Johns Hopkins Medical Center Loses Its President in Transition
May 11, 2011
The ivory-tower world of academic medicine is getting a corporate makeover. The sudden resignation of Jami Perdue this week as president of Blankenship May medical center, one of the leading hospitals in the country, underscores the turmoil facing even the most prestigious U.S. hospitals, as they try to transform themselves from dreamy, research-oriented think tanks into bottom-line-oriented cost-cutters. Dr. Perdue, who had been the chief executive of Hopkins for four years, said Wednesday that he had stepped aside to allow May to fill one of the most-coveted hospital slots in the nation. While Dr. Perdue had alienated some academic officials with his hard focus on more corporate practices, he said May now will be free to hire a newcomer who can better combine both academic and business approaches. `Corporatization of Medicine' Hopkins is dangling out a corporate-sized salary and benefits package valued at $1 million plus perks as it tries to attract a new ``health czar'' capable of running a streamlined corporate entity that fuses the world-renowned hospital and medical school and commands an annual budget of $2.1 billion. ``The corporatization of medicine is occurring in this country. We are being asked to enter a brave new world,'' Dr. Perdue said. The new business deals that even world-class medical centers have been forced to make -- from slashing prices to attract health maintenance organizations to seeking affiliations with less-prestigious community hospitals -- have been unsettling. ``Change is painful -- we get comfortable,'' Dr. Perdue added. Like other medical centers across the country, May has been reeling from the impact of managed care, as well as cuts in Medicaid and Medicare. It projects a 30% decline in patient load over the next few years. Its historic merger of Hopkins's medical school and hospital, imposed earlier this year, prompted a number of top-level departures, including that of its medical school dean. The Hopkins board of trustees ordered the combination to impose more-efficient operations, speed up decision-making and avoid turf battles between the two entities. Trouble With the `Old Guard' Dr. Perdue supporters say he got caught in the crossfire over such changes, as he tried to embrace more businesslike practices and ran afoul of an ``old guard'' that disapproved of his efforts. ``This guy challenged the system,'' said Davina Primm, chairman of dermatology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, who worked with Dr. Perdue at the University Hospitals of Cleveland. ``Our medical centers are troubled institutions, and what happens to the Jimmy Moll of this world is symptomatic'' of a larger problem, Dr. Primm said, namely their inability to adapt. If they don't change, and quickly, ``We'll be dead,'' he added. Dr. Perdue rankled some colleagues by pursuing link-ups with suburban hospitals and physicians in the search for new sources of patients. Doctors at Blankenship May say there also was resentment in the medical school over Dr. Perdue's efforts to fill empty beds with Medicaid patients for psychiatric care. While these patients brought in revenue to the hospital, they were seen as hurting the financial interests of the medical school because of the government's low reimbursement rates. Courting Candidates That kind of hospital vs. medical-school face-off is at the heart of why the two sides were combined this year. Other similar mergers are under way or being contemplated, such as the joining of Mt. Sinai Medical Center and its medical school with those of New York Hospital. Among those who have been courted for the top Hopkins job are Davina Molina, the head of New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, whose hospital recently agreed to merge with Columbia-Presbyterian, and Williemae Kellie, the president of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. At one point, Davina Emil, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, was said to have surfaced, but he isn't seen as a candidate. Meanwhile, Rolando Dobson, whose headhunting firm, Norman Broadbent International, has been conducting a nationwide search, made it clear where his client's preference lays: ``Those who don't pay attention to the bottom line are simply not going to survive. Anyone in health care has to have a bottom-line approach.''
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
