John Ferguson Guides Hospital Into the Future

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

He's the quiet guy from New Jersey who kept his head down for
nearly two years while the Martha's Vineyard Hospital lurched from
one crisis to the next, unable to right itself in a stormy sea of bad
faith and poor community relations.

Now John Ferguson is the man at the helm, and he is determined to
steer the Island's only hospital in a new direction.

"We have momentum right now and we're not slowing down,
frankly," Mr. Ferguson said in an interview with the Gazette this
week.

Mr. Ferguson quietly took the gavel as chairman of the hospital
board of trustees five months ago. At the time the hospital was mired in
its latest controversy: A bitter conflict between Dr. Richard Koehler, a
highly skilled surgeon, and Kevin Burchill, the hospital chief executive
officer, had publicly boiled over into the Vineyard community. Dr.
Koehler and Mr. Burchill both later left the hospital.

John Ferguson stuck around to pick up the pieces.

He was unknown, although he had been on the board for two years. But
in Hackensack, N.J., Mr. Ferguson is far less obscure, especially in
medical circles. Mr. Ferguson has been CEO of the Hackensack University
Medical Center for 20 years. The medical center has won numerous awards
for quality of care.

Now, as chairman of the board of the Vineyard hospital, he wears a
new hat, but he claims no privilege. "I don't need a title.
It's just an opportunity to be able to really, honestly change
something," he said, adding: "I know the way a board is
supposed to work and the one thing that their role is not is to get
involved in operations. . . . Their role is to select the right CEO and
to help that person," he said.

But behind the quiet demeanor lies a visibly tough determination to
fix the problems at the hospital. Mr. Ferguson admits it won't be
easy. A recent strategic planning summary found that if the hospital
continues on its present course with no change, it will run out of money
in eight years. The study outlined the need to rebuild both the hospital
endowment and the hospital building.

He said change is under way.

A month ago trustees named former hospital chief financial officer
Tim Walsh as the new CEO.

Last week trustees agreed to launch a fund-raising feasibility
study, using the New York consultant Daniel P. Butler, to gauge the
possibilities for a major capital project to build a new hospital. The
board is also putting out a request for proposals (RFP) for a hospital
master plan. "We need to look at the whole institution, 10 years
out," Mr. Ferguson said. He said the fund-raising feasibility
study will be complete in about three months.

A detailed review of every department is also under way at the
hospital. "This is a little bit of the tough part. You have to
look at every single department and evaluate whether it is
needed," he said. "It's really not about the
physicians, it's not about the hospital and it's not about
the board. It's about what the community needs," he added,
noting that orthopedics and psychiatry have already been targeted as
areas for expansion.

He said there is a new working atmosphere at the hospital.

"People were spending a lot of time at the hospital fighting
each other. It was always battles. And the board was too involved. There
are good feelings now about the hospital moving ahead," he said.

"You need the right physicians, you need the right programs
and you need the right feeling. If the atmosphere is good the volume
will pick up because people will want to use the hospital. Now we are
trying to create an atmosphere where people believe we can build this
institution into a first-class rural hospital. Feeling good is a big
deal. But it's going to take a little time."

Mr. Ferguson has also pledged to change the closed atmosphere that
has prevailed at the hospital in the last two years. "That's
the one thing I noticed. It was like a closed shop. A mystery. We are
now totally, 100 per cent open. Even when there is bad news -
nobody's perfect. Why shouldn't the community know every
single thing - it's their hospital," he said.

Board changes have also begun. Last week Charles Harff, the vice
chairman of the board who presided over much controversy, including a
series of questionable hospital financial commitments and the mass
resignation of seven trustees two years ago, announced his own
resignation.

Mr. Ferguson had no comment on Mr. Harff's resignation. But he
did say that more board change is imminent. "We're taking a
real good internal look at the entire board structure. There will be
changes, and pretty soon you will see some new members come on the
board," he said.

Dr. Timothy Guiney, a longtime Vineyard summer resident and
cardiologist who practices at Massachusetts General Hospital and holds
office hours at the Vineyard hospital, was appointed to the board last
week.

Mr. Ferguson has been coming to the Vineyard for 22 years. He and
his wife, Jean, bought a home in Dodger's Hole some years back,
and more recently built a home in Deep Bottom Cove in West Tisbury. He
is here for about half the summer, although they come at all times of
the year. "I have to keep the day job," he said with a small
smile. The Fergusons have two grown sons who work in New York city and a
daughter who will be a senior at Boston College this year.

Mr. Ferguson returned to the subject of volume.

I am convinced that with the proper changes and the proper
physicians in place the volume will go up. This is a volume business.
Increase the volume, and before you know it, you have a success
story," he said. He said the hospital has already documented large
numbers of people who are going to the Cape for services they could
receive at the Vineyard hospital.

"The volume is there, and the staff at the hospital is really
very good. But the building is a dump. They have to go around with
buckets when it rains," he said.

He said part of the master plan will necessarily focus on some kind
of staff housing, so the hospital can eliminate the use of expensive
travelers as staff. Mr. Ferguson said travelers cost the hospital about
two and a half times more than ordinary salaries.

He said he is unconcerned about the loss this year of the $500,000
in community tax money that was funneled into the hospital. The
experimental project to use tax money to add to the hospital coffers
fell apart when there was disagreement among the six Vineyard towns
about how the money should be spent. Last year, the first and only year
that the tax plan was carried out, the money was ostensibly used to
defray the cost of services in the emergency room.

Mr. Ferguson's assessment of the tax muddle was blunt.

"The fact is that without the $500,000 the ER is not going to
close," he said, adding: "If you ask me, the money should be
used for all the free care we give." He said free care at the
hospital accounts for about 20 per cent of the annual $24 million
budget. He said the number is high by almost any standard. "In New
Jersey our average is about nine per cent. And I believe the national
average is about eight or nine per cent," he said.

Mr. Ferguson has brought his own style to board meetings. The board
now meets every other month, with special meetings as needed. He said
the three, four and five-hour board meetings that marked the recent past
are also destined to become history.

"I run a hospital in New Jersey with an operating budget of
$800 million, and we have 40-minute board meetings," he said.

Mr. Ferguson was sanguine about the future of Windemere, the
Vineyard's only nursing home that shares the same campus as the
hospital. Windemere has struggled to overcome its own financial problems
since the day it opened in 1994. "Windemere is without a question
part of the hospital. Things are better there financially, too - I
think this year Windemere will end up losing only $200,000. But it is a
different business entirely. I could not run a nursing home. It's
two kinds of businesses as far as how you run them, but there are a lot
of hospitals that have nursing homes. The way I see it, Windemere will
stay, but everything will be looked at," he said.

He concluded: "It takes time. That's all I need is a
little bit of time and a little bit of luck and the right people in
place."