Cheboygan Memorial Hospital: Relationship Driven - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing - Inside Healthcare

Big ideas don’t always come from big places. Cheboygan, Mich. may be a small town, but it is also home to Cheboygan Memorial Hospital’s (CMH) pioneering spirit.

Barbara Cliff, President and CEO

“Right now we are looking at opportunities for further growth,” said Dr. Barbara Cliff, president and CEO. “We aren’t going to go significantly outside of our current scope, but we will look to enhance what we currently do.”

CMH is an independent rural community hospital that began an operational and financial turnaround several years ago through forward thinking leadership. In addition to the main hospital and health center, it has a women’s and children’s health center on a different part of its main campus, as well as the Indian River Medical Center 20 miles away.

This has given CMH an opportunity to determine the services, programs, and investments needed to improve quality of care and increase patient volume. Several equipment and facility projects have been completed and planned, but the most impressive program doesn’t have to do with capital investments.

Building connections
During the last few years, CMH built a comprehensive physician recruitment program. It has been so successful, the American College of Healthcare Executives recognized it as one of 23 nationwide management innovations at their annual meeting.

Cliff said the concept is to build relationships and recruit for the future. Not only is CMH recruiting doctors to the hospital, it is recruiting them to the community. A multidisciplinary recruitment team of external community members, physicians with local ties, and doctors who were drawn to the area began looking for effective means of showcasing both community and hospital to bring physicians to the area.

“We did an analysis of our physician needs, figuring out how many we would need and in what specialty areas,” Cliff said. “We then came up with multiple messages for recruitment across a number of different venues.”

CMH developed a detailed recruitment packet full of information on the hospital and its surrounding community. The organization also produced a DVD designed to highlight the hospital and Cheboygan. It is also available online and focuses on a balance of work and life. The materials were made available to the CMH board, its medical staff and leadership team, and various community leaders. Each group was asked if they knew of anyone who was currently a medical school student, a resident, a practicing doctor elsewhere around the country, or if they had personal relationships with people in medicine.

From that effort a list of about two-dozen students and doctors with local ties was created. Cliff sent the recruitment packet to these individuals and stays in touch by sending them a hand-written note and copy of the CMH newsletter on a quarterly basis inviting them to visit.

The results have been measurable. Seven new doctors have been hired since late last summer, including an obstetrician and a pediatrician with local connections and an anesthesiologist whose wife is from the area. Two family practice doctors who are from the area, an ED physician, and an urgent care doctor also joined the team. Three of them are already on the job. Two start later this year, while two others were signed to start in 2009.

The idea is not just to respond to immediate needs; it is to forge relationships to help the hospital keep up with clinical needs for years to come. Cliff described one husband and wife team who are in their first two years of residency. Both are from the surrounding communities and got in touch with Cliff, asking to meet her and expressing interest in joining the CMH medical team when their residencies are finished in three years.

“We’ve now connected them with physician contacts here at the hospital that will keep in touch with them over the next few years as well,” said Cliff. “We are trying to develop these types of relationships so physicians will want to come here.”

Cliff also indicated CMH has been able to meet its needs in other staff areas and doesn’t currently face a significant shortage in areas such as nursing. This is partially due to a summer extern program for nursing students and relationships with North Central Michigan College and Lake Superior State University that get young nurses in the door. CMH has also been fortunate that most areas where it is hiring new doctors haven’t required massive increases in support staff as the infrastructure is already in place, although Cliff said there is a slight increase in staffing needs with the addition of the clinic-based physicians.

Enhancing service
Despite the size of the community it serves, CMH has no plans to stunt its growth. A new cardiac wellness center opens this June as part of a focus on health and wellness rather than sickness and illness, which was fully supported by community fundraising. Its new state-of-the-art digital mammography program also starts in June. The next step is to get the word out about these new capabilities.

“We’ve launched a marketing plan to focus on five critical areas—cardiac wellness, diagnostics, physician practices, surgical services, and women’s and children’s services,” Cliff said. “We are looking at different tactics to increase marketshare through appropriate, cost-effective marketing to targeted audiences.”

In 2007, CMH celebrated its 65th anniversary with the excitement of enhanced programs, improved facilities, and new providers. The original CMH building was recently demolished to make way for potential future expansions, responding to the needs of the community just as the original facility did in 1942. With the need for IT improvements and the construction of a new ED on the horizon, Cliff and her team are actively involved in planning for the organization’s future. If their efforts continue to be successful, residents of Cheboygan and the surrounding area will be well served by the small community hospital with a big heart and big ideas.

< Previous Story		Next Story >

CURRENT ISSUE

CATEGORIES

HEALTH SOLUTIONS