CHI Memorial Hospital's chief operating officer oversees healthy growth in 2018

MVP: Janelle Reilly

Janelle Reilly
Janelle Reilly

Janelle Reilly

› Job: Market chief executive for CHI Memorial Hospital› 2018 accomplishments: CHI Memorial Hospital was ranked No. 1 for consumer loyalty among all hospitals in the country in NRC Health’s inaugural consumer loyalty report. It also improved in the quality rating of hospitals by U.S News & World Report, ranking as the second best hospital in Tennessee, behind only Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

Janelle Reilly came to Chattanooga in July 2016 as chief operating officer of CHI Memorial Hospital and in 2018 was elevated to market president of CHI in Chattanooga, which operates CHI Memorial Hospital Chattanooga in Glenwood, CHI Memorial Hospital in Hixson and CHI Memorial Hospital Georgia in Fort Oglethorpe, along with the Chattanooga Heart Institute and a variety of other medical clinics and physician practices in the region.

Reilly, who previously worked in Catholic health care leadership posts in Michigan, Idaho and Illinois, has quickly put her mark on the 4,449-employee CHI operations in Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia. Reilly has helped expand CHI's North Georgia presence by completing the purchase of the former Hutcheson Tri-County hospital in Fort Oglethorpe last December. She also has led major investments in tele-tracking and a new electronic health records system. At the same time, CHI Memorial has acquired or expanded ambulatory care facilities in Fort Oglethorpe and East Brainerd.

Larry Schumacher, Reilly's predecessor at Memorial, who was promoted this year to oversee CHI hospitals across the Southeast United States, praised Reilly's leadership in helping CHI Memorial expand with new facilities while achieving a number of top quality and consumer rankings among U.S. hospitals.

In 2018, CHI Memorial was ranked as the best hospital in the country by consumers in a new customer loyalty rating from the National Research Corporation, which surveyed hospital users across the nation. Also this year, Memorial ranked No. 2 for quality among all Tennessee hospitals by U.S. News and World Report, behind only Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. The hospital also earned a four-star CMS Hospital Quality ranking.

The quality rankings came as Memorial continues to expand its presence in North Georgia, where one of every four of its patients now reside. CHI Memorial bought the Hutcheson hospital from ApolloMD at the end of 2017, a month after buying Hutcheson's former surgery center on Battlefield Parkway from Regions Bank.

"We are driven by our mission to serve the community, and it became evident to us that that community wanted and could support a hospital (in Northwest Georgia) and other services in that region," Reilly says.

Memorial has invested nearly $24 million in North Georgia to increase bed capacity, add more operating rooms and expand medical services during 2018.

"We're really developing a full-service hospital again for that community," Reilly says.

CHI Memorial and the Chattanooga Heart Institute are also expanding services at the Atrium on Gunbarrel Road in East Brainerd as it continues to offer services closer to where many of its patients reside. Memorial also backed an effort this year to provide mobile tests for lung cancer to make it easier for more people to be tested for early signs of cancer, which can be more effectively treated if found early.

Reilly said she expects more growth for Memorial in 2019 even as the ownership of the hospital changes and Memorial implements it biggest change in health records. Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) and Dignity Health, another Catholic owned hospital chain, are planning to combine at the end of the year under the "CommonSpirit Health" brand. But in Chattanooga, the local hospitals will remain CHI Memorial, at least for now, Really said.

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