There’s a reason that lots of soap operas are set in hospitals…
Stop me if you’re heard this one before…
Eric Deaton, A Veteran Health Care Executive, Returns To Wellmont As Chief Operating Officer
Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.
You know, I wanted to believe that Eric Deaton would be around for a while. He had turned the hospital’s PR issues completely around. He had recruited a team of leaders that cleared up the problems that DRMC faced. He was hated by a lot of hospital employees (and ex-employees) for doing what he did. He made mistakes along the way and could have handled things better, but he turned out to be the “Fixer” that was needed. He bought a house in the area, moved his family to Danville, joined 42,914 civic organizations and became the highly-visible CEO that LifePoint wanted.
Thud. Just like every other CEO (or whatever title they had), he’s heading out the door after less than 5 years.
We’re going to have a BreakDown on this once we do more investigating.
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wow—what a shocker! I concur with Bruce—thought he’d retire here—-he always up in Averett’s/Dr. Franks face
Trevor —Deaton may have been in Franks face while Buddy Rawley has his nose up,,, well you know where people like him keep their nose to the people in charge of anything.
Since Lifepoint Inc bought DRMC, Eric was the longest-lasting CEO. A corporation like Lifepoint moves executives around frequently. Frankly, I was shocked they had not moved him before now. As for the state of conditions at DRMC, I have to say that nothing much has changed. Most people in the area who can afford to, go somewhere else. many services are It will be interesting to see what comes next.
There’s always more to the story and I have every confidence that, if it can be uncovered, Bruce will do it. I’ve also just heard that Debbie Clark, CNO is leaving as well. In addition, DR. Saccocio, the CMO left just a few moths ago. hmmmmm…that plot thickens
If you add in the LifePoint expansion into Wisconsin announced Friday and their earnings call next week, I think this might (and only might) be a signal that the local LifePoint hospitals are up for sale or have actually been sold. Leadership doesn’t tend to go along with big properties like hospitals, and Deaton has done a lot to increase the worth of the hospital. If there was a time for LifePoint to say let’s have one of the entities closer to the area with more complimentary resources to the west, north, or even south have a go at Danville/Martinsville, now would seem to be the time. This is pure speculation on my part.
Oh and by the way he isn’t staying at LifePoint. He’s going to be a COO at Wellmont. CEO in Danville or COO at Wellmont, which is certainly bigger but less power as a COO? Hmm.
I don’t think anyone is going to bite on DRMC unless Centra wanted to buy it out. If it’s not Centra, then I can’t see it. Centra’s trying to make a big push with their consolidation in Danville in the coming years. It may not be a “hospital”, but they’re definitely going to have a nice “campus” of services in town.
I just can’t see another big chain buying DRMC knowing that they’re going to be in a fight with Centra for an area with a shrinking population/customer base.
I am interested to see what Centra’s push into Gretna/Hurt does to medical services in the greater Southside region.
I think cases could be made for Carilion and perhaps even Cone.
Interesting thoughts from Southside Central and Tyler Durden.
I’m curious as to your mention of Carillion. While I have met some folks in Danville who have used G’boro, L’burg, Eden/Morehead, I’m not aware of folks going up to Roanoke as an alternative to DRMC.
Jerry, my perception is Danville folks go to Cone or Centra but Martinsville folks go to Cone or Carilion. Both will probably go to the same buyer unless Carilion and Centra specifically buy them to split them.
Centra really should just try and buy DRMC. I don’t see the logic in spending a ton of money to build a “campus” when in all likelihood they’re not going to be able to provide all the services they want to because they have to prove that there’s a need. Not a need like “we don’t like DRMC” but a need like “there isn’t enough capacity with the existing system.” They were going to do ambulatory/outpatient surgery but they couldn’t get a certificate of need. They probably won’t get a certificate of need for the cath lab either, since DRMC already has one. They stupidly went to a council meeting and tried to lie about DRMC not having 24 hr heart attack call when one of the cardiologists who’s on call is sitting on the council. It sounds like their “campus” will be urgent care and possibly an ER(?). If they want the services, they might inquire about buying the hospital.
Actually I was hanging out with some DRMC employees last weekend and they said the latest rumor going around that place was that Centra was buying it out so…
Why would they? They’re going to provide the services that bring in the most money. They cherry-picked them and left the others hanging.
They have to get a certificate of public need. They can’t just say “we’re going to do outpatient surgeries in Danville”. They have to get a prove that there’s a need. They’ve been trying since like 2010 to get a COPN for outpatient surgery in Danville but as long as DRMC isn’t over-utilized, they probably won’t get one. The same is, I think, true for cardiac cath. DRMC already has a cath lab. As long as there’s adequate supply for the demand, they won’t get a COPN and they can’t do it. That’s why they were trying to lie with the “There’s no 24 hour heart attack care in Danville” even though DRMC has had it for 2 years. If there’s not enough supply for 2 facilities, the state won’t approve it.
This “campus” would have already been built if they had gotten the COPN back in 2010. That’s really why it hasn’t been built yet. So far I think all they can do is urgent/primary care stuff. If I remember correctly at one time they wanted to put in an ER, Imaging Center, urgent care, outpatient surgery, and cath lab. I think you need COPN for ER, outpatient surgery, and cath lab and I don’t think they’ve gotten any of them. I don’t know if they want to spend a ton of money to open up a glorified urgent care practice if they’re not going to be able to do anything else.
Well Rachel, we just had a family member in the hospital in Danville and they were swamped with inpatient’s! We were informed that sometimes, because they did not have room for them, they sent patients to other hospitals. My family member was treated quickly in the ER, was in a nice room, the staff was attentive as well as the doctors. All in all, we were very satisfied with DRMC. Mr. Deaton appears to have done his job. We can hope that his replacement will continue what he has started. Will we use DRMC again, yes we will.
Between Sept 2010 and Aug 2012, two of my family members were admitted to DRMC. Both were seriously injured while there. I beg to differ with Tyler on his statement that a COPN requires need, not “we want to go somewhere else”. Danvillians need to be able to choose quality healthcare, not mediocre or, even dangerous care because of a numbers game. One need only check http://www.medicare.gov for hospital scores to see where DRMC stands in patient care and satisfaction.
Tyler is absolutely correct about what a COPN does. The reason for the COPN is that certain expensive equipment could needlessly sit idle in the wrong place or worse a surgical program for instance that requires volume for the best outcomes could end up splitting a good volume of cases from an established program, making each of the lower volume programs worse for people.