2023 Dynamic Dozen No. 12: Citizens Memorial Hospital

SBJ: What has been key to your recent growth?
Michael Calhoun: We’ve continued to have great community support for CMH and our services. We can’t grow unless the community chooses us for their care. At an increasing rate, they choose us. Nearly every aspect of our business has increased in volume for several reasons: community support and recruitment of good-quality physicians over the last several years. We have new additions to our medical staff; they bring new services, which provide more need for their support systems.

SBJ: What does your recruitment process look like?
Calhoun: We have dedicated resources and staff that work on physician recruitment. We screen them through phone interviews and review their CVs to ensure they’re a good fit. We have a whole process to show them the organization, introduce them to other physicians and patient-care teams, and show how they can be connected in our communities. We provide them with good data for why they would be a good fit. Bolivar is a great community; it’s a great place to raise a family.

SBJ: What are your top issues when it comes to managing growth?
Calhoun: Strategic planning is where all of it starts. People need to be aware of the focus and direction the organization is going. I think it’s important that your whole organization understand the plan, where we’re going, and where and what resources are needed to support that plan. Any time you grow, other things need to grow downstream. We try to make sure that we communicate well across our system, know what we need to put resources in the right area and develop those resources as we grow.

SBJ: What are your top issues when it comes to managing growth?
Calhoun: Making sure we plan well, that the organization, through strategic planning, is ready for growth, and that we can communicate well as a team. That’s what we’re focused on: making sure we have the support structure in place.

SBJ: How are you sustaining your growth?
Calhoun: We’ve got a great partnership with Bolivar Technical College. They really stepped up to the plate and increased the nursing seats available. They were proactive about that, making sure they could support us. SBU School of Nursing is another great partner. We’ve created programs with both schools to provide opportunities for new students, to anticipate tomorrow’s growth.

SBJ: What lessons are you still learning from the pandemic’s effect on health care?
Calhoun: Health care professionals are resilient people by nature. We have a great staff that is dedicated to CMH and our mission. In some of our areas, we’re becoming more fully staffed and that’s improved some, but we still have some in our organization where we have a staffing shortage that is causing pressure on the team members we have. There’s such a demand and need for more health care workers, so if we think about what we need, we need more bright young people entering the health care field. There are so many career opportunities, so I would encourage people to see what might fit their skills and abilities.