forward. We are lifelong residents of Lincoln, Nebraska and have two adult sons who are both married and have moved away from

1:07home. So we are at a point in life where if we were going to make a change and move to a different community and alter a slightly different course now was a good time for us. So that's what brought us here. And what drew you to the role of CEO specifically at Cedar County Memorial Hospital? Yeah, so you know over the course of my career I developed a tremendous passion for the mission and the purpose of rural health care. Specifically for that of our critical access hospitals and rural health clinics and I was a part of the senior leadership team at a critical access hospital in my home state of Nebraska which was you know at one time and under performing organization but over the course of several years we were able to turn it into a nationally recognized award winning critical access hospital and after my initial conversations with members of the board of Cedar County Memorial and later talking with various members of the communities that the hospital

2:10serves. It was pretty clear how deeply the people of Cedar County care about their hospital and want to see it thrive and I want to make that happen for them because they deserve a health care organization that they can be proud of. And after spending 15 years at Beatrice Community Hospital like you mentioned in Nebraska you touched on a little bit but what ultimately made you say this opportunity is the right next step for me? Yeah I wanted to commit the final whatever it is 10, 12 years of my career to be spent ensuring the long-term viability of our rural communities. As I mentioned I feel pretty passionate about the topic and our critical access hospitals are such an important part of these communities. I could have written that time out for my previous organization in Nebraska but I was going to if I was going to make a change and relocate to a community that really is seeking excellence in their rural health care systems and it needed to be something that I did sooner rather than later. So my wife and I as I mentioned

3:15were at a point where that was possible for us. Our two adult children no longer live in the hometown where they were raised. So the timing for this opportunity felt right and after we both had a chance to meet various members of the communities we both knew that we wanted to make Cedar County our new next our next new home. And you mentioned it briefly with bringing Beatrice Community Hospital kind of an underperforming now to nationally recognized. How are you using that previous experience in your time at BCH to really shape your leadership approach at CCMH? Yeah I mean I understand what it is to go into a well-established organization that doesn't necessarily know what its potential is and when I join BCH and introduce a sort of discipline practices that were needed to enable meaningful organizational transformation. Initially my leadership approach there was met

4:20with great deal of reluctance and suspicion but you know there were more times than I care to count when I wasn't sure the organization really wanted what it said it wanted bad enough to do the hard work of transforming itself but with some patience and by surrounding myself with very capable individuals and by continuously pointing the organization ahead to the vision of the future you know change began to occur and when that happened there was a real momentum to it. As the strategic pieces started to come together people began to see what was really possible and my leadership approach has been profoundly impacted by my experiences over those years it taught me a great deal of patience and perseverance but it also has taught me what a community rallied around a common purpose can actually accomplish. You've been in the job now a little bit over a month would have been some of your top priorities

5:21starting now and continuing through the first six months of your role as CEO. Yeah the initial first six months are really going to be focused around largely three things and a few other smaller things but the top priorities for me is putting the organization on a path to stabilize operating margin. The current financial reality is not sustainable indefinitely so we have to return to a point of where our income is sufficient to cover our expenses and my goal is to achieve break even in the next 12 months. The easiest way to accomplish this is to drive an increase in patient volumes across all service lines. The citizens of Cedar County can certainly help with this by choosing CCMH for their healthcare needs when they have a choice and I would like to see an expansion of our services to stop this trend of continuously cutting back but in the short term some cuts might be necessary to ensure that we do achieve that goal of

6:25break even. A priority number two it is really to listen to our stakeholders. The communities we serve our staff, our strategic partners and learn from them what we need to do to move forward as an organization. We need meaningful and actionable input from patients to know how they perceive the care that they receive at our facilities and how we can improve that perception for them. And then my third priority is to develop a truly viable strategic plan that charts a bold vision for the future of Cedar County Memorial Hospital. Strategic planning provides a unique opportunity for all those stakeholders I mentioned to come together and determine where the organization needs to be in the years ahead and implement plans now that ensure that we get there on. You mentioned wanting to get a lot of feedback from patients and making sure that you're listening and learning as a priority. What has been some of the feedback that you've received already here

7:27in just a month and a half or so of your role as CEO? Yeah you know people in Cedar County really do care deeply about the hospital, about its future success. The feedback that I received is that they want the hospital to be the healthcare provider of choice in the communities that they live in. I think that's a reasonable request for people. I think there may be some unknown around how we make that possible. That's what I'm here for. But the feedback seems to be pretty consistent that people really want the hospitals be successful for the life of the communities in which it serves and for future generations to come. We've talked now a little bit about some of the things that you want to change or improve. What are some of the existing things that CCMH has as far as things you consider strengths that you want to build upon? Yeah I mean the strengths of the organization are very clearly its people, both staff and the residents of the county who together want to see the

8:33hospital thrive. So by tapping into that passion we can accomplish pretty incredible things. I want to leverage that passion to drive the sort of transformational change that is needed to deliver to the people of Cedar County a healthcare system that they can be proud of. As far as weaknesses go we have to get out of our own way. We need to move forward and not look back and do that together. We have to stop thinking that the key to our survival is to do what we've always done or worse yet to cut back until we eventually become irrelevant. That's not going to deliver to the residents of Cedar County the organization they're asking for. So it's going to take some bold vision. It's going to take some resilience, some patience and a lot of collaboration. Healthcare staffing across the country is a struggle in these days especially for rural communities

9:35where it's a lot smaller there's not as many job opportunities. How do you approach recruitment and retention and making sure that patient care is always available? Yeah recruitment and retention are really two sides of the same coin with recruitment. I believe in getting them while they're young. I raised two boys who seem to know very early in life what they wanted to do when they grew up and they both did. So plant that seed early and get in front of kids of all ages. Getting them excited about having a career in healthcare to do that the hospital needs to be visible and active in the community and our schools at sporting events and where people are living their lives and be present to remind them the hospital is here not just for healthcare services but for career opportunities. As far as retention goes once you have hired those right people on the right positions you have to re-recruit those high performers every single day. Much like the youth I was talking about you need to get people excited about coming to work by providing them with a healthy

10:38work life balance, growth opportunities and that they're appreciated and that requires a culture where we really rally around people both our patients and our staff. You've mentioned trying to balance the financial sustainability but also providing high quality patient care. And the next three to five years where do you hope the hospital is? Yeah I hope to see the hospital thriving. I hope to see Cedar County Memorial Hospital on a path towards excellence in rural healthcare. I want to see the people as Cedar County be proud of their hospital and their clinics because we can ensure the highest quality patient outcomes. We can employ the best providers, nurses and staff. We have a sustainable financial foundation to ensure the organizational be here to meet the health care needs of our communities for generations to come. That's where I anticipate the organization will be in the years ahead.

11:39And lastly here what message do you have to the patients, the staff, the communities you continue in this role and look to build this hospital up? Yeah I know that I'm new to the community and to the organization but I am all in on the success for Cedar County Memorial Hospital. I believe in the potential of this organization I will work tirelessly to ensure if fulfills its promises that have been made to the people of the communities we serve and I'm confident that by working together we can make CCMH organization that we can all be proud of. Oh Mr. Carpenter, bright future ahead for Cedar County Memorial Hospital. We thank you for joining us today. Thank you sir. That is Don Carpenter, the newly appointed CEO of Cedar County Memorial Hospital continuing to improve on the hospital and its future. I'm Thomas English and this has been today's update.