Oconee Regional Medical Center appoints acting CEO

MILLEDGEVILLE, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Oconee Regional Medical Center appointed an acting CEO after the former hospital leader stepped down last week.

According to a news release from the hospital, the board of directors at ORMC appointed CFO Brenda Qualls as the new acting CEO. She will serve in that position until the hospital finds an interim CEO and also begin the search for a long-term CEO. The hospital says it will begin those searches immediately.

The board also announced it is taking the next steps to form the Physicians Strategic Advisory Council.

Jean Aycock announced her resignation last week. It is effective June 1, however the hospital says she is no longer serving as CEO of ORMC. According to the separation agreement, the hospital will pay a lump sum of $351,832 which is a year’s salary. ORMC is also paying benefit-related costs of around $30,000 for Aycock’s retirement plan, life insurance, long-term disability, and other benefits.

Read the full statement from ORMC:

The Board of Directors at Oconee Regional Medical Center tonight appointed an Acting CEO, long-standing CFO Brenda Qualls, and took the next steps in forming the previously approved Physicians Strategic Advisory Council. The steps follow on the heels of the departure of CEO Jean Aycock, whose resignation was formally accepted by the board previously and whose separation agreement was approved tonight (see separate attachment).

Qualls’ service to the hospital and the community has been extraordinary, and we are pleased she agreed to step into this role as we work to find an interim CEO and also begin the search process for a long-term CEO. We will be undertaking both the interim CEO and long-term CEO searches in a thoughtful and deliberate manner. They will begin immediately and will include a broad search for the right future leadership of ORMC.

The board also appreciates Jean’s service to our community hospital.  Under her tenure as CEO, the hospital has achieved strong quality and clinical scores; was awarded 4-Star Status by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for patient experience and the Skilled Nursing Unit was awarded a 5-Star Status; has brought 14 new physicians to town; and today boasts excellent orthopaedic, radiology, hematology, oncology, OB/GYN and pediatric programs.

These leadership changes have occurred while ORMC is in the midst of a difficult turnaround that is showing progress. Less than seven months ago the hospital’s very existence was threatened.

Over the past months the board has done extraordinary work to ensure our locally-governed hospital continues to provide great health care – and great jobs – for our community in the face of financial challenges. We discharge our duties well, finding creative solutions and new opportunities even when our resources are severely limited.

ORMC’s support services agreement with Navicent has been a key part of our continuing turnaround. This relationship gives us much needed support financially, operationally and clinically, but allows for our hospital to continue to be locally-governed and locally-managed by the people who live and work here and call Milledgeville home. Since we engaged them just a few months ago, they have guaranteed the payments on our $24 million bank debt, they have helped us develop new programs that will improve our revenue and local access to healthcare services, and they have helped us reduce our annual expenses by nearly $4 million. In spite of all this good work, ORMC will still face significant losses this fiscal year as government reimbursements to hospitals continues to be slashed and healthcare reform impacts everyone.

However, for the first time in a long time, ORMC is turning the corner. We remain very hopeful about ORMC’s future as a locally-owned and locally-governed centerpiece of our community.

Now it is time to continue moving forward in a positive fashion and build on the momentum of the last several months.

To that end, we have heard comments from some members of the ORMC medical staff that are greatly disappointing. Some of the comments reflect misinformation and a lack of communication we hope to remedy in the days to come.

Change is hard, to be sure, but the conversation and others that have played out in the media over the past few weeks does not make ORMC better and does not make the job of protecting and growing ORMC easier. Nor does a rough public discourse help our local economy or our efforts to attract new jobs and new business here. We can do better than this.

We welcome collaboration and conversation with well-intended physicians and anyone in the community who shares our passionate commitment to our mission to provide excellent local healthcare to our neighbors, our families and our community.

To that end, the efforts to begin a Physicians Strategic Advisory Council that began many weeks ago will be reinvigorated. We are hopeful that the change in leadership at the hospital will foster an environment for meaningful and constructive dialogue that will benefit the future of ORMC. It is our intent to begin these conversations and actions as soon as possible.

The future of ORMC is brighter than it has been in quite some time. The board is committed to seeing the hospital continue to improve its patient care and its financial performance. High quality care is the highest priority at ORMC, and we are thankful for the service of everyone at the hospital for working hard to achieve that goal. The board continues to be steadfastly dedicated to performing our fiduciary and governance duties in a responsible manner that supports the community’s need for top-notch healthcare that is locally governed and controlled.