From Becker’s Financial Management

Williamson (W.Va.) Memorial Hospital exemplifies a rare success story in today’s challenging healthcare environment.

As the only hospital in Mingo County, it provides healthcare services in a rural area and, as CEO Tim Hatfield puts it, “is seen as a beacon on the hill of hope for our community and region.”

It closed in April 2020 but reopened June 25 under the management of the Williamson Health and Wellness Center.

In conversation with Becker’s, Mr. Hatfield detailed the hospital’s reopening journey and shared future plans for services.

He noted that the June opening of the 76-bed facility has been years in the making, and it began with Williamson Health and Wellness Center CEO C. Donovan “Dino” Beckett, DO, who worked with the board to purchase the hospital.

“The vision was to have an integrated healthcare system,” Mr. Hatfield said.

“In our clinics we have today we have medicine, occupational health, behavioral health, dentistry and optometry. We have a mobile unit that we just received not that long ago, that’s on the road taking care of folks. We have an integration into the school systems with telehealth here in Mingo County, W.Va. So, the only piece that was missing from having a fully integrated healthcare system was the hospital.”

So, the Williamson Health and Wellness Center board and Dr. Beckett led a push to purchase the hospital out of bankruptcy, at a cost of about $3 million.

“The intent was to actually turn the hospital around under new leadership and ownership in less than 30 days and be back open again,” Mr. Hatfield said.

But the pandemic and needed facility repairs got in the way of those plans. The hospital opened in 1988, and around the beginning of the pandemic, all the sewage pipes in the building collapsed.

“The whole first floor had to be dug up — eight feet deep, four feet wide. So what was going to be a 30-day closure and reopening didn’t happen,” Mr. Hatfield said.

“Now you’re in the middle of COVID, so you can’t find folks that want to work, are afraid to work, and you can’t get equipment or supplies in. At the same time, the Williamson Health and Wellness Center took out a couple of personal loans to reinvest close to $16 million, with a little help from the state of Kentucky and some help from [Washington] D.C., to reinvest in the hospital. They completely gutted out the patient rooms and redid them. They remodeled the entire first floor, which consists of the doctor’s office that handles family medicine, as well as a podiatrist, X-ray, lab, RT and the cafeteria. Everything was completely redone over the last four-plus years.”

In January, Mr. Hatfield took the helm, and the hospital successfully applied with CMS to enroll in Medicare and Medicaid. In June, Williamson Memorial opened up for inpatient care. The hospital underwent a survey by the West Virginia Office of Health Facility Licensure and Certification and was recommended to CMS for accreditation following this survey. Williamson Memorial received its Medicare billing number on Sept. 28. Shortly thereafter, it received its Medicaid billing number.

“I found out we had just completed our state survey and our licensure survey, and it was all very positive, it was very emotional. I had an opportunity with our directors — we have a safety meeting every morning. I’m very transparent. I’m like, ‘Look, we just finished our survey. Let me tell you what the results were,'” he said.

“And I teared up because, not me, but as a team — the administrative team here, the board and Dr. Beckett — has invested so much time, so much energy, and so many resources from a financial standpoint. Seeing a hospital open becomes a little overwhelming when you think, ‘Wow, we were able to accomplish that.'”

Mr. Hatfield acknowledged that getting to that point — essentially a four-year process — was not always easy and required laying groundwork.

“It was already in place and the infrastructure was there,” he said. “It was just about taking the hospital to the next level.”

Early in the reopening process, there was an area called the “war room.” Members of the C-suite met weekly in a conference room, with three copies of big post-it sheets around the room.

“Each week, we’d color-code what still needed to be done, what was taken care of, and who was responsible for it,” Mr. Hatfield said. “Thirty days before June 25, we were down to one sheet on the wall, and that was a clear sign we were accomplishing what we needed.”

Today, the hospital has a clinic on site for medicine as well as podiatry, which is tied to Williamson Health and Wellness Center, a federally qualified health center. Williamson Memorial admits patients and provides respiratory, inpatient and outpatient care, along with radiology and lab services.

To date, the hospital has initially employed 52 healthcare professionals with an estimated annual payroll of more than $2.4 million. Of the 52 workers, about 65% worked at the hospital before it faced closure in 2020.

This “is great because, when the hospital closed, they had to leave the area for jobs — some 45 minutes to two hours away,” Mr. Hatfield said. “Now they get to come back home and take care of patients here.”

Mr. Hatfield said the hospital also recently hired an emergency room physician director, who will begin in the role Nov. 1, with an anticipated ER opening date in January.

“The last phase of the process is that we have applied — we’ve actually submitted our plans to the state of West Virginia for review — on our OR suite,” he added. “We have a $3 million OR project that will consist of two OR suites and a scoping room, along with a federal recovery room and beds. From start to finish, that will complete the last piece we’re trying to get in place.”

He also sees the potential of the hospital being a catalyst to turn around some of the migration of jobs away from the county.

“For years, mining was the main source of income for most individuals in this community, and there aren’t that many coal mines left,” he said. “So it’s not just about the hope of creating good jobs and patient access.”

“The bigger vision is that we become a stimulus to create more thought processes, to create more jobs that can come alongside healthcare and education. At the same time, we want to see a movement of people who really want to move into rural Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. We’re on the border of Kentucky, so they can understand the quality of life, the culture, and the safety of building relationships.”