Public Face. Private Plans. Meet Christopher Mosley.

By NANCY YOUNG

BY NANCY YOUNG

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

CHESAPEAKE – The strategy sessions of the Chesapeake Hospital Authority often take place behind closed doors.

When pressed for specifics on those sessions, Christopher Mosley , Chesapeake Health’s president and chief executive officer , will be diplomatic. He will say he understands that you want information, that you have a point in saying that the authority is a public body. He will be polite and personable.

But he won’t tell you.

It took an angry resident firing accusations of secrecy at him in a public meeting to get Mosley to do what he almost never does in public: raise his voice and give a glimpse of what it takes to lead the last independent hospital in South Hampton Roads at a time when mergers are the order of the day.

“If we go out discussing everything about our strategy for the future, guess what? Everybody knows,” Mosley said at a meeting on the sale of the hospital fitness center in Western Branch last year. “No business is out telling their competitors what they’re going to do before they’re going to do it.”

Mosley, 43 , would really rather talk about how much he likes “rounding” the hospital to visit patients and speak with the doctors and staff. He learned the importance of that when he was a boy in Alabama and would sometimes visit the patients at the nursing home where his mother worked as a nurse’s aid.

It has been a little more than two years since Mosley took the helm of Chesapeake Health, of which Chesapeake General Hospital is the anchor and heart. Before Mosley, there had been precisely one CEO in the hospital’s 30-year history.

That man, Donald Buckley , is a legend in the founding of the hospital – it was the little hospital that could, the one built out of bake sales and community good will.

“It’s hard to follow in Don Buckley’s footsteps,” said Bob Oman , a long time member of the Chesapeake Hospital Authority, which hired Mosley. “But I think Chris has done it. He has not only filled the shoes, he has made a considerable amount of changes.”

Since Mosley’s arrival, Chesapeake Health has, among other things, upgraded the area’s busiest emergency room, added digital operating rooms, increased its clinical staff, opened up a sleep center and begun tracking quality measures in every department.

In fiscal year 2006 – when Mosley was named one of the nation’s top 25 minority health care executives by Modern Healthcare magazine – Chesapeake Health said it had an operating income of $17.9 million in its annual report, compared with $3.4 million the year before.

“Those results were the best we’ve ever had in our history,” Oman said of 2006. A “good majority” of that, he said, is because of Mosley.

“I’m very pleased we’re making progress, but I didn’t do it by myself,” Mosley said. “There were so many people in this organization who deserve credit. Had they flinched or been ambivalent, we would not be where we are today. A lot of good things are lining up for us.”

He’d rather not get too specific about those things just yet.

When Mosley officially started in January 2005 , it was what is often referred to as a “lean” time for Chesapeake Health. Employees were being laid off. Not long after he arrived, Obici Hospital – then the region’s other remaining independent hospital – decided to join forces with Sentara Healthcare . People wondered how long it would be before Chesapeake General Hospital followed suit.

When Buckley announced his plans to retire, the search for his replacement was made more difficult because of the hospital structure. Although it is not financed by the city, Chesapeake Health is run by a public authority appointed by the City Council . It must compete with private health systems such as Sentara that do no t have to have meetings in public. Its new leader had to be someone who could “let the public know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” said Oman, but who also is a bottom-line-minded businessperson who wouldn’t show Chesapeake Health ‘s hand.

Mosley ” has a good mix of new ideas that will energize the hospital, but he also understands that it’s a community hospital,” said Rebecca Adams , a Chesapeake City Council member and former head of the Chesapeake Health Foundation , the hospital’s fund raising arm.

The tough competitive marketplace was not always the norm for the area, Oman said. “It used to be that Norfolk stayed in Norfolk, Chesapeake stayed in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach stayed in Virginia Beach,” he said. “Now those lines are being blurred.”

In general, the strategy for Chesapeake Health is to build up the hospital’s core clinical strengths, getting rid of ancillary services – such as the fitness center in Western Branch – that detract from that basic mission, Oman said.

The best way to do that, Mosley said, is, “You listen to the docs, always. They’re the ones using the technology.”

Dr. Cynthia Romero , president of the medical staff at the hospital, said, “It’s easy for administrators to make decisions based just on what’s the most cost-effective.” Instead, Mosley asked staff members and doctors for their views on what the hospital needed.

Mosley said the staff’s mental energy once was directed at what was happening outside the hospital walls; now he feels that they’re focused inward, on being innovative and improving patient care.

“There’s so much more we have in store for the future, so much more we need to do,” he said.

Like what?

He’s not telling. Yet.

“This is still a journey that’s very much in progress.”

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Reach Nancy Young at (757) 446-2947 or nancy.young@pilot online.com.

(c) 2007 Virginian – Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.