Curry Health Network hires interim CEO
GOLD BEACH, OREGON - November 8, 2014by Jane Stebbins, Curry Coastal Pilot staff writer
From his office in Gold Beach, all Wayne Hellerstedt sees is potential.
The Curry Health Network Interim CEO started work Oct. 27 after Andrew Bair left to take a job in Florida and be near family.
The two had worked together in Washington, and when Bair came to Curry County, he asked Hellerstedt - who after 33 years as a CEO in the healthcare realm now works as a consultant - to facilitate a strategic plan.
A new hospital needed to be built.
An emergency room was being demanded of citizens in Brookings.
Port Orford needed additional providers.
Hospital officials wanted the facility to obtain full accreditation.
"This organization is right on the cusp of explosive growth if all these pieces come together," Hellerstedt said. "Another reason is to help provide stability over the time it'll take to find a new, full-time CEO. It's an exciting time to be with Curry Health Network."
The backstory
Hellerstedt hails from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, where he earned his master's degree in 1991 and began his career of management in healthcare settings.
Most recently, he worked at the Helen Newberry Joy Hospital and Healthcare Center in Newberry, Michigan, where he completed the negotiations for a $2.4 Million hospital bond and a $3.0 Million bond for two major renovation projects - a skill that could benefit Curry Health Network as it proceeds with its own hospital construction.
In capital improvements, Hellerstedt was responsible for a $4 Million project involving outpatient and long-term care units and developed a $3 Million, 25,000 square-foot dialysis center - also a much-clamored for amenity in aging Curry County.
Hellerstedt will stay here until late winter, at which point it is anticipated the Curry Health District board will have hired a permanent CEO.
The board is down to seven applicants from a field of a couple dozen that, in Hellerstedt's mind, shows how the area and hospital can attract quality medical care professionals. That wasn't as easy when visiting applicants set their eyes on the dilapidated facility that serves a community of almost 25,000 people.
"The difference is, you've got building plans (for the new hospital) that are excellent," Hellerstedt said. "For a hospital CEO coming into a situation where you can make such a huge difference in the community - that's what we, as CEO's, look for.
"The new hospital will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization as a whole, there will be much more privacy for patients, and that will immensely help in the recruitment of providers. It will help with economic development in Gold Beach and Brookings - there are so many positive things about this building that make it an exciting time to be here right now.
"For me as a short-timer, it's exciting," he continued. "For a newcomer coming in on a full-time basis, this is the kind of stuff we love to be involved in."
Changes in time
He admits that, while he's "still trying to figure out his email and the way to the cafeteria," he feels he has it a little easier than Bair did when he first came on scene two years ago, particularly in any CEO's attempt to get additional healthcare services at the south end of the county.
"I've witnessed a major change in the attitude (in Gold Beach) with regard to Brookings," he said about the time between his last visit here and now. "It seems as though people are trying to work together for the good of the county compared to a couple years ago. I applaud everyone involved because it's important for both communities to work together."
The board, too, should start to be more functional, as a board education program was implemented recently to help all involved understand their role in the hospital machinations.
"It's helped define the roles and responsibilities of the board and administration and the operations of the organization," Hellerstedt said. "I think it went extremely well. They're becoming very much more functional. That educational program is coalescing the board into a solid working unit."
He also likes that qualms in the community about building the hospital in a tsunami zone are beginning to fade.
"From what I've seen, and in discussions with the architects, they are working hard to engineer it to meet standards," Hellerstedt said. "Whatever they build here is going to be 1,000 times safer than what is currently here.
"And do you wait 10 to 15 years to replace it when it falls apart or until you have substantially more dollars to put into it? It'll be so much safer and have the ability to provide so much better care, it's worth putting up now."
All that potential is enough to tempt someone to stay, he admits.
"I'm pleased to be here," Hellerstedt said. "I feel good about the board and the leadership team. Moving forward, I look forward to doing what I can until a new long-term CEO can be brought in."