Former ECMC CEO Gets Down to Business in Atlanta
Although he’s only been on the job two-and-a-half weeks as head of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Michael Young is already setting a tone similar to the one he successfully employed to turn around our public hospital, ECMC. Grady is the public hospital in Atlanta, and the biggest one in Georgia. It’s also saddled with huge debt, as was ECMC when he arrived here.
Here’s one story covering his arrival, and a couple more stories describing his first actions, pulled from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. If his aggressive, hands-on approach to turning things around is as successful there as it was in Erie County, the citizens will benefit.
On the other hand, he still seems unafraid of kowtowing to the status quo, which may again place him at odds with the established private hospitals in the area. Still, one gets the sense that Young was never in the hospital business to win a golden parachute. As he once told me: “Hospitals don’t have to lose money. They can be run well, like any other business—if that’s what you want to do. You just have to want to do that.”
July 21, 2008
ECMC Leader Picked to Head Atlanta Hospital
ECMC President and CEO Mike Young, who was responsible for reversing the fortunes of the once financially struggling hospital on Grider Street, has been chosen to head Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Atlanta’s gain is Erie County’s loss.
Young has a long track record of expanding the quality of care while increasing profitability at the hospitals he’s led. Recently, he’s been a strong advocate for ECMC—a public benefit corporation that provides acute care for the region’s uninsured and underinsured. He also favored building a new, state of the art cardiac facility at ECMC, with the cash the hospital made during the few years he ran the place.
Instead, recent closed-door negotiations led by Judge John Curran at UB’s Farber Hall involving ECMC, Kaleida Health, UB, Erie County, and the entity known as “Newco,” determined (among other things) that the heart facility would go to the Buffalo General medical corridor, where UB has already purchased real estate. Additionally, Delaware North chairman Jeremy Jacobs recently donated $10 million dollars to UB to build the facility—provided it was located near Buffalo General. The agreement, which was forged in a meeting at UB on a Sunday afternoon, was closed to the public and the press and described as a “confidential settlement of a court case.” It had been described as a “miracle cure” less than one month ago in The Buffalo News.
With Young out of the picture, it will be interesting to see how much longer ECMC will retain the more profitable services it sought to keep, and how long they’ll be able to provide their current high level of service to the poorest and most vulnerable members of our community.
Young will start his new job in Atlanta on September 1.
