Starting April 5, Schneider Regional Medical Center (SRMC) has a new chief executive officer, and the head of the hospital’s board said Monday that the new CEO’s nursing and administrative background at major stateside facilities will help get the hospital through some of its unique challenges.
Until she officially starts next month, Alice Taylor will continue in her current position as the chief operating officer at Broward General Medical Center and Chris Evert Children’s Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But once the transition is complete, she plans to hit the ground running, delving right into Schneider’s nursing, financial and customer service challenges.
In an interview Monday with the Source, Taylor was easygoing, speaking excitedly about bringing her family to the warm weather and bright, blue waters of the Caribbean. But when the subject switched to health care, Taylor’s passion and drive came to the fore as she described her new position as the "next progression" and "challenge" in her professional career.
"I just feel very comfortable here," she said.
For hospital board chairman Cornel Williams, Taylor’s ascent to the head of the hospital represents a "rare opportunity" for Schneider Regional to be guided by someone with "a lot of clinical and operations experience."
In her new position, Taylor will be earning $310,000 a year, but Williams said Friday that the money is well worth the "opportunity" of being able to put Taylor — who signed a three-year contract with the hospital early last month — in the top spot.
"To have someone with this kind of background — well, it’s a rarity for us here," Williams said.
Broward General is a 716-bed facility and the flagship hospital of the Broward Health System — one of the 10 largest health care systems in the nation, according to SRMC officials. Taylor has been the chief operating officer since 2007, and before that held management positions at Sacred Heart Hospital and Albert Einstein Medical Center in Pennsylvania, along with Atlantic City Medical Center and Northeastern Hospital in Philadelphia.
She started her career in 1977, taking a job as a staff nurse within the emergency department and surgical unit at the Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Making the move to Florida from Philadelphia was what Taylor described as the "biggest move" of her career. But settling down in the territory — well, Taylor said Friday that this move just "seems right."
But it doesn’t come without its challenges — some of which she was eager to talk about Friday, and others she said required a bit more research. But for the most part, what the St. Thomas hospital is experiencing is unique to many health care systems throughout the mainland, and Taylor said she is ready to move in quickly and implement her ideas.
First off is the financials. Each year Schneider Regional has pushed forward a multi-million dollar deficit because of its uncompensated care costs, and Taylor said Friday that one of her top priorities is to enhance revenues and treat the hospital more like a business by taking a look at how to streamline the processing and billing systems, along with maximizing the hospital’s contracts with insurance carriers.
During a recent meeting, hospital board members were told that SRMC is paying $8 million for its traveling nurses and heard a proposal from interim CEO Elizabeth Harris for recruiting off-island in places such as the Philippines.
That strategy is good, but not new, Taylor said Friday.
"Recruiting from the Philippines has long been a strategy in the states," she explained, adding that she also hopes to look in a new direction — bringing on recent nursing graduates and building an "internal pool" of nurses that will be given certain incentives, such as housing, in exchange for making a professional commitment to Schneider Regional.
It’s no secret that the search for a new hospital CEO was prefaced by scandal, with former hospital heads Rodney Miller Sr. and Amos Carty Jr., along with former hospital CEO Peter Najawicz and former board chairwoman June A. Adams, being arrested in 2008 on a number of charges ranging from fraud to embezzlement. Miller was first arrested in 2007 on another set of charges and was subsequently found guilty of lying on his SRMC job application.
Taylor said Friday that another top priority is restoring the community’s trust in the hospital.
"I plan to make myself very visible to the community," she said, adding that her strategy also includes publishing the hospital’s successes, engaging the staff in making decisions and getting down to the "grass-roots" issues. Putting emphasis on improving customer service might also stem the migration of patients from the hospital to off-island facilities, Taylor said.
Overall, Williams said Friday he is "very excited" about the hospital’s selection, which was narrowed down from a short list of 17 candidates recommended by Tyler & Company, an executive search firm hired by the board in late 2008 to conduct the CEO search.
"It was very important for the board to select a leader who could work with us and give us a fresh perspective on some of the issues we’ve been struggling with," he said. "And we think she will be able to nurture the next generation of leaders so the next time we do this, we won’t have to look off-island."
