If the North Georgia community is fortunate, in 20 years Cornerstone Medical Center will be known only for the good work it is doing.
Currently, the hospital long known as Hutcheson Medical Center, is attempting to come out from under a decade-plus of mismanagement, bad decisions, staff infighting, red ink and the Great Recession, as thoroughly chronicled earlier this week by Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Tyler Jett.
Now officially under the ownership of Apollo MD, which bought it out of bankruptcy court for $4.2 million in December, the hospital will have to slowly and deliberately rebuild its reputation as the go-to health center for North Georgia residents. As the hospital wound down to failure, its patients abandoned the facility for Chattanooga or Dalton hospitals that offered better technology and more staff members and did not have a sinking feeling.
Going forward, the hospital’s reputation will have to precede its growth. A competent emergency room is a good front door to that reputation. An initial bad experience there will send patients fleeing again. A good one will spread the word that the hospital can be trusted again.
Apollo officials say Cornerstone will never return to the hospital’s 180-bed heyday but one day could afford 40 or 50 beds. Slow growth, cross-trained employees and community partnerships will help make it work, they said. Two of its former chief medical officers suggested it also remain small, emphasizing general medicine, general surgery and leaving more involved trauma care to larger hospitals in Chattanooga.