Doctor Turned CEO Starts Healing at Morton General

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With his stethoscope sitting at the desk before him, and clad in a 24-year-old scrub from his days as an intern at a veterans hospital in Utah, Dr. Kevin McCurry sits in the office of the chief executive officer at Morton General Hospital while patients are triaged. 

Although he’s assumed the role as emergency interim CEO, he still has duties as a doctor, and on this late Thursday morning, McCurry is about 30 hours into a 48-hour shift in the hospital’s emergency room. 

McCurry, the hospital’s medical chief of staff, was appointed as emergency interim CEO after the hospital’s board of commissioners fired former CEO Seth Whitmer without stating a reason earlier this year. 

“It has been interesting and challenging to say the least,” he said. “I never thought I’d be a health administrator; it’s not something I ever wanted as a second career.”

Nonetheless, McCurry said he took the role after being asked by the board because there was a need. 

The last several months have been dramatic for the hospital.

The taxpayer-owned, $32 million nonprofit hospital district has between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in reserves, or about enough to cover 25 days of hospital expenses if all incomes were to cease. It has patient debts of $2.2 million that have lingered for six months or more. 

Four administrators — Tim Cournyer, Eric Carlson, Scot Attridge and Whitmer — have been fired for various reasons. In December, the accounting firm Moss Adams LLC., which Whitmer hired, issued an audit report containing 27 findings, some of which were so troubling it recommends consulting with legal counsel.

In early March, the Washington State Auditor’s Office issued a report based on the year 2013 wherein three smaller issues culminated into one finding. 

The hospital’s previous managers, it said, didn’t “prioritize nor dedicate sufficient resources, such as oversight and review, to ensure controls over its accounting systems and financial reporting was adequate.” 

Several doctors had not kept up with Medicare credentialing.

The hospital had also fallen behind in the software it uses to store and archive contracts and other documents.  

McCurry, who has worked as a doctor in East Lewis County for more than 20 years, said the drama at the administrative level had taken its toll on the staff, and after assuming the role as interim CEO, he believed it was important to start the healing process.

“My goal was to settle nerves after all the upheaval ... despite the background stuff, though it’s important, we’re here to take care of people,” he said. “We’re still providing health care. We just need to strengthen our business practices and our administrative position.”

He took out advertisements in several papers, including The Chronicle, explaining some of what the hospital was going through, but promised to continue giving good services to the public. He also wrote longer versions of the material, which he gave to the staff, many of whom were nervous about their jobs after seeing changes to entire departments and long-held work schedules under Whitmer. 



“I just told them how much I appreciate what they are doing,” McCurry said. 

He said it’s his goal to rebuild relationships throughout the hospital district and up and down the chain of command.

“We’re not a backwater Bandaid station. We’re an excellent facility that provides good care,” he said. 

He said the district is continuing to shift its focus toward clinic-based care and away from hospital-based care. It is also hiring new doctors and nurse practitioners. 

It is about to go live with an electronic medical record system. 

The hospital has hired a temporary CFO to handle the finances until a permanent one can be placed.

As the board of commissioners searches for a new CEO, the hospital is working to get its financial and administrative houses in order. 

McCurry said the hospital is taking steps to address its documenting and archiving process. It is resolving the issues with doctor accreditation with Medicare. He also said Moss Adams is examining the hospitals financials, including any personal purchases that were made on the hospital’s credit card by former CEO Ron DeArth, or anyone else. 

The hospital is awaiting the second report. 

He said there’s a response in the works for the state Auditor’s Office about the audit. 

“We’re not pushing anything under the carpet — things related to the running of a public hospital,” he said. 

The Chronicle recently received a response to its public records request for the emails of the hospital’s five elected members of the board of directors. The information contained little in the way of providing answers for why Whitmer was fired.

The Chronicle has now requested all emails sent and received by Whitmer in the months preceding his termination. 

Whitmer chose not to speak on the record when reached by The Chronicle this week.