{"id":44521,"date":"2021-09-28T01:55:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T07:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-memorial-hospital-staff-seeks-more-input-on-hospital-operations-ceo-search\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:19:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:19:42","slug":"southwest-memorial-hospital-staff-seeks-more-input-on-hospital-operations-ceo-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-memorial-hospital-staff-seeks-more-input-on-hospital-operations-ceo-search\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Memorial Hospital staff seeks more input on hospital operations, CEO search"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"About
About 40 people attended Southwest Health System board meeting Sept. 22 at Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Southwest Memorial Hospital staff aired concerns about hospital management and staff morale during a packed Southwest Health System board meeting Wednesday.<\/p>\n

SHS is managed by Community Hospital Consulting, the management arm of Community Hospital Corporation of Plano, Texas. CHC employs the hospital\u2019s CEO and chief financial officer.<\/p>\n

CHC is seeking to replace former CEO Tony Sudduth who resigned in April. Jeanette Filpi, of CHC, is serving as the interim CEO.<\/p>\n

Several staff members spoke during the public comment period of the meeting, which was attended by about 40 people.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kameo Smith said there have been concerns raised by medical providers and hospital staff, including the sudden departure of former Chief Operating Officer Kerri White-Singleton.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still a lot of questions unanswered,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

More feedback and investigation is needed from hospital managers on staff concerns, she said.<\/p>\n

Smith said among staff there is a level of \u201cdistrust\u201d toward hospital management.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kevin Matteson agreed and felt the hospital could do better moving forward without CHC.<\/p>\n

He echoed the call for more staff input, saying that in the past, the hospital has struggled when managers lacked staff perspective.<\/p>\n

There can be a fear of retribution for expressing criticism in public forums where administration is present, Matteson said.<\/p>\n

It was suggested a format be developed so that staff could give more input to the SHS board without the presence of administrators.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have done that before at provider meetings where administration leaves, then it gives people the opportunity to speak their minds,\u201d he said. \u201cPerspective from other areas provides a different data point for the board to make decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another physician said there is a concern that CHC is looking to take over ownership of Southwest Memorial, which is owned by taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of pride in having a community-based hospital,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is important to keep it in the community,\u201d and not be owned by an outside corporation like Mercy Medical Center in Durango.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Journal <\/em> after the meeting, Tod Beasley, CHC senior vice president of hospital financial operations, said that CHC has no plan to take over ownership of Southwest Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n

He said CHC\u2019s focus is specializing in helping rural hospitals stay viable, and that under CHC leadership, Southwest Memorial recovered its financial crisis in 2018.<\/p>\n

The hiring process for the new CEO was discussed. The CEO would replace Sudduth, who resigned in April.<\/p>\n

Staff questioned whether the CEO had to be from CHC, and if one could be chosen from outside the company through a broader community and staff process.<\/p>\n

Beasley said the person would be a CHC employee, by contract between SHS and CHC.<\/p>\n

CHC will vet the applicants, and the final five candidates will be reviewed by a panel that includes SHS board members and Bill Thompson and Dean Matthews of the Montezuma County Hospital District Board.<\/p>\n

Choosing a CEO that has compassion for a rural community where patients face more financial challenges is important, said an emergency room staff member.<\/p>\n

Filpi said CHC is very cognizant of the importance of hiring medical staff and a CEO who understands rural hospitals and wants to live in a rural community.<\/p>\n

White-Singleton resigned from her position as COO. The reasons for her and Sudduth\u2019s resignations was not provided.<\/p>\n

In a statement to The Journal <\/em> Monday, White-Singleton said SHS is an \u201coutstanding health system and has proven its dedication to improvement strategies over the last few years. If there was an opportunity in an executive leadership role in the future, I would gladly serve again.\u201d<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

during Southwest Health System board meeting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29,538],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-southwest-memorial-hospital"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86124,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44521\/revisions\/86124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44521"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}