Photo by Ryan Cronk
Mee Memorial Hospital CEO Susan Childers discusses the hospital’s future at King City Chamber’s meeting Aug. 2.
KING CITY — Mee Memorial Hospital CEO Susan Childers, who last month announced her plans for retirement beginning March 1, recently shared an update on some of the projects happening at the King City facility as well as its upcoming expansion at the Greenfield Clinic.
Childers was the guest speaker at King City Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture’s monthly luncheon meeting Aug. 2 at The Cork and Plough, where she discussed the hospital’s future, including her impending departure and the transitional plans for interim CEO Mike Hutchinson, who started his new position last week.
According to Childers, Hutchinson has committed to stay for at least 18 to 24 months, “which will be a really good transition time to give the (Mee Memorial Hospital) Board of Trustees plenty of time to recruit a permanent CEO, but also give him some time to accomplish some specific targets during that time,” she said.
Over the next seven months, with Hutchinson now on board, Childers will be able to work on a few projects herself.
“This will give me an opportunity to step back away from operations at that time and really focus on some projects,” she said.
One of those projects is a significant computer conversion, migrating from Meditech to Cerner, a health information system. This transition —- set for Nov. 12 — will bring leading-edge technology for electronic medical records with a fully integrated system to the hospital and clinics.
“This is going to be huge for us once we get through the conversion,” Childers said. “It also means during that time we’re going to have to be training a lot of doctors and nurses, and we’re going to have to reduce the number of appointments in the clinics. It’s going to be a tough transition for us as we go through it, but well worth it once it’s complete.”
Childers is also working on gaining “critical access” status for Mee Memorial Hospital. She said becoming a Critical Access Hospital, which must have 25 or fewer beds that are located in a rural area more than 35 miles away from another hospital, would increase the reimbursement that the hospital receives from insurers for its medical services.
“That will be a really important project for us,” she said.
Also on the horizon is the expansion of the hospital’s outpatient clinic in Greenfield.
“We’re going to be expanding our Greenfield Clinic,” Childers said. “This is one of the things I’m going to be really working on in my remaining months here. We’re just getting ready to finalize the contract with the contractor and should break ground soon on the Greenfield expansion. It’s a good size expansion.”
The multi-million-dollar project, which breaks ground next Wednesday, Aug. 29, at noon, will add 5,900 square feet to the current facility’s 7,900-square-foot building at 467 El Camino Real. The expansion includes seven new exam rooms and a procedure room, in addition to an interior renovation of the existing reception, waiting and public restroom areas.
The hospital has already received nearly $3 million in grants to go toward the estimated $4 million project.
“We’re trying to raise another $1.5 million to finish that off, so we’ll be doing some good capital campaigning,” Childers said.
She noted that the Mee Memorial Clinic in Greenfield is one of the busiest health centers in South County, with patient volumes significantly increasing over the past few years, and the expansion and renovation project will help meet the community’s growing demand for medical care.
“Greenfield is growing very fast,” said Childers, adding that the city is currently experiencing a 3.5 percent yearly growth in population. “There’s a lot of new industry in Greenfield.”
Childers explained that she actively pays attention to South County’s population growth, since King City by itself cannot fully support the hospital financially.
“It’s really important that we pay attention to where the population growth is now, and really take advantage of that and bring those patients here so that they’re not all going to Salinas for their care,” she said. “That will benefit the people of this community just as much as it benefits Greenfield.”
