The Boise City News
BOISE CITY, OK (July 15, 2010) – NewLight Healthcare, a new company out of Austin, Texas, and led by Founder and CEO Todd Biederman, has taken over the management role at Cimarron Memorial. It is Biederman and NewLight, which have brought Interim CEO Ray Mason and CFO Jamie Jacoby to Boise City to work on the hospital’s problems.
NewLight’s website explains that the company was formed to help rural and small community hospitals with management problems and as a consultant. They brought their people into Cimarron Memorial and did a two day analysis, “The hospital has been in a tough bind by not having a CEO on site. “People need daily leadership, and someone who is involved in the community,” Biederman said. “The Board hasn’t been getting the reports they needed,” he continued. Biederman explained that he was creating, with his team, performance metrics for the hospital, and was trying to build up the cash on hand fund, which should be about 60 days of what the hospital would need for daily operations. “Ideally, we’ll grow beyond that,” Biederman smiled. Asked how he planned to do that, Biederman said first of all, the clinic needed new faces and services to draw patients. “We are looking at a Physician Assistant; also we are looking at putting in a sleep lab and a CT Scanner. Reminding Biederman that the hospital had once had a large imaging device that hadn’t panned out, he quickly answered. “This will be a new CT Scanner with a really good service contract,” he insisted. Biederman then pointed out it wasn’t just about new faces, programs and equipment, but also in getting all the money for services provided. “In the past, we (the hospital), have had a lot of missed opportunities in coding,” he admitted. “Kathy [Kathy Roberts] has done a great job of holding things together. She’s had five jobs, four of which she wasn’t trained for,” Biederman explained. “The first phase will be financial stability. We need to shift the culture of the hospital. We have tools that will help our people to live their values at work. We are going to create great patient care, and then the hospital will flourish.” “We, (NewLight), want more for the hospital than we want for ourselves,” Biederman declared. “We are looking for a full-time CEO, we have a candidate, but we can’t name him because he is employed.” “We feel blessed to have been selected to manage the hospital, and we want to be of service.”