BJC Medical Center and a potential buyer expect to reach an agreement on the terms of the sale of the hospital and nursing home in about a week.
But before the sale can take place, Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker will have 60 days to review the agreement and to give his blessing.
The president of Tennessee-based Restoration Healthcare spoke to the Commerce Kiwanis Club last week about how he sees his company developing the facility into a profit-maker.
“The company’s mission is to save rural hospitals that are in danger of closing,” explained Dr. Clark Hill as he introduced Steve Clapp, Restoration’s president and CEO.
Clapp said he and his brother — an obstetrician in a rural hospital — started the company in 2006. It owns two hospitals in Tennessee and has a management contract on a third. It typically partners with local physicians — 16 in one of its hospitals, two in the other. Some of BJC’s physicians will reportedly be involved in the facility’s ownership if the deal goes through.
As for BJC, Clapp told his audience, “You have a very good asset here. It’s come across some difficult times recently, but you’ve got something you can be proud of and something that can be a great hospital moving forward.”
The key, he said, will be building confidence in the facility through the recruitment of physicians, the addition of services, a focus on improving quality and a marketing effort that includes heightened community involvement by the owners.
It’s worked at the company’s two hospitals. In a for-profit hospital the company bought, Clapp said the company invested $1.5 million, installed a new computer system, brought back a general surgeon and did some cosmetic work.
“Basically, we restored the confidence back that the community needed in that facility so they would not choose another facility that’s not in the county,” he explained.
Clapp expressed the belief that with physician-owners, clinical issues get resolved more quickly.
Clapp pointed out that BJC needs to recruit a general surgeon, more primary care doctors and more specialists as part of improving the perception of the community.
“We want you to feel as though you can get just as good service here as you can going to Athens, Gainesville or Atlanta,” he said. “Realistically you can. You have board certified physicians in the community just like you do in bigger hospitals. The key is that we have to make sure we’re building the confidence in you guys and the other residents of the community to make sure you choose to stay here as opposed to going somewhere else for your service.”
Early priorities with the facility will be to modernize the entrance leading to the emergency room, reconfiguring patient rooms and getting a full-time MRI unit.
In response to questions, Clapp said the long-range goal is to improve finances enough that the company could build a new hospital in the future if warranted. He also said that the purchasers will assume the debt now owned by Banks and Jackson counties on the facility.
Changing ownership by itself will have benefits, Clapp suggested.
“People think suddenly things are better ... and we hope they will be ... It’s more of a confidence that they (the hospital) will be there in the long-term. The community starts buying into the concept that ‘I will give it another chance because it’s under new ownership.’”
Tnext time went in for my heart which was beating and skipping to fast.the nurse in charge of setting up my meds though iv I told her I felt lie I was passing out she told me no I was not,guess what she flat lined me wkoe up in ICU.I,ve heard so many people say if they can,t get to ATHENS OR GAINESVILLE just let me die where I,m at because if I go to BJC I,ll die any way!how do you change that image?
As the CEO of the company buying BJC put it, when people die at a large hospital, folks say God called them home. When they die at a small hospital, they say the hospital killed them. When the results are bad at a small hospital, people assume the outcome would have been different in a larger facility, so they blame the small hospital. It COULD be true, but most often isn't.