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Co-president positions could be permanent
By Cheryl Powell
Beacon Journal medical writer
Published on Monday, Mar 23, 2009
The hospital closed the following year.
After scrambling to find a new residency, Mitstifer ended up at Akron General Medical Center.
This month, Mitstifer and Dr. Paul Lecat were named to run the day-to-day operations of Akron General on an interim basis.
Their appointments come at a critical time, when Akron General is restructuring
its administration and reducing costs to cope with the ailing economy and investment losses.
After an operating loss of $10 million last year and the nation's continued economic downturn this year, Akron General has reduced pay for executives, laid off 145 workers and taken other steps to trim its budget while looking for ways to boost revenue.
Mitstifer said the memories of the demise of Mount Sinai encouraged him to take on a leadership role to help strengthen Akron General into the future.
''That was actually a motivator for doing this,'' he said. ''I saw what happened to a great institution at Mount Sinai.''
Higher visibility
Akron General promoted Mitstifer and Lecat to share the new Office of the President as part of an effort ''to increase substantially the role of the medical staff in administrative decision-making, as well as the planning of our future,'' said Alan Bleyer, president and chief executive of Akron General Health System.
''This is the next logical step in engaging the staff in decision-making,'' Bleyer said. ''We're delighted to have them. They're highly regarded by the medical staff and administration.''
Hospitals rely on strong relations with doctors, who refer patients for inpatient and outpatient services, said Richard Fedorovich, chairman of the board of Akron General.
In their new leadership roles, Mitstifer and Lecat can ''utilize not only their knowledge of the medical field but really their excellent knowledge and contacts with the people who are delivering the services,'' Fedorovich said.
Although the co-president positions are interim jobs, he said, they could become permanent.
Nationwide, hospitals increasingly are turning to doctors to lead their institutions, said Dr. Barry Silbaugh, chief executive of the American College of Physician Executives.
''Recruiters, for several years, have been telling us that many hospitals boards when they do a search for their top leadership positions are requiring a physician be among their top candidates,'' Silbaugh said.
Doctors, nurses and other clinicians bring their ''do no harm'' philosophy to hospital administration and keep the focus on patients — attitudes that are especially important when tough decisions are made during trying economic times, he said.
At Akron General, the two new physician leaders report to Bleyer, who previously also served as president of the medical center.
The interim physician leaders have taken over many of the duties from the chief operating officer position, which was cut as part of an earlier administrative shakeup.
Lecat, associate clinical director of Akron General's Center for Family Medicine and a former chief of staff, is serving as interim president of outpatient services.
Mitstifer, chairman of Emergency Medicine, is the interim president of inpatient services.
Areas of focus
In their new roles, the doctors said, they are helping develop ways to streamline services and make them easier for patients to navigate, particularly in the areas of cancer and heart and vascular care.
''I think we saw the opportunity to change,'' Lecat said. ''With any challenge comes opportunities.''
Other areas of focus this year will include orthopedics, general surgery and emergency medicine, which will be expanded this summer with the opening of a 24-hour emergency department at the Akron General Health & Wellness Center-West in Bath Township.
Lecat and Mitstifer both said they liked the fact that their new shared administrative post allows them to spend some time — although less than before — treating patients.
Mitstifer is continuing some night and weekend shifts in the main ER and at the Akron General Health & Wellness Center-North in Stow, while Lecat is still working at the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy and seeing patients half a day each week.
Despite the struggles Akron General and many hospitals nationwide are facing, both doctors are upbeat about the long-term future of the institution.
''It's completely a positive outlook as far as where things are heading here,'' Mitstifer said.
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or chpowell@thebeaconjournal.com.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Tallmadge, OH
Posted 06:47 AM, 03/23/2009
AGMC has too many dead beat emergency room patients who can't pay because they have no health insurance. When is Obama & Biden going to initiate their UHC change for the USA? Untgil UHC is the law of the land, hospitals like AGMC will continue to suffer.
My Heart Is In K-Town, .
Posted 07:22 AM, 03/23/2009
@ OMG - Please explain how the initiation of a UHC plan will solve this issue? Instead of the hospital taking the hit, does that mean you and I will?
Tallmadge, OH
Posted 07:51 AM, 03/23/2009
PacMan - you already do. You pay for Medicade and increased charges for your services to cover those who don't pay. UHC for everyone !!!!
Akron, Oh
Posted 08:21 AM, 03/23/2009
How many trillions more will Socialized medicine cost us??
Akron, OH
Posted 08:21 AM, 03/23/2009
It's good to see this move. Name the top institutions in the U.S. -- Cleveland Clinic, John Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, etc. Who leads these institutions -- physicians. Good luck to the two of you.
My Heart Is In K-Town, .
Posted 08:23 AM, 03/23/2009
OMG - I'm still a little thick this morning...if we are already paying, then why would it be any different for those who aren't paying today? UHC will simply cost us that much more to absorb for those who are not paying today. Right? To make matters worse, someone (the gov) will be telling you what you need, when you need it and when they can do it.
Akron, OH
Posted 08:33 AM, 03/23/2009
OMG - The local EMS system is run by those very same doctors, and they flood their own ER's with those very deadbeat folks to collect the maximum amount of government dollars.
I think y'all have already come to realize, that Obama isn't goin' to provide y'all with UHC. Y'all are already disgruntled because of his failure to follow through on many of his campaign promises.
Uniontown, OH
Posted 08:38 AM, 03/23/2009
That's exactly right, PacMan. Want to wait years for a surgery?? Check out how it works in Canada.
Akron, OH
Posted 10:14 AM, 03/23/2009
We don't pay for the people without health insurance at the hospitals, unless they're covered under medicare or medicaid, and even then we aren't covering all their services. Hospitals are non-profit entities and don't refuse service to anyone. When a patient can't pay and has no alternative, such as medicare, medicaid or health insurance, and the patient doesn't have the money to go on a payment plan, the hospital eats the cost. And even with pay-over-time options, the hospital is loosing money because they've already paid for the patient's care. Did you know a single day spent in the ICU costs the hospital $10,000? That's just patient care. It doesn't include medicine, or anything else.
I'm not a proponent of UHC, because it would annihilate our standards of care, but I do think it would be good to have affordable health insurance available for everyone. People just don't realize how important health insurance is, and that tends to be one of the first things to go in a depression, so then we have more people without any coverage and unable to pay going to the hospital.
By the way. . . about Canada. . . Americans go there to buy cheap drugs. Canadians come here for better and faster medical care.
My Heart Is In K-Town, .
Posted 10:49 AM, 03/23/2009
@ Ananda - I concur that hospitals eat costs not returned via insurance/other programs which equates to YOU and ME paying in the form of higher costs.
“affordable health insurance available for everyone” also means YOU and ME pay in the form of higher costs.
So, to summarize: YOU and ME pay regardless.
Posted 01:38 PM, 03/23/2009
DUH,
Why is canada's life expectancy higher and infant mortality rates lower than in the world's "greatest" medical system. It appears to me that you like the present medical system because you, by being "rich", can take advantage of the system. I am not saying that there won't be problems in the implementation of the UHC. But once it is implemented there really should not be much difference than today. America lost 1 chance in 1993 to contain health care cost because people refused to see through the misrepresentations hoist by the insurance company lobbies.
My Heart Is In K-Town, .
Posted 02:24 PM, 03/23/2009
@ Chris - Are you a Vet? If so, do you use the VA medical system? If you do then you already know the problem of layers and layers of others making decisions for you on your (or is it their) behalf.
p.s. Canadians are healthier because they are less obese (period).
akron, oh
Posted 08:17 PM, 03/23/2009
@PacMan -- great points. The government turns their back on the veterans that volunteer to defend our freedoms. What will they do with the rest of us? I don't really believe that UHC is the answer but we need better payment from the government for the folks that can't pay anything. Coving the basic costs would be a start. I'm not sure what will work but I don't want to rely on a universal system either.
I agree with the others too that say that we do pay, one way or the other.
Just like the cheap goods at Walmart while their employees use Medicaid the most in Ohio out of all other employers. Not so cheap anymore when you look at it that way. We all pay, one way or the other.
Posted 10:35 PM, 03/23/2009
So AGMC idea is to hire two doctors to fun their hospital with no real administrative experience. One of the doctors was head of the ER. Under his watch one doctor killed his wife and another killed himself. Good luck with backruptcy AGMC. It is your own fault.
Akron, OH
Posted 09:10 AM, 03/24/2009
Throckmorton:
Really? Really!?! You are blaming the head of the department on a murder and a suicide? First, even the families of these people didn't have a clue what was to happen, and you expect their boss to figure it out? Second, no other profession has a higher suicide rate than physicians. Thirdly, a simple article and google search shows that he was not the director when the physician murdered his wife and the director at the time was the one that committed suicide.
Also, what other experience do you expect to have from a physician for administration? The head of a department is a lot of administrative experience, what more do you want? I can argue, that being a physician, they have a lot more health care experience for administration.
Your post is so negative and unconstructive. You obvious have issues with AGMC, so no matter what, whatever they do is the wrong thing. You're either just a troller for comments, or just an a!$%%le.
