"We may strategically realign some of
our assets. Services may be added at
one location, some may go away, and
in other cases, hospitals may be built."
Thomas Gilbert
EHCA at a Glance
Hospitals
Cartersville Medical Center
960 Joe Frank Harris Parkway,
Cartersville
CEO Keith Sandlin
440 employees, 80 licensed beds
Services: Level II 24-hour emergency
services, same day surgery, obstetrics
and women's center, sports and
rehabilitation center, outpatient
diagnostics center.
Dunwoody Medical Center
4575 North Shallowford Road, Atlanta
CEO Thomas Gilbert
330 employees, 168 licensed beds
Services: comprehensive women's
services (including obstetrics, Level III
neonatal intensive care unit), general
medical and surgical services, cardiac
cath, outpatient/same day surgery,
CCU, Level III trauma center, 24-hour
emergency services, perinatology.
Eastside Medical Center
1700 Medical Way, Snellville
CEO Les Beard
590 employees, 131 licensed beds
Services: obstetrics, Level III NICU,
specialty women's services, pediatric
urgent care services, outpatient
rehabilitation day surgery, sleep
disorder lab, gero-psych
inpatient/outpatient services,
24-hour emergency services,
wound care center, pain center,
mood disorders clinic.
Metropolitan Hospital
3223 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta
CEO Jean Calhoun
46 employees, 64 licensed beds
Services: advanced surgery including
urology, general surgery, ophthalmics,
orthopedics, otolaryngology, plastic
and reconstructive surgery, pain
management, gynecology,
oral/maxillofacial surgery.
Northlake Regional Medical Center
1455 Montreal Road, Tucker
CEO Thomas Gilbert
295 employees, 120 licensed beds
Services: podiatry, sleep disorder
treatment, outpatient surgery,
obstetrics, gynecology, 24-hour
emergency services, critical care,
mammography, MRI, CT, inpatient
rehabilitation, outpatient physical
therapy, occupational therapy,
inpatient surgery, oncology,
community education.
Parkway Medical Center
1000 Thornton Road, Lithia Springs
CEO Deborah Guthrie
373 employees, 304 licensed beds
Services: cardiology, orthopedics,
oncology, adult psychiatric care,
obstetrics and women's services,
48-bed skilled nursing/sub-acute
care unit, inpatient/out-patient rehab,
inpatient/outpatient surgery, 24-hour
emergency services.
Peachtree Regional Hospital
60 Hospital Road, Newnan
CEO Linda Jubinsky
299 employees, 143 licensed beds
Services: obstetrics/gynecology,
orthopedics, occupational medicine,
oncology, general medicine and
surgical services, cardiovascular
services, emergency services,
gastroenterology, endoscopy,
ophthalmology, outpatient
center, pediatrics, CT, MRI,
mammography, wound care,
sleep disorders.
West Paces Medical Center
3200 Howell Mill Road, NW, Atlanta
CEO Thomas Gilbert
368 employees, 291 licensed beds
Services: women's services, Level III
NICU, oncology, sports medicine,
advanced surgical procedures.
Surgery Centers
Atlanta Outpatient Peachtree
Dunwoody Center
5505 Peachtree-Dunwoody Road,
Atlanta
Administrator LuAnn Brown
44 employees
Services: outpatient and short-stay
procedures including dental/oral
surgery, general surgery, gynecology,
ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology,
plastic surgery, podiatry, urology,
breast biopsy, cataract removal, mastectomy.
Atlanta Outpatient Specialty Center
933-D Johnson Ferry Road, Atlanta
Administrator LuAnn Brown
7 employees
Services: cystoscopy, ureterscopy,
prostate treatment, urological x-ray,
minor general surgery, plastic surgery,
vascular surgery, gynecology.
Atlanta Outpatient Surgery Center
993-C Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 300,
Atlanta
Administrator Luann Brown
58 employees, 3 licensed beds
(overnight)
Services: dental/oral surgery, general
surgery, gyncecology, otorhino-
laryngology, plastic surgery, urology,
orthopedics, extended recovery.
Marietta Surgery Center
796 Church Street, Marietta
Administrator Charlotte Bellantoni
98 employees
Services: gastroenterology, general
dentistry, gynecology, lithotripsy,
neurosurgery, ophthalmology,
oral/maxillofacial surgery, orthopedics,
otorhinolaryngology, pain management,
plastic surgery, podiatry, urology,
stereotactic breast biopsy.
Northlake Surgical Center
1491 Montreal Road, Tucker
Administrator Teresa Sowell
13 employees
Services: general surgery, gynecology,
ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology,
orthopedics, pain management,
plastic surgery, podiatry, urology,
oral surgery. |
 Why did Columbia/HCA want to partner with Emory in the Atlanta market?
 Nobody fit as well as Emory. We both needed partners to be significant players in the managed care market. Emory meets Columbia's needs for tertiary and quaternary services and is the only one in the Atlanta market that does organ transplants and research in so many areas. A recognizable brand name is very important in today's managed care and marketing arenas, and Emory's name connotes quality. Collectively, we are stronger together than we are apart. And while we may be strong for now, we are not immune to all the economic forces facing health care today. In essence we're trying to maintain jobs for Emory personnel as well as Columbia personnel.
Many question whether an academic health center and a publicly owned company can have compatible missions.
Emory and Columbia/HCA have very compatible missions, now that Dr. Frist has taken the company back over. C/HCA's mission was developed by several thousand employees in our hospitals - from the point of delivery rather than being passed down from corporate headquarters. When we sat down at the table with Emory, it was amazing how similar Emory's mission and vision statement was to ours. When we put together the LLC mission statement, we combined Emory's and C/HCA's and made surprisingly few changes to either one.
How is Columbia/HCA different than in 1994 when Columbia and Emory first had talks about a joint venture?
It's dramatically different. In 1994, our former CEO wanted Columbia/HCA to be the Wal-Mart of medicine, the 800-pound gorilla that was going to drive health care in the nation. We acquired a lot of different types of businesses, including some facilities that probably were not great. We had all sorts of things that didn't really fit the mission and focus of the new company - a TV network, home health agencies, mail order prescription companies - if it had medicine or health care in the name, we bought it.
Columbia was big on consolidation and was a top-down company with tight central control. But that didn't stick well with community hospital CEOs, who over the years had developed their hospitals to meet their community's needs. I don't think you can take the Cartersville hospital model, for example, and put it in Macon or put Macon in Cartersville. Under the old C/HCA, the only way the hospital CEO had of moving up was to move away. That meant he wouldn't know the community, and it wouldn't know him. This nation is a collection of communities, but our leadership didn't understand that. Health care is built on trust. If physicians, employees, and patients don't have that trust, you're not going to succeed. If they don't know you, they're not going to trust you.
How would you describe C/HCA now?
Dr. Frist described it a number of years ago as a loose affiliation of hospitals with a common money source. It's a franchise. That means the CEO in Cartersville or Eastside or one of our other hospitals has a business to run, and he's entrusted with that business.
So your hospitals are independent?
They are more independent now than a year and a half ago. The basic difference
has been a return of control back to a local level. There are common initiatives in the hospitals, and services are shared when appropriate from a strategic point of view. It's similar to Crawford Long Hospital and Emory University Hospital, which operate the same way on two campuses, but maintain some differences. They plan strategically. I think you'll see the same thing reflected in Columbia/HCA hospitals that have aligned with Emory.
What kinds of services do you share?
Some of the same things that Emory Hospital and Crawford Long Hospital share. Information systems, contracted services, purchasing, just to name a few.
Is Columbia/HCA out of its growth cycle now?
We're not a growth company per se, but I think in specific markets such as Atlanta where there are gaps in our coverage, we certainly will be looking for additional things that make sense to the partnership. We will aggressively try to increase our market share. We will be the premier provider of medical services in the Atlanta area, and we will not fail to make that point with every payer in the Atlanta area. What we each bring to the table is going to make us the most complete medical delivery system in Atlanta.
How will the EHCA, LLC grow its market share?
It's safe to say, without tipping our hand too much, that we're going to realign some of the assets we have in this partnership, and we will be looking at placing them strategically. If there are opportunities for this alliance, we will evaluate them as a partnership. Physicians are going to be a key component in our strategy. Our ability to grow market share will depend on how successfully we involve physicians in initiatives such as managed care contracting and development of services - we believe we will be more successful in integrating our physicians in these strategies than Promina has been.
Will that mean closing existing hospitals and opening new hospitals?
We may relocate them. We may decide we're duplicating services that we don't need to duplicate. We've talked about creating centers of excellence - one hospital may be a neuroscience center, one may be a cardiovascular center, but they'll be inside regular core service hospitals. We need to have basic services at all hospitals, but not neurosurgery, for example, in every hospital. I see services regionalizing. If you've got hospitals five miles apart, it doesn't make sense to have them competing with each other. Some services may be added at one location, some may go away, and in other cases, other hospitals may be built.
One of the Emory community's biggest concerns is the ongoing government investigation of Columbia/HCA.
It's our biggest concern too. Under our new management, Columbia/HCA has committed significant resources to meeting federal and state regulatory requirements, and nobody hopes it's over soon any more than we do. This is a new entity.
Seems like there's a lot to do to make this alliance work. What happens next?
A review committee chaired by John Henry [CEO of Emory Hospitals] is touring each Columbia/HCA hospital to ensure that they meet the standards of Emory, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the state, and other regulatory agencies. We support that effort. If the standards are met, signage representing Emory's presence will go up.
A strategic plan has been developed which will guide us over the next five years. A lot of details that can't be fleshed out in a strategic plan will be identified as this venture unfolds. This plan is not set in stone; it has to be flexible and always evolving. It's important to understand that a living organization grows and changes on a daily basis. We don't control the environment in which we work. We have to respond to outside forces, and I don't know what those will be. We do know that it's not going to get any easier.
What will the signs say?
They will say, for example, Emory-Dunwoody Medical Center and display the Emory Healthcare logo. Columbia/HCA will not be on the signs or in marketing or advertising. The hospitals will be marketed as Emory Healthcare because Emory has the name in Atlanta, not Columbia/HCA. But Columbia/HCA will oversee the day-to-day operations of the hospitals.
What do you see as the challenges to making all this happen?
The major challenge is building trust between our community physicians and Emory's physicians. At our first meeting of the LLC, I was excited by the positive enthusiasm shown by Emory physicians and how open they were to the 35 community physicians and leaders there. They expressed some concerns and exchanged some ideas that set the groundwork for building trust. Neither of those medical communities can do it by themselves. It's got to be a cooperative effort. |
