Shawn Bright has been hired as the new CEO for Yadkin Valley Community Hospital.

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Yadkin Valley Community Hospital in Yadkinville has welcomed a new CEO to replace the interim CEO who’s been in charge while the hospital sorted out its financial woes and looked for a more permanent solution.

Shawn Bright started work as the new CEO at the beginning of December and is already overseeing what he hopes to be positive changes for the hospital.

The most exciting news for the hospital comes with the announcement that its parent company HMC/CAH Consolidated is coming out of bankruptcy and will announce details after the new year.

“When HMC emerges it will be a much better, more efficient company,” Bright said.

Further details on the bankruptcy announcement are not available at this time.

Bright said that he first set his sights on the emergency room care the hospital provided when he took over as CEO. His first change was to make sure that only emergency trained physicians were providing care in the hospital’s ER.

“We’ve changed to a different company called Emergency Staffing Solutions, and they staff our ER with just physicians,” Bright said. “There are no mid-level staff members back there anymore. We want to rebuild and improve our reputation with the community.”

Bright said that he believes the hospital has to work on restoring its reputation in the community and increasing staff and physicians that the community trusts in order to increase volume in all areas of the hospital.

Bright said that the hospital believes it can increase this trust and improve its reputation by offering residents the same quality care they can find in neighboring areas like Winston-Salem and Elkin, but with less wait time.

“We’re trying to calculate how long it takes from the time you walk in our door till you get to see a doctor,” Bright said. “We want to make sure that process is streamlined and is as smooth as possible. If you go to Winston-Salem you can get bigger and newer facilities but you’re going to wait for a while. We want to make sure that when people come here they are going to see a physician quickly and be done more quickly than it would take them to drive to Winston-Salem.”

Bright said that he is also working to get a wider variety of specialists and family physicians on staff to offer the community everything it needs without having to venture to another hospital.

Bright said that hospitals are not typically perceived as positive places unless the focus is on the delivery of babies or curing of major diseases, so he is making sure that people can at least experience the best stay possible while they have to be hospitalized.

“Our goal is to get people in and out of the hospital as quickly as possible and to make sure that while they’re here it’s as pleasant experience as it can be,” Bright said. “As we work to improve the trust that the community has in the care that we give then hopefully that will be reflected in our margins.”

Bright said that the hospital cannot be successful if it doesn’t increase its patient volumes and produce an income.

“We have to have a profit margin and we have to make this hospital into a profitable facility and I believe we can do that by giving good, quality care every time,” Bright said.

Bright said that the hospital recently completed its accreditation through the company DNV. This accreditation process is required of all hospitals and Bright said that Yadkin Valley Community Hospital passed accreditation with very high marks.

“Everything went exceptionally well and everyone was very positive about our facility,” Bright said. “Those accrediting bodies accredit every facility and they look at all of them under the same standards no matter what the size of the hospital is. This hospital met all of those standards and exceeded a majority of them. We have a really great facility.”

The New CEO

Bright is originally from a small town in Alabama. He spent his teenage years working for his hometown hospital as an emergency room technician. He decided that he wanted to pursue a career in the medical field and graduated from the University of Alabama in Birmingham with a degree in respiratory therapy.

He became the director at the hospital he grew up working for and then went on to create his own business. After 10 years he decided to sell the business and return to the medical field.

“I left Alabama and went to Arizona to work in a critical access hospital,” Bright said. “I stayed there for a few years working with the administrator at that hospital. When my superior transferred out I also transferred to Florida to work with ACA for a few years in Tampa.”

Bright said his former boss from Arizona called and tipped him off about the position in Yadkin County and after extensive research about the community and a visit to the Yadkinville downtown area he knew this is where he wanted to be.

“This, to me, is more like home,” Bright said. “I grew up in a small town. I wanted to raise my kids in a small town environment so this was the perfect move for me from Tampa, FL. I want to be active in the community. We are looking for a church to join and I’m trying to get active in organizations like Rotary. Yadkinville is a great town, and I thoroughly enjoy it.”

Reach Lindsay Craven at 679-2341 or at lcraven@heartlandpublications.com.