"Consultant bothered by problems"

Keith Pryor says the hospital's current issues are unnecessary, but can still be fixed.

Danville Register & Bee
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

DANVILLE - There is an unusually high level of animosity within the community following Danville Regional Medical Center’s transition from public to private ownership, health care consultant Keith Pryor said Monday.
“Your situation bothers me,” said Pryor, who was hired to work with the Citizen’s Commission Related to the Danville Regional Medical Center. “What shocks me is the extremely high level of discord that you are having here.”
Pryor met with the commission Monday to discuss the quality of care at Danville Regional.
He said the biggest problem facing the hospital is a growing lack of trust between members of the community and LifePoint Hospitals Inc. Pryor said this problem started when LifePoint purchased Danville Regional in July 2005.
Pryor said the transition from public to private ownership requires “leaders who are the best of the best” and that LifePoint’s own admission that it made leadership mistakes during this time did not make the process any smoother.
“There is a lot at stake here,” he said, adding the level of distrust could hinder anything from the community’s health care system to its economic development efforts. “(This problem) is so unnecessary and I think you can fix it.”
Pryor told the commission members the best way to restore the trust was to open up a dialogue between LifePoint officials, community leaders and physicians at the hospital.
The participants in this dialogue must be willing to leave the past behind them and focus on some of the core problems that were identified through the commission’s efforts, he said.
“It’s time to start walking on a new path,” said Jim Houser, co-chairman of the commission, adding he felt the “old path was very negative and destructive.”
Houser said the commission identified five areas the hospital needed to improve at its last meeting, including staffing levels, poor patient care, wait times in the emergency room, morale among employees and administrative issues.
Houser said these topics covered most of the problems that were brought up at a recent series of public hearings, but some positive things were said about the hospital as well. People testified that the hospital’s cleanliness, one-day surgery program and heart center seemed to show improvement.
Pryor said some other “good news” was that about 80-90 percent of the community and hospital staff wanted the situation at Danville Regional to improve.
He said LifePoint has no other choice but to listen to concerns because Danville Regional’s situation may hinder the company’s ability to grow.
“We too have come to the same conclusion. We have to build trust,” Danville Regional CEO Art Doloresco said Monday at the commission meeting. “Building that trust means having the dialogue that (Pryor) talked about.”