The Charlotte W. Dupré Files
Title: Chief Executive Officer of Southern Regional Medical Center
Native of: Abbeville, La.
Residence: Still house-hunting
Education: Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University; Master of Business Administration from Tulane University.
Career: Prior to joining Southern Regional, Dupre has held numerous key healthcare leadership roles in a range of healthcare organizations nationwide. Her expertise includes construction planning and operations, financial viability, market analysis, physicians and employee relations and developing and mentoring high-performing teams in operations and management. She is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Healthcare Financial Management Association.
Family: Two grown sons, two grandsons.
The Linday McCarthy Files
Title: Chief Nursing Officer of Southern Regional Medical Center
Native of: Dearborn, Mich.
Residence: Stockbridge
Education: Associate degree in science/nursing, Henry Ford Community College; Bachelor of Science in health care administration, Ferris State University; Bachelor of Nursing, Chamberlain University; Master of Business Administration, Detroit College of Business.
Career: Chief Nursing Officer and vice president of administration at Citrus Memorial Hospital, Inverness, Fla. 2006-2015; Chief Nursing Officer/ vice president of administration at Garden City Hospital, Garden City, Mich. 1996-2006; Director of Surgical Services, Garden City Hospital 1992-1996; head nurse of the operating room, Garden City Hospital, 1990-1992; OR staff nurse, Garden City, 1985-1990; Cardiac Step-down staff nurse, Garden City, 1983-1985.
Family: Husband, Joseph, two daughters, one son and five grandchildren
Career:
Family:
When Charlotte Dupré arrived at Southern Regional Medical Center last December, the Clayton County hospital was hemorrhaging $3 million a month and emergency room wait times for non-critical patients often stretched to nine hours.
Today, Dupré claims ER wait times for non-critical patients are under two hours, and losses at the 331-bed Riverdale hospital have been reduced to $172,000 a month. Improved and aggressive coding and billing processes helped cut the losses, she said.
On Wednesday, Dupré was named permanent chief executive officer of Southern Regional.
Dupré spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about what she says are significant changes taking place at the hospital, including the rebuilding its top management team and filling dozens of staff vacancies.
Q. What brought you to Southern Regional?
A. I got contacted out of the blue by Prime [Healthcare, Southern Regional’s new owner] to look at working with them on their transitional team. I met with Lewis Leon who was vice president of operations. He and I met for three hours and at the end of three hours, he said ‘You know, I really don’t want you on my transition team and I said ‘wow that didn’t go well.’ He says ‘You need to be at Southern Regional Medical Center. We’re buying that hospital. You’ve done this before. You’ve turned these hospitals around.’ And that’s exactly what I did at my last hospital. It was a million-square-feet in Jackson, Miss. It was southwest Jackson, in an area that had ended up being blue collar. It used to be the place. It’s very similar in demographics as [Southern Regional].
Q. Have you met with county leaders?
A. When I was here the first three days, [Prime Healthcare CEO Dr.] Prem Reddy came in the first time. He had all these meetings scheduled with county commissioners, I just sat by his side while he had all these meetings. It was a wonderful orientation.
Q. Did you envision the job becoming a permanent one?
A. I didn’t think I was going to be doing this full-time. It was a huge decision to make give up my consulting. [But] this is such a challenge and such an opportunity. There’s so much low-hanging fruit here.
Q. Explain.
A. The doctors are engaged [in the financial health of the hospital]. They want this hospital to be successful. The community, from what I’m seeing, wants this hospital to be successful. You don’t have people fighting you. You have people supporting you.
Q. What’s your top priority?
A. Building our team. I had seven directors positions, four clinical managers and two other support manager positions open. Plus, we were able to promote from within those that I was able to observe the past two months. We kinda handpicked people who were really dynamic.
Q. Southern Regional suffers from an image problem. People have gone out of their way not to come here. How do you fight that?
A. It takes time. It didn’t happen overnight. We’re going to get out in the community. I faced the same thing in Jackson. This is like deja vu.
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