Ray Humphreys talks about how his team turned around a severely troubled organization in just six years.

Six years ago, Delta Regional Medical Center was an organization that was a hospital severely troubled, according to Ray Humphreys, CEO. At that point in time, the hospital had seen numerous leadership changes at the CEO, CFO, and COO levels, and its relationship with its board of trustees was suffering. Disorganization and poor communication in the organization caused heavy concern in the community to the point that there was discussion that the hospital should be sold as its only remedy. After experiencing three years of consecutive losses, it was time for a change.

Ray Humphreys

The chief executive met with all employees that held key positions in the hospital and community to make sure everyone was on the same page as far as problem solving. “With that as the foundation, my team and I put together a strategic plan, and the medical center is now enjoying our fifth consecutive year of profitability. It’s not as much profit as we’d like to have, but it means we have a healthy hospital now,” Humphreys said.

Clean slate
The first step of Delta Regional Medical Center’s strategic plan was to address issues regarding the hospital’s board of trustees. Because the hospital was under a management contract that wasn’t working well, Humphreys and his board decided it was best to move on from that contract relationship. The next step was to address whether or not the hospital was for sale. The board voted not to sell the hospital, winning by a slim margin of one vote.

The chief executive then turned his attention to his management staff and senior leadership team, evaluating each individual and, in some circumstances, bringing new leadership on board that were more consistent with the hospital’s value system.

Turning his focus on competition, Humphreys acknowledged Delta Regional Medical Center was sharing the community with another hospital in an environment where the demographics didn’t support the operations of competing hospitals. He negotiated for the acquisition of the other hospital, and in April 2005, concluded with the agreement to pay $21 million to purchase the hospital on the basis that the organization would improve the quality of care and ability to serve the population in the economically challenged area.

The next issue was to improve both facilities and get permanent financing to pay off the acquisition cost of the newly acquired facility. Efforts proved fruitful. At the end of February 2007, the medical center was approved for $38.2 million for an insured mortgage arrangement, allowing it to permanently pay off the acquisition. In this bond issue, the medical center received $6 million to renovate its facilities and $4 million to purchase up-to-date technology.

“We’ve been reorganizing and rearranging services ever since the acquisition, trying to work through merger indigestion,” Humphreys said. The medical center is now a 398-bed medical center and has the only full service hospital and Level II trauma center in Northwest Mississippi as well as the fourth busiest ED in the state.

Solid ground
Getting back on solid ground is still something Delta Regional Medical Center is working on. After Humphreys arrived in March of 2001, the medical center turned its first profit at the end of FY 2002. “It took us about 18 months to turn around financially, and we haven’t had a loss since,” he said.

Working to gain back the community trust is also an ongoing project for Humphreys and his team. “We’re continually improving the communication process with the community to keep people updated with current happenings at the hospital,” Humphreys explained. Delta Regional’s leadership team is also involved in the region, making speaking appearances at venues such as civic clubs and church groups. Humphreys found it extremely beneficial to appear before the county board of supervisors on a regular basis to educate the community of the resources, capabilities, and assets of the hospital.

Health organizations should never advertise and promote services if they aren’t satisfied with their quality of care, explained Humphreys. “The most important thing we did was to establish a system of continuous performance improvement in regard to daily patient care in the nursing, ancillary, and surgical units,” he said.

Humphreys challenged all of the hospital’s department leaders to study every hospital in the state of Mississippi and their related departments. Each department leader had the responsibility of finding the hospital with the best practice in their specific department to determine what Delta Regional Medical Center needed to be doing. “The goal behind that initiative was to become the best hospital in the state of Mississippi,” Humphreys said.

Its quality improvement initiatives have proven successful as Delta Regional was awarded the Robert Wood Johnson quality grant to be one of 10 hospitals in America to work on eliminating the disparity of cardiac care to the minority population. The two-year process, according to Humphreys, is halfway complete. “We’ve come a long way from where we were just six years ago. Though we know we shall forever be striving to improve, things have really turned around,” he concluded.