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HAMILTON — It is a tumultuous time for health care, says one hospital president, as new technology, health care overhauls and several new leaders change the landscape for hospitals serving Butler County.
Three of the five largest adult hospitals, by revenue, will be under new top management next year. Carol Turner, Jennifer Swenson and Dr. Kevin Joseph have been named presidents and chief executive officers of Atrium Medical Center, The Fort Hamilton Hospital and West Chester Hospital, respectively.
Some of the changes are related normal employment cycles, such as the retirement of Doug McNeill, announced Dec. 6. Other changes can be traced to new health systems, like when Fort Hamilton became part of the Dayton-based Kettering Health Network on July 1, said Colleen O’Toole, president of Greater Cincinnati Health Council. Lynn Oswald, Fort Hamilton’s leader, stepped down Oct. 18.
In addition to these challenges, the leaders face smaller profit margins.
“They’re going to have to be open to thinking about how to organize care because of this,” O’Toole said.
Jennifer Swenson
The newest face among health care leaders is Swenson, who comes from St. Helena Hospital Clearlake in California. She was named the top executive after Fort Hamilton’s merger. She’s replacing Oswald, who stepped down after about five years as senior vice president.
Swenson met with doctors Wednesday night and hospital staff Thursday morning and will be in Hamilton full time on Jan. 1.
Moving from California is actually a bit of a homecoming. Swenson, 39, was raised in Wisconsin. She started in health care as a human resources assistant at Paradise Valley Hospital in San Diego. Her dad was a pastor and on the hospital’s board.
“Mission-driven is part of who I am,” Swenson said.
The mother of two boys thinks the job is a great opportunity, plus it allows her to return to her Midwestern roots. Swenson, who was chief operating officer at St. Helena, said the hardest part of taking the next step up is joining a new system. One of her first goals is setting a plan for the future.
“We have to have a vision and we have to have everyone aligned to the same vision,” Swenson said.
Swenson refers to the changes in the industry as transforming care because the patient is at the center of the change.
She also sees the profit margins dwindling. The hospital she comes from reversed 13 years of losses this year.
“Our margins are getting tighter and basically, we’re having to go back and look at how we do business,” Swenson said.
Carol Turner
Turner’s first administrative position was 30 years ago, as the director of a clinical laboratory at what is now Southview Hospital in Dayton. In the late 1980s, Turner became a vice president for what was then Middletown Regional Hospital. After Doug McNeill became top executive in 1992, she was promoted to her current position of chief operating officer and executive vice president.
Her new position, as top executive of Atrium Medical Center in Middletown, starts Jan. 1.
Early on, she had the opportunity to design a clinical lab from scratch at Southview and recently, she was part of the Atrium design group.
The Springboro resident plans to focus on continual improvement.
“My vision of Atrium is to be one of the best hospitals in the nation, especially at quality and service,” said Turner, 59.
“I think we’re very well positioned for continued success here, but like all hospitals, we’re dealing with constantly changing technology, health care reform and how patients are going to be cared for,” she said.
Dr. Kevin Joseph
The youngest administrator, at 36, is Dr. Kevin Joseph. He has been interim president and chief executive officer of West Chester Hospital since April. He was officially posted to the job in September.
Joseph was the first physician involved in West Chester Hospital in 2008, before it opened in 2009. He was medical director of the hospital’s emergency department until this year. He still practices one day a week.
Joseph is in the process of implementing an approach where everyone will be involved in patient care. Management will spend a couple of hours interacting with patients, Joseph said.
“Something I’m really focused on, and the team’s really focused on, is delivering quality, evidence-based medicine,” said the Anderson resident.
He also said West Chester will implement electronic medical records in the next year and a half. Carol King was the top executive before Joseph.
Thomas Urban
With McNeill’s retirement, Urban has the longest tenure of any area top hospital administrator. His history as top executive of Mercy Hospital Fairfeld is his proudest accomplishment.
He has seen the hospital grow from 150 beds to 250 beds.
The hospitals is halfway finished with the expansion of the Family Birth Center. It is also raising $6.4 million to transform the empty fifth floor of the patient tower into private rooms.
Urban, a Buffalo, N.Y., native, started as assistant vice president for hospital services at Grandview Medical Center in Dayton. He came to Butler County in 1993 as president and chief executive officer of what was then Mercy Hospital Hamilton-Faifield. When the health systems began in the 1990s, he was on the ground floor of offering an integrated health system when he moved here from Massachusetts, where he was a hospital vice president.
He said the future is a patient-centered system of care with more services offered close to home.
“We need to move to a system of care that’s much more coordinated,” said Urban, 57.
Mercy Hospital Fairfield is operated by Mercy Health Partners of Cincinnati.
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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