Christopher

Hummer, CEO of South Fulton Medical Center in East Point has his hands

full these days turning around a facility that was bankrupt a few years

ago. That was when Tenant, a company which owns and operates over 100

hospitals throughout the country bought the medical center and pumped

$30 million into it over the next three years.

When Hummer saw the opportunity to relocate in

the southern states, a region he and his wife once called home, it didn't

take long to decide what to do. St. Alexis Hospital in St. Louis was soon

in need of a new Chief Operations Officer and South Fulton Medical Center,

had a new CEO on Sept.8.

In the six weeks that he's been in charge,

Hummer says he has made it his mission to find out what the surrounding

communities' health needs are and to meet those needs with the help

of a largely tenured medical staff who "care very deeply for the

institutuion."

As the hospital continues to recruit physicians,

they are using outside objective data to document needs for certain specialties

and to discern how many physicians they ought to have versus how many

are in the area.

With a market share of only 14 percent, a lot

of people are still reluctant to go to SFMC or they just don't know

about the hospital, he said. Plans to work with an outside marketing firm

who will conduct blind focus groups may shed some light as to why people

in East Point and the surrounding areas do not go to South Fulton. Hummer,

who holds a Masters degree in Health Administration says, "I see

us trying to be more things to more people and to be very good at what

we do. What I don't see us doing is trying to be all things to all

people."

Even with all the upgrades in services it still a job that is largely

undone, he said.

The hospital is licensed for 392 beds and operates about 150 to

230 of those bed throughout the year. With an average daily census of

160 patients, those numbers are expected to rise as the winter months

approach.

"We're basically in a period where we need to upgrade services

that people want and will come here for and to offer new services that

we should be providing that we are not." he added.

Having been involved in healthcare from both

a profit and a nonprofit position, Hummer sees little difference in the

two from a daily operations standpoint.

"I conduct myself no differently now than I did when I worked for

a nonprofit hospital. We don't treat anybody any differently when

they come to this facility whether they have the ability to pay or not.

That's healthcare." He went on to say that SFMC writes off $35

million per year in charges for the community, but emphasized that all

hospitals have to do that to some degree.

Regardless of this daunting figure, Hummer says, "there is a lot

of ownership and a great deal of pride and enthusiasm for what we do each

and every day. I understand the situation to be one of great potential

and a lot of good has happened, but so much more needs to be done. And

nobody, not our employees, not our medical staff and not our community

believe that we are there yet."