Cullman Regional: Growth spurs CEO’s contract extension

Published 9:34 pm Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Over the past three years, Cullman Regional’s patient volume has surged, its finances have returned to the black and its facilities are expanding.

At the helm since 2014 is President and CEO James Clements, the individual the public hospital’s board of directors credits with the turnaround. And to show its confidence in the seasoned hospital administrator, the board has signed off on a six-year contract extension.

Hospital officials declined to release details Wednesday of the agreement that will keep Clements in charge through 2023, however, The Times will seek the contract under Alabama’s public records law.

“Over the past three years, James has built a leadership team, made the hospital financially sound and has broken ground on two major expansion projects — both of which will help Cullman Regional better serve our community and add 150 local jobs to our local economy,” said Hospital Board Chair Judy Butler-Patterson in a hospital press release.

“The success of the hospital has surpassed our expectations, and we couldn’t be more pleased. In fact, the hospital is stronger than ever. We want to insure the future of the hospital continues on this path; therefore, we’ve extended his contract for six more years.”

The board hired Clements in August 2014 following the departure of former president and CEO Jim Weidner. At the time, Cullman Regional had operating losses that topped $13 million over a five-year period.

“We knew changes were necessary in order to survive in the current healthcare environment, and we hoped that bringing in a new chief executive officer with a strong background in growth would be just what we needed,” said immediate past Board Chair Todd McLeroy, “but we honestly weren’t certain.”

According to the hospital’s press release, Clements came on board and built a leadership team with two goals — to put patients’ needs first and grow volume so they could devote resources to the best quality care and expand to continue to meet present and future community needs.

Since then, Cullman Regional’s Executive Director of Marketing and Public Relations Lindsey Dossey notes the hospital’s patient volume has grown by 23 percent, from 53,700 patient visits (in-patient and out-patient) in 2014 to 66,150, as of June 30.

Cullman Regional’s growth defies a trend impacting many community medical facilities that have closed or been sold to larger health care systems. It’s actually expanding facilities to keep pace with an increased demand for care.

A 30-bed, fifth level expansion is ahead of schedule and plans to open in February while a new urgent care and out-patient imaging center is slated to open in April. The 40,000-square-foot expansion project on the east wing of the medical center will provide more private rooms and decrease wait times for beds.

To better manage patient flow in the ER, the new urgent care center is being built to address non-emergency care, with six exam rooms, lab, pharmacy, CT, ultrasound, MRI and general X-ray imaging.

“It takes all of us working toward the same goals to make this happen,” Clements said in the press release announcing his new contract. “Together, our team is working to make Cullman Regional one of the best hospitals not only in Alabama, but in the Southeast.”

“Personally, our family is proud to call Cullman home and are excited to be here for the next six years. We’ve been particularly impressed by the school system and our local church who have both embraced our family with open arms,” Clements said.

The increase in patient volume also created a 20 percent increase in net revenue growth, from $94 million to $113 million since 2015, according to Dossey. However, growth in revenue for a non-profit hospital isn’t the same as a for-profit hospital, which typically pays dividends to investors and corporate overhead.

Dossey said as a non-profit hospital, any revenue is reinvested in the medical facility. Recent investments include the fifth-floor project, new urgent care and expansion of women’s diagnostic services to include automated breast ultrasound and a bone density machine. In 2018, 3D mammography will be made available to patients.

Other investments include a $1.2 million upgrade to the central sterile surgery area, a $150,000 upgrade to the infant security system to protect newborns in the maternity and nursery center, $200,000 for clinical education and internal promotion for both staff and physicians on evidence-based medicine protocols for sepsis, $1 million support to core physician groups for recruitment of new physicians to the community and another $3.1 million to remove burden of in-patient coverage for primary care physicians in our community.

Prior to joining Cullman Regional, Clements served as CEO at South Fulton Medical Center in Atlanta. Additionally, he has more than 30 years of healthcare leadership experience at acute-care hospitals with 60-500 beds.

Cullman Regional is a fully accredited 145-bed medical center covering a six-county service area of 175,000 residents and has been a part of the community since 1939. It is one of the county’s largest employers and provided $14.7 million in 2016 to local schools, through the Good Samaritan Health Clinic, charity care and community service organizations. More information about the facility can be found at cullmanregional.com.