Douglas Moyer began his new role as CEO of Spartanburg, S.C.-based Mary Black Health System in November, previously serving as COO of Southside Regional Medical Center in Petersburg, Va. Since becoming CEO of the 209-bed MBHS, he has focused his efforts on building relationships with physicians and growing surgical volumes.
Q: This is your first CEO position. How has it been different than your previous role as COO?
Douglas Moyer: Having come from another CHS facility in Virginia, where I was COO for seven years, everything feels really comfortable for me because I know our parent company extremely well as well as its structure and practices. Where there has been a learning curve, though, is getting to know the hospital and the community. Some things that are important to this community weren't necessarily important to the community I came from. [MBHS] is a wonderful and dynamic facility that has a lot to offer and is in a very attractive community, all of which have made this a great opportunity for me.
The role of CEO does have some different challenges, though. There is more face time with physicians, and you also are more of a link to the community as opposed to being in-house and managing operations.
Q: What are your biggest goals for your new position leading MBHS?
DM: We're always looking to improve quality scores; you're not a hospital if you're not always looking for ways to improve your core numbers, but a big part of what I'm trying to accomplish here is to build relationships with physician partners, which comes with time. One major goal we have is to grow surgical volumes, and a big part of doing that comes from building these relationships, learning the players in the market and their needs and what it's going to take to better service them. This has been the focus of my first months here, and it's a very time consuming effort.
We have a number of employed primary care physicians here, but all of our specialists are splitters, which is common in the very-competitive Spartanburg/Greenville (S.C.) market. Whenever you have a change in leadership, it takes time to get to know who the new leader is and his or her message, which is needed to build trust. Our message is that we want to grow, and our preference is to grow with the physicians we have here. We are trying to find ways that we can grow together — build service lines, improve customer service and help physicians recruit to their practices. Each specialty has its own needs, and part of my job is being a good listener and understanding, over time, what each physician group's agenda is.
Q: What are some of the needs your physicians have identified?
DM: For some it may be help in recruiting a new partner, others need better coverage of the ED and better ways to work. For the most part, though, the needs deal with what we can do as a hospital to support their practices and make them more effective and efficient. Physicians are paid to treat patients, not wait for ORs or drive between practice locations. It's about profitability and creating an efficient way for doctors to do business. We offer a hospitalist program, and we're working to be more electronic so that physicians can access records securely and remotely, which will allow them to be more efficient and effective. It's a difficult situation because by making them more efficient and effective you are also reducing the time they actually spend in the hospital. It's a tough situation, but therein lies the need to build trust.
Q: What has been the system's biggest challenge thus far in meeting your goal of growing volumes?
DM: We are the smallest hospital in this market. While we're not a small hospital, we are the smallest player here. Being a smaller sized community-driven player can be an advantage or a disadvantage. We're trying to communicate to our community from a marketing and public relations standpoint that you don't have to go to an academic medical center or larger hospital to get great care. We have an array of services to treat the sickest of the sick, and what we do have is a more personal touch and a great campus that's easy to get around. As a smaller facility, we are able to cut through a lot of the bureaucracy that you might find at a more urban medical center, so right now we're trying to meet the challenge of telling that story, which can be tough to tell.
Q: What have you learned in your first few months as a hospital CEO that you would pass along to other new CEOs?
DM: I think it's important to get as much input as you can and really listen to the needs of your physicians and community body. At MBHS, I know where I want to take the hospital and where it needs to go, but getting input helps me adapt and change those plans if needed. My advice would be to get as much input as you can out of the gate so that your plan of attack can align with those needs.
Learn more about MBHS.