Q&A with Robert Meade, CEO of Doctors Hospital of Sarasota

Q&A with Robert Meade

CEO of Doctors Hospital of Sarasota

PERSONAL

HOMETOWN: Paintsville, Ky.

EDUCATION: University of Kentucky, bachelor of arts in accounting; University of Florida, master of arts in health care administration; CPA and a diplomat in the American College of Healthcare Executives.

AGE: 47

FAMILY: Married, with son, 11, daughter, 7.

HOW HE ESCAPES: "I try to spend as much time with my family. I used to golf but I don't get as much in as I used to. I also boat and work outside as much as possible."

READING LIST: "The bylaws of the hospital and a lot of previous minutes from meetings. Lately, I haven't had a lot of time to do any recreational reading."

FAVORITE WEB SITES: "To be completely honest, I don't have a lot of time to look at Web sites."

FIRST PAYING JOB: At 16 years old, he dug ditches for Kentucky/West Virginia Gas Co.

PROUDEST PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT: "I've been CEO of two different hospitals, and we've been able to achieve top 100 status by The Solucient Institute. This ranking is based on quality, financial viability and efficiency rating."

PROFESSIONAL

TIME WITH COMPANY: Joined Doctors Hospital of Sarasota in February. Previously CEO of Englewood Community Hospital.

POSITIONS PREVIOUSLY HELD: CEO of Englewood Community Hospital, six years; CEO of Pasco Community Hospital, six-and-a-half years; COO of Brandon Regional Hospital, two years.

LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP STYLE: "I typically lead in a participatory manner. I give our employees access to the decision making process. I'm definitely not a theory X style. This style works when the employee lives in fear. That's not how I lead. If you want to keep people long term, you have to give people a viable interest in what's going on."

MANAGEMENT STYLE: Team approach

MENTOR: His father, Robert Meade Sr., a manager with the Kentucky/West Virginia Gas Co. "I learned how to get people to do things and how to treat people. I watched him in his role in management and how he treated people, that to a large degree influenced me."

CORE VALUES: Integrity, honesty, openness and compassion.

BEST ADVICE EVER RECEIVED/HOW APPLIED TO YOUR LIFE: From his father: "To be yourself, and don't let a situation change how you'd normally react and be honest with yourself.

"It applies in a lot of different situations, especially coming into a new role here at the hospital. It would be easy for a person to come in and let things go as they are and that entails making minor changes here."

BEST ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE: "The best way to be successful in this role (hospital administrator) is to focus on surrounding yourself with good people in the roles of responsibility. It doesn't matter how hard you work, if you don't have the people in those roles you won't succeed. You learn that through trial and error and I was faced with that early on in my career. I had a position I thought I needed to fill right away. The problem with that is you don't do enough legwork to make sure you hired the right person. So I waited to make sure I got the right person in there."

CHALLENGES

IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES IN THE NEW POSITION: "I'm lucky enough to be walking into a great situation. Most times when you take over a hospital it's a rebuilding process. But this hospital was already in great standing. The challenge here is like most hospitals are facing with the nursing shortage. Also, you have limited resources. With the baby-boomer generation continuing to get older, we're continuing to use up more and more resources."

WHAT'S AHEAD

ECONOMIC / INDUSTRY FORECAST FOR THE REGION: "It's very positive. Demographically we're in a great situation. The growth to the south and east should greatly help us. We have a new hospital to the north of us in Lakewood Ranch, but so far they really haven't hurt our facility. I believe strongly in satisfactions levels, and our goal is to be in the top 90th percentile. We're not there yet, but we're working on it."

DANGER SIGNS: Nursing shortage, limited resources, employee turnover, physicians' reimbursements being cut, malpractice suits and hospital's reimbursements being cut.

IMPROVING PROFIT MARGIN: "The whole issue is with two hospitals in town, the physicians on staff travel from one hospital to the other. So we're looking at additional market share by making it easier to place customers for physicians. We also have a higher level of service with the new spine and orthopedic care center that's really important in this area."

THE DOCTORS HOSPITAL

168 beds

450-500 employees

More than 500 physicians on staff (sharing some with Sarasota Memorial Hospital)

2004 Net Revenue: $90 million

Annual budget: About $80 million