Christine Harff, the incoming chief executive officer of Bartlett Regional Hospital, said Tuesday that she is looking forward to moving up to Juneau and starting her new job.
“I am incredibly excited,” Harff said of her impending move. “I have lived in the Pacific Northwest before, and it’s just beautiful. It will be fun, I think.”
The CEO of Sanford Medical Center in Thief River Falls, Minn., Harff also has experience as a nurse, including work experience in Seattle.
Harff said she benefits from experience from having worked as a nurse all the way up to a supervisor, department manager and hospital CEO.
“The common denominator for all of us is we’re there to provide care,” said Harff.
Bob Storer, president of Bartlett’s board of directors, said the board is “so excited” to be bringing Harff on board.
“The whole board is completely behind the decision,” Storer said.
Storer said Harff had several qualifications that stood out during the candidate selection process.
“The fact that she’d been a nurse and came from the clinical side was very important,” said Storer. “If you look at her education, it includes a (Master of Business Administration) and a (Juris Doctor), so she’s incredibly well-educated in issues that really matter to health care. We felt her personality and communication skills were also very good.”
Harff said she expects to arrive Aug. 15. She said she is looking forward to tackling Bartlett’s challenges.
“I think every place is very unique, so I don’t like to make a judgment,” Harff said. “But I think the constant issue is, how are we going to do this smarter and wiser with less resources?”
Unlike previous permanent CEO Shawn Morrow, Harff will be an employee of the City and Borough of Juneau. Morrow left Bartlett in January as part of the hospital’s switchover from having its CEO and chief financial officer be employees of management firm Quorum Health Resources to be directly hired by Bartlett’s board of directors.
“The reason is simple: accountability,” Storer said. “We want the CEO and CFO accountable to the board and not a corporation.”
• Contact reporter Mark D. Miller at 523-2279 or at mark.d.miller@juneauempire.com.
Comments (5)
Add commentNo Accountablity
When things start getting tough at Bartlett, just as they are now, watch the members of the board stop coming to their meetings and then resign from the board.
New board members arrive and existing members go away. This is actually an environment where no accountability exists.
The pseudo-professional board of directors, many who have been on the board less than one year, are struggling to manage the highly complex financial organization and its $100 million budget.
Now the board has hired a CEO who arrives at Bartlett without any large-hospital management experience.
Nobody can reasonably expect that this revolving board of directors and an under-qualified CEO can replace a professional hospital management organization where accountability always existed.
How do you get large-hospital
How do you get large-hospital management experience without managing a large-hospital?
this is NOT.........
... a large hospital. This is a small, podunk, mismanaged "regional" hospital with a history of fiscal and managerial irresponsibility. The board being transient is but another small piece of that puzzle. Until CBJ either privatizes that boneyard or STOPS awarding Quarum the management contract, it is intellectually impossible to expect change at the level necessary to rehabilitate Bartlett Regional Hospital. You cannot bastardize human resources law and policy with staff abuses and expect recruitment and retention success. You cannot spend more than you make, then ask for an extension to the "ad infinitem" sales tax "grant money" that keeps flowing.You cannot expect community support with the level of errors, costs, and publically noted difficulties. People are flying elsewhere for preventive services due to the costs and error rates at BRH.
Someone must inflict a level of accountability on this entire organization necessary to impact permanent changes. Its called A FOR SALE SIGN !!!!
Bartlett ceo
Hi all
How can anything change when out of 20 people we pick
employee of Quorum. So nothing will change. Do a little
googling Quorum and Sanford Health Thief River Falls.
Quorum makes the decisions for our hospital and 200
others. Check them out.
who owns Quorum and Triad
Triad Hospitals acquires Quorum Health Group for $1.15B in cash and stock The saga continues. look up QHR law suites.