HEALTH CARE TURNAROUND: Nash UNC Health Care is on the mend.

• Author: Saylor, Teri
• Position: SPONSORED SECTION: REGIONAL REPORT: NASH AND EDGECOMBE COUNTIES

Lee Isley knew he had his work cut out for him when he stepped onto the campus of Nash UNC Health Care as its new CEO in January 2018.

It was a challenge he fully embraced, and the 18 months he has served at the helm have been a labor of love.

When Isley came on board, the hospital had not posted an operating profit since 2012 and reported a $25.6 million loss last year. The 18% patient satisfaction rate was at an all-time low, according to board chair Jeffrey Batts. The nursing shortage was so acute that the hospital was plugging the holes with contract nurses at a major expense.

Nash UNC earned a dismal "D" rating in 2017 from Leapfrog, a nonprofit that grades U.S. hospitals on certain safety factors. The latest scores for spring 2019 show it has improved to a "C."

After making significant changes, Nash UNC is on track to cut its operating loss to $11 million this year and start making money in the next couple of years.

"I will tell you I am not a maintained," Isley says. "When I came here, there were opportunities, and I wanted to come in, find those opportunities and maximize them for the health system and for the community."

That was what the 14-member board of commissioners was hoping for when it saw a crisis looming at the hospital. The first decision the board made was to replace then-CEO Larry Chewning. It brought in Ian Buchanan, senior vice president for operations at UNC Health Care in Chapel Hill, as an interim CEO prior to Isley.

"When things started going south two or three years ago, the board said, This is not us,'" Batts says. "We have a better hospital and better people than this."

Nash UNC is a Rocky Mount-based nonprofit medical authority that comprises four licensed hospitals with a total of 345 beds. The complex is made up of Nash General Hospital, Nash Day Hospital, Coastal Plain Hospital and Bryant T. Aldridge Rehabilitation Center.

The authority, which includes the state-of-the-art Mayo Surgery Pavilion, Nash Heart Center, Nash Women's Center, Emergency Care Center and Danny Talbott Cancer Care Center, sprang from humble beginnings in 1971, when Nash General Hospital began admitting patients as the first all-private-room hospital in North Carolina.

Isley came in with 30 years of experience in health care administration. Prior to coming to Nash UNC, he was CEO of the Granville Health System in Oxford for 12 years.

His first action was to meet with the board and develop a short-term strategy that would lead to...