New president/CEO settling into return to Fairview Park

The new president/CEO at Fairview Park Hospital just completed his first month and is now preparing to make some changes at the facility. Not that there is anything wrong with it, though.

It is just that time, said Brad Griffin, who began his new position in early April.

“I’ve been watching since I got here and at some point you have to start changing it up to fit your style and what you think needs to be accomplished,” said Griffin, who served as the associate administrator and chief operating officer at Fairview Park from 2003-2008.

“I’ve moved around a little bit a few times in Florida and South Carolina. … I am very excited to be back in Dublin. This is a great hospital with a great reputation throughout the state and throughout our company. I’m excited to be part of the team, and I’m looking forward to contributing to the continual success of the hospital.” 

Griffin grew up in Macon and graduated from Mercer University. He has more than 25 years in healthcare and had held COO and CEO positions at several facilities across the Southeast, serving as COO at Doctors Hospital of Augusta. 

Toward the end of last year, then-President/CEO Don Avery called Griffin to tell him he was thinking about retiring. He wanted Griffin to think about taking his position at Fairview.

“He would call every three to four weeks to remind me,” Griffin said. “The last time I talked to him was right after Christmas, maybe early January. He wanted me to come have dinner with him and see the town because it had changed quite a bit in the 20 years since I had been here.”

Sadly, that dinner never happened as Avery passed away in late January. When the position was posted, Griffin and his wife talked about it and believed it made sense to make this move.

“It was a familiar hospital and the need was certainly great,” Griffin said. “I felt good to be able to come here and use what I learned to continue to help the hospital. Plus, it was a hospital that doesn’t have a lot wrong with it. It didn’t require a lot of fixing. Don was such a good leader, and the team here is strong and tenured and they have done a really nice job.”

He put his name in the hat and was chosen to return to Dublin. Though it had been almost 20 years, many things at the hospital were familiar. He recognized many of the employees and the building structure was mainly the same. But there has been construction and growth and renovation inside rooms. The facilities around the hospital are different and there is a lot more than when he was last here.

“You can tell there has been a lot of reinvestment back into the facility, with the way the hospital looks from top to bottom,” Griffin said. “I was pleasantly surprised to come in and see that. Not a lot of hospitals get to renovate from top to bottom like Fairview has through the years. There is still more work to be done.” 

The hospital will start renovating the endoscopy center, located behind the hospital, in June, he said. They also are looking at ways to expand the emergency room again and bed capacity, too, because of how the hospital has grown and the number of patients coming to it.

Fairview recently reopened the intensive care unit, giving them eight more beds and growing them from 16 to 24 beds there.

As far as challenges, Griffin wants to identify the reasons people go out-of-town for health care. He also sees the need to recruit more physicians to keep people locally.

“As more patients are coming to the hospital, it takes more people to take care of them,” Griffin said. “I want to get up to speed as quick as possible about our processes around recruiting and retaining staff and medical staff and make sure we’re doing a good job there. Beyond that, we want to see why people are leaving for health care and what services do we need to make available. At the end of the day, I really believe that health care is best delivered locally. It’s better for the patient and easier for the families and the support structures around the patient if you are not having to travel. The more we can do here the better.” 

Liz Green, director of marketing and communications at FPH, pointed out that they have been recognized across the state for the quality of care patients received there.

“There has been … sustained quality delivered at Fairview Park through the years that is really good for a community this size,” Griffin said. “When you think about the geography around us, there are small hospitals and they have less ability or fewer services to offer their patients than we do. I think people in the surrounding counties have a preference to come to Dublin over the bigger areas like Macon, Atlanta, Savannah and Augusta that are further away and more challenging to navigate.”

Griffin is aware that things are going to happen. He praised the local EMS and first responders for the work they do to get patients safely to the hospital when it is needed.

“There are times when the situations exceed our capabilities,” Griffin said. “We want to make sure we can safely transport our patients to the next level of care, whether it is through the air or on the ground. Getting to the point where that is less and less of an issue or a need would be ideal.” 

The main thing is the people working at FPH know members in the community.

“It’s neighbors taking care of neighbors,” Griffin said. “We will do a good job for you, and it’s easy for your family to come here and navigate this place. To have employees who know the people they are caring for relieves that anxiety right of that bat.”

When it comes to goals, Griffin wants to maintain the family-oriented healthcare at the hospital. He wants to be able to recruit more staff, physicians and maintain those they currently have.

“We want to be able to grow our service and capacity and be able to offer more than we do today,” Griffin said. “First and foremost we have to maintain our quality and the patient experience so that when you come here you feel good about the health care being delivered here.  We want (patients) to have a good experience and be treated well.”