Eureka Springs Hospital commissioners met at Center Stage Oct. 19 to hold the first regular meeting since the firing of hospital managers Darrell Parke and Mark Stearns of Alliance Management Group.
Interim-CEO Angie Shaw was present but did not provide commissioners with a report of operations. Instead, Commissioners appointed to newly developed Committees shared information about the areas they were assigned.
Jean Reed is in charge of Personnel and Operations committee, Kent Turner is in charge of the Finance Committee and development of the job description of the CEO to search for a new candidate, Michael Merry heads up the Marketing Committee and Tyson Burden heads up the Contracts and Complaints Committee.
Chair John House stated that there is a financial report from the CFO Scott Stone, but did not share it with the press, instead asked the press to remind him to send it out.
These committees have held meetings with staff, but because only one commissioner is on each committee, the public and press are not invited.
Hospitalist Dr. Daidone was not present but requested in writing approval to develop a medically supervised detoxification program through the hospital. Commissioners agreed that this would be an area that Ms. Shaw would be authorized to handle, however they voted to approve Daidone’s request.
Commissioners also approved the purchase of new refrigerators in the laboratory, an amount less than $20,000.
Commissioners discussed their opinions of the future CEO and role of that person. The job description says the successful applicant will be responsible for the critical access hospital “with complete control of current operations.”
This sentence was criticized by Burden who wanted to remove the word “complete.” Turner asked Burden, “Who else would have control if the CEO did not?”
Burden replied, “If they were doing something really illegal or bad then we would have to deal with that.”
“I will tell you I put that word in on purpose because this commission has a problem, it has a tendency to want to get down in the mud—you need to help them get out of the mud,” Turner replied.
Burden said he did not believe all commissioners agreed with Turner. House stepped in and said there have been trust issues with the commission not trusting people to do their job, “Instead trying to micromanage.”
House said the word “complete” is important to keep in the description saying, “We are hiring you, we are not hiring us.” House specified that the commission is in charge of the CEO, and the CEO is in charge of the hospital.
Burden said he understood but said, “In the very recent past we have not had enough oversight and things have gotten out of control. How do we get that oversight but not micromanage?”
Commissioner Barbara Dicks asked, “How do you prevent fraud? If you say, ‘You got it, you take care of it, you come tell us the pretty words every meeting,’ and we are gonna say Hallelujah.”
Turner replied that is how organizations everywhere operate, as House encouraged the commission not to micromanage and to follow the board/staff hierarchical relationship. “Yes, there are risks involved, but there are risks involved in micromanaging.”
House agreed with the way Turner wrote the job description, saying, “We need to make it clear to our candidate that we are not going to sit here and go behind their back, and go talk to the employees, ‘are they doing their job, are they stealing money?’ or whatever, because nobody is going to want to work here—I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t even apply.”
Burden insisted that there needs to be oversight, “Because listening to them once a month for ten minutes in this meeting—that didn’t work,” referring to the Alliance report given at the monthly commission meetings.
“We can’t be undermining whoever we hire,” House said. “We can’t be making decisions without them being involved—we just can’t do that.”
Commissioners approved the job description of the CEO and a budget for advertising the position not to exceed $5,000. No salary information was released.
Dicks stated she did not want to begin the process of searching for a new CEO for six months because she felt the staff and the Interim-CEO were sufficient, but no others agreed and the process to begin searching for a CEO immediately was approved.
Public comment was not a part of the agenda, but House asked if there were any comments. Eureka Springs resident Craig Cox asked a series of questions including why the commission fired Alliance and how the commission is overseen by city council.
“We are an independent commission, and even though we are part of the city we don’t report to them,” House answered.
As far as why Alliance was fired House said, “There were concerns that arose with the way that they were doing business as far as they were doing some things without official contracts, bringing equipment into the building that we didn’t know who owned it, there was concern that there was a brief period of time when the hospital didn’t have adequate insurance coverage, a pretty gross oversight on their part.”
House said he doesn’t get to vote on the issues, and when it was voted on to fire Alliance last month, he was asked how he would have voted. “I felt like the decision we made—I supported it. But I think we could have done just as well by working with them [Alliance] and trying to correct some of those things and taking a little bit longer to the decision process. Like I said, I don’t get to vote so that is just the way it worked out.”
House said that Turner had more information about the actual termination and if the 6-month payout has been paid.
Turner said, “The situation is depending upon on how they [Alliance] act and how they behave is whether or not they get the full $150,000 or they get something less, okay? Because we didn’t want to do it for cause, we wanted to just walk away, and that’s what I told them [Alliance] when I told them they would no longer be with us.”
Turner said the commission offered Alliance $75,000, “…they said they deserved $150,000 and the next thing they said is they want to talk to their lawyer.” Commissioners may consider $150,000 payment but if lawyers get involved the situation may change. “It’s still up in the air,” Turner said.
The commission is planning a workshop for Saturday, Nov. 7 at noon, in an undetermined location.