Key milestones in the career of Doug McNeill
1998: McKnight Terrace Assisted Living opening
1999: Diabetes Wellness Center opening
1999: Opening for Children's Center
1999: Heart Failure Center opening
2000: Sports and Wellness Center at Coffman Family YMCA opening
2001: Pediatric Connections (partnership with Dayton and Children's Hospitals)
2001: Countryside YMCA opening
2002: Dialysis Center opening
2002: PET Imaging offered
2002: Image-Guided Surgery System — StealthStation Treatment Guidance Platform for spinal and cranial procedures
2002: Greentree Health Science Academy opens
2002: Announced new hospital location
2003: ImageChecker Computer-Aided Detection System (for breast cancer screenings)
2004: Level III Trauma Center Verification
2004: ISO 9001:2000 certification
2005: Wilbur and Mary Jean Cohen Women's Center opening
2005: Atrium Medical Center groundbreaking
2005: Alaris IV Pumps
2005: Cancer Program – first in Ohio – Outstanding Achievement Award
2006: Breast MRI
2006: Pain Management Program begins
2006: Primary Stroke Center Certification-Joint Commission
2007: Atrium Medical Center opens (Dec. 9 — hospital move)
2008: Rehabilitation Center earns top 10 percent by Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation
2008: StreamLab with Vista Analyzers
2008: Bidwell Surgery Center opens
2008: First open-heart surgery
2009: HealthGrades 5-Star ratings for congestive heart failure and heart attack
2009: Interventional Cardiology
2009: Medtronic Physio-Control device for EMS
2010: DaVinci Si HD System (surgery robot)
2010: Chest Pain Center accreditation by the Society of Chest Pain Centers
MIDDLETOWN — As Doug McNeill will tell you, the measure of success of Atrium Medical Center cannot be measured by one man, which is why he is confident it will continue to succeed even after he leaves.
Looking back over his 20-year career as president and CEO of Atrium, and its predecessor, Middletown Regional Hospital, McNeill hardly ever associates the changes and successes of the hospital with an “I,” but instead as a “we.” The reason, he said, is because any achievements were made by the collective hospital board, executive team, 1,800 staff members of Atrium and the myriad partners that make up the Atrium Medical Center campus.
So as McNeill finalizes plans to retire from the hospital at the end of this month, he said he is confident Atrium will be left in good hands.
“It’s not about me, but where the organization has gone in that period of time,” he explained. “A big part of my job was making sure Middletown Regional Hospital and Atrium had a future and how we fit into that.”
An important part of the hospital’s future was anticipating the needs of the community and its demographics. McNeill said it was clear early on there was a growing elderly population and not enough young people to meet the professional needs of caring for that population.
The decadelong debate and ultimate decision to move the hospital from McKnight Drive to 190-acre plot by Interstate 75 gave Atrium the space to handle increased calls for medical services, McNeill said. By way of example, the hospital had 63,000 emergency room visits last year, 5,000 more than the ER at Middletown Regional could handle.
With the completion of the $7.5 million Greentree Health Science Academy at the Atrium campus in fall 2011, McNeill said the hospital will be securing an educated work force to meet the community’s growing medical needs as well.
The school, he said, was a priority to ensure there would be trained professionals in the pipeline to staff the hospital and meet the demand. And all of that talent will be centered at Atrium — completing clinicals at its hospital and giving its leaders the chance to hire the talent of tomorrow and bear witness to the new technologies and medical innovations that go hand-in-hand with education.
“We did not move a hospital. We created a health and technology campus,” McNeill said. “We knew there were going to be key partners in education, in health care and technology. The knowledge keeps advancing and we have to keep pace and our education partners will allow us to do that.”
The next step, McNeill said, will be the expansion of the biomedical field. With Atrium strategically located off the interstate between Dayton and Cincinnati, near multiple airports and Fortune 500 companies, the hospital will become an important attraction because of the talent and training it will be offering here.
“Jobs don’t come unless you have an (eligible) work force and Greentree play into that,” he said. “I think long-term it is going to be a very attractive place.”
While opening Atrium was a significant achievement in his career, the opportunities that move opened up are the true success stories.
The Compton Center houses the hospital’s state-of-the-art cancer facility, which offers a full-line of treatment options including advanced imaging, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and more than 150 clinical trials. Atrium expanded its cardiology program, adding an open heart surgery program and becoming an accredited chest pain center.
“Clearly, what we have done in cancer and cardiology are things we were not able to do on McKnight Drive,” McNeill said. “And those services were not here before or even offered locally.”
The end of the year may also mean the end of McNeill’s residency in Middletown as well. He said he plans to move to the Denver, Colo., area, where he already has a home.
“I am really not going to be here much and the great thing is there are my successors who will replace me in these various bundles of activity,” he said.
Of his successor, Atrium’s current Chief Operating Officer Carol Turner, McNeill said she’s a very capable leader. “She is one who cares deeply about the mission of the hospital and the people and the communities she serves,” he said. “She has been an excellent mentor to hundreds of people in this organization. She is very genuine and she is very comfortable in her own skin. She is a very experienced leader and Atrium isn’t going to miss a beat.”
McNeill said his decision to retire is somewhat strategically tied to the completion of Greentree Academy and the first phase of Atrium’s growth. But his departure, he said, is far from an end point for growth and success. “The important thing is we haven’t reached our final destination. The great thing about Atrium is it will continue to evolve. It’s always going to be a work in progress and that is pretty exciting,” he said.
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