Daunting is an understatement.
- Move home from Arizona.
- Assess a shuttered, East Ohio Regional Hospital operated for two years by a company that bled it of everything of value while ignoring needs necessary to save lives.
- Resurrect said hospital after replacing the chillers, repairing the boilers, and order everything from N-95 face coverings to all those machines that beep all day and into the overnight.
- Oh, and let’s not forget the part about gaining the trust of a Martins Ferry community that was slapped straight in the face by the repulsive, rat-fink outfit from California.
Seriously, who would say yes to that list?
Bernie Albertini, that’s who. The administrator served several years as the chief operating officer for both EORH and the Ohio Valley Medical Center before the board for the non-profit healthcare provider made the decision to sell both locations to Alecto. Once that transition was completed, Albertini headed west for warmer temperatures, dryer air, and impact compensation.
Then his phone rang. It was someone named Dr. John Johnson.
“I remember that conversation,” Albertini said. “I told him I would think about it, and I did.”
In May 2020, he took the job, and for a long while, Albertini was alone while walking the hallways of the neglected facility along Fourth Street so he could make a few different lists. “Needs Replaced” was one, and “Needs Repaired” was another. The third?
“I don’t even remember,” he said. “But it wasn’t positive as I recall.”
Nine Months Old
The goal was to reopen the medical facility by the end 2020, but that did not happen. There were delays with acquiring medical records, and accreditations, and equipment, too.
But in February, it finally took place. Since Albertini and his staff have experienced a series of growth spurts, and some were expected while others were not.
“We’ve been open for nine months now, and we’re doing great. We’ve experienced a lot of growth well before we thought we would,” the COO said. “Every one of our departments has been very busy, and we’ll be ready in two weeks to roll out our ambulance service because we’re going to do our own transports after experiencing some issues with getting our patients in and out.
“Our new cardiac catheterization lab has arrived, and after a five-week install, we will have those services available to our patients,” he explained. “Plus, we have been adding a lot of physicians to our staff for departments we didn’t expect to have available this early on in the process, and we are still doing the Covid testing so people can find out as quickly as possible if they have contracted the virus.”
Busy, sure, but right now, busy, even hectic, is the best-case scenario.
“Things have gone far more smoothly than I thought it would,” Albertini admitted. “We did open our behavioral health unit to address that need here in the Upper Ohio Valley, but there are still a lot of renovations that are needed, so adding beds in that area will be a gradual process.
“The morale here with our staff members is really great, but there was a time when Covid took off again because of schools opening and Delta variant when our people were getting beat down pretty badly. Thank goodness those numbers have decreased recently, but now with the colder temperatures, the numbers just might go back up as they did at this time of year in 2020. We’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “But nine months in, everyone here is still very excited about us being open again.”
Purple City
First, it was the members of Martins Ferry Council that displayed support by allowing EORH to recoup 75 percent of all income taxes paid by hospital employees. When the time to hire staff arrived, many of the city’s residents immediately applied, and the majority were brought on the facility’s staff.
Councilman Jack Regis has praised Dr. Johnson and Albertini for the economic impact the reopening has had on Belmont County’s most population municipality. And finally, an emergency room was down the street instead of across the Ohio River before near the end of a series of confusing lane changes because of Interstate 70 construction.
“It’s a great feeling to know that we have this community behind us and that they to see us succeed. And we have gained a lot of support from the City of Martins Ferry and from the state of Ohio,” Albertini explained. “Congressman Johnson has been very supportive of us, as well, and that has been a great benefit for us, and we’re doing everything we can not to overload our employees despite the shortages we have infilled positions in certain departments.
“We do need nurses, too,” he revealed. “We have several openings in that area, but we are hopeful we’ll be able to get those filled in the near future so that the nurses we have now can have their workload lightened soon.”
Complaints? Of course, online and some received anonymously.
“In this business and maybe every business, there’s going to be criticism of the job you are doing, and I have seen some of that online,” Albertini said. “It’s true, though, you can’t please everyone, but I am confident we are providing good, quality health care, and we’re making improvements on a daily basis. When we do receive a complaint, it is investigated thoroughly so if there was a real issue, it’s taken care of immediately.
“Those things are part of the evolution process that is ongoing constantly, especially in health care,” he said. “We set quality goals, and after we meet those goals, we raise those goals. That permits continuous improvement to be made in as many areas as possible.”
This COO is far from the finish line, and he knows it. That’s because Albertini has big plans for 2022.
“The list of our goals for next year is a pretty long list, quite frankly,” Albertini said. “But behavioral health will be big for us next year, and it will be a year of expansion, as well. We’re concentrating on doing everything we’re doing now very well before we start preparing for 2022 because once the new year gets here, it will be time for us to start climbing again.
“Right now, we have about 520 employees, and that’s about 100-plus more than what we expected. I’m really excited to see where that number climbs to in 2022,” he said. “To this point, what has happened here at East Ohio has been very positive, but the needs with staffing have been disappointing to me. It’s something I didn’t expect, and hopefully, we can fill out our departments in the near future.”
