Memorial Hospital and Manor Authority members met Tuesday afternoon for their first meeting under the management of the new CEO, James Lambert.

For the second month in succession, a disappointing financial report was given, as the net income loss for November was $817,764.

Lambert did not seem discouraged, as he commented, “There is a lot of work to be done. I knew it coming in.”  He outlined his plans to do a good study of the data and  see what more the hospital could and should be doing, adding, “I have a lot of questions.”

He plans to do more with budget comparisons, working with each department to see the variances that are there.

On the plus side, the physician clinics are seeing more patients, and the hospital patient volume for December is reported to be up, especially in the obstetrical department, where 11 babies have been born.

He also showed a graph prepared by the Georgia Hospital Association that shows over the past 16 years, the cuts that have been consistently made to Medicare have resulted in a loss of $23,144,300. The losses are greater for the states, like Georgia,  that did not expand Medicaid.

Again, on a positive side, he showed information prepared by the Georgia Department of Health that measures and tracks such quality levels as infection rates in hospitals, and Memorial Hospital was ranked number 8 out of 24 medium sized hospitals as having a good quality of care. All levels were lower than those projected. He complimented the staff for providing such good and positive care to patients, saying as long as that continues, the other problems can be worked out.

There were no requests for capital equipment expenditures this month, but Lee Harris gave a brief update on the remodeling of the front offices and lobby that are currently underway, saying the projected completion date will probably be late January.