By Kathy Chaffin
kchaffin@salisburypost.com
When Rowan Regional Medical Center first merged with Novant Health, Dr. Leon Newman says physicians joked about what they would do if they heard the word “remarkable” one more time.
It is the vision of Novant Health “to deliver the most remarkable patient experience, in every dimension, every time,” and leaders of the health care system repeat it often.
“They don’t say it as a joke,” Newman says. “They truly mean it.”
Still, physicians were skeptical. But as they began to see improvements in health care at Rowan Regional and were given a chance to partner with administration in major decisions, Newman says they stopped joking.
Jeff Lindsay helped solve a 15-year problem for Salisbury Surgical Associates, where Newman is a general surgeon, before he even took over as president of Rowan Regional. Lindsay was part of a transition team set up after the merger, and Newman says he drove up from Huntersville to discuss providing after-hour coverage.
“He comes in, shows an interest and within a week, it was fixed,” Newman says. “That’s what we’re looking forward to in the future.”
Since taking over as president on Sept. 16, Lindsay has focused on meeting the staff of the medical center and discussing any concerns or ideas for improvement that they might have.
“He’s very accessible,” Newman says, “and the word, ‘transparent,’ comes up a lot because there’s really nothing hidden. If you want to know something, he’ll tell you outright.”
Dr. David Cook, medical director of Lakeside Family Practice and chief of the medical staff at Presbyterian Hospital-Huntersville, calls Lindsay “a unique superstar.”
“And I don’t use those words often when I talk about administration,” he says. “Jeff Lindsay is a superstar in health care administration throughout the country.”
In other health care systems for which he has worked, Cook says physicians were seen “as a means to an end to deliver the bottom line for the hospital.”
“That is not the case with Novant, he says, “and that is definitely not the case with Jeff Lindsay. I’ve been under other administrations that just wanted input and information.
“Jeff wants you to be his partner. It’s a real partnership so much so that for me in Huntersville, I have 35 other partners in my practice, and I consider Jeff Lindsay and Huntersville Hospital an equal partner.”
Lindsay, who will continue as president of Presbyterian Hospital-Huntersville, says administration partnering with physicians is unique to Novant Health. When he meets with Rowan Regional’s newly-formed team of physicians every Thursday morning, he says “that’s not just for input. That’s for decision-making.
“We want them involved with making decisions about the direction that we’re going to take both from a day-to-day operation in the hospital as well as strategic planning throughout the region.”
Dr. Neil Patel, medical director of Rowan Regional’s critical care unit and a pulmonologist with Rowan Diagnostic Clinic, says physicians have noticed and appreciate Lindsay’s efforts to get their input and opinions.
“We hope that’s going to continue and that we’re going to have a very good working relationship in the future,” he says. “We feel like that’s going to happen because his interaction and interest seem to be genuine.
“He appears to be very generous, and this is speaking from a non-Novant employee. I’m feeling very optimistic about the way things are going.”
Cook says Lindsay’s engaging physicians in the administration is transforming to the medical center community. “When physicians are involved in delivering health care,” he says, ” the patients will feel this.”
Newman says the bottom line is, “What does the patient want? How do we best serve the patient?”
“That’s what Jeff Lindsay and Novant truly seem to be about,” he says, “and that’s what we’ve seen as they truly try ‘to deliver a remarkable patient experience’ and live up to that.”
Newman points out that Novant Health is one of the fifth strongest and most stable health care systems in the nation. Being part of such a large system will allow Rowan County “the means to provide better and more expansive health care to the people in the area,” he says, “rather than the hospital folding in these economic times and losing that health care.”