Kendall Griffith’s Last Day As JFL’s CEO Is Dec. 31, 2015

ST. CROIX — The Juan F. Luis Hospital and Medical Center will have a new CEO on January 1, 2016, after current boss Dr. Kendall Griffith confirmed to The Consortium on Wednesday night that he would not seek reappointment by the hospital’s board.

Griffith shared the news at JFL’s regular board meeting held in the facility’s third floor classroom. He said his contract expired on September 30, but the board asked him to stay on until a new chief executive could be secured.

Dr. Griffith agreed.

“I made the decision that I was not going to extend,” Dr. Griffith said. “I was not going to throw my hat in the ring, because I need to take care of my patients. I need to go back to them.”

Dr. Griffith owns a private practice here, Cardiovascular Associates of the Virgin Islands, located in Sion Farm.

“I feel that the board asked me to help stabilize the hospital at a time when things were very bad. I think that, through the support of a great team, I was able to accomplish that, and I think that we were able to put the hospital on a trajectory of growth,” he added.

Indeed, while the hospital’s Chief Financial Officer Tim Lessing said there was still much work to be done relating to the hospital’s finances, he hailed the  two straight months of financial gain for July and August as progress, with the hospital seeing gains of $891,379 in August.

But the hospital saw some trying times and made some glaring mistakes under Griffith’s tenure, the most embarrassing being the hiring of Nedra Dodds, a former metro Atlanta-based plastic surgeon stripped of her medical license in February by the Georgia Composite Medical Board in connection with two patient deaths, who JFL hired as a contract worker. The story ignited a firestorm in the community and led to the swift termination of the embattled plastic surgeon. But it raised questions about Griffith’s leadership.

And there were other failures as well, including the facility’s ongoing AC problems, the failure of its generators during an all-day WAPA power outage in April, and other lingering  issues.

As for the Systems Improvement Agreement signed between JFL and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid after the federal agency found the hospital  replete with deficiencies, hospital officials now say they’re on track to passing with high marks once CMS’ inspections are complete.

“I think it’s time for me to step out and give someone else a chance to take it to the next level. And I’m going to be there to help that person, whomever it may be, in anyway that they may need help,” Dr. Griffith went on. “So I’m not going away, I’m still going to be here as a physician, but I’m also going to be there as an asset to the new CEO.”

A Legal Notice Government House placed on this publication shows the qualifications needed to become the next CEO of JFL. The summary of the requirements reads as follows:

The hospital CEO is assigned onsite CEO-level oversight responsibility for management and operation of a facility under a management agreement with Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital. The CEO provides CEO-level administration, direction, and coordination for hospital activities, with the support of facility and JFL personnel, to carry out the facility’s objectives in the provision of healthcare and the improvement of community health status in a financially appropriate way, and executes policy formulated by the hospital Board of Trustees, in conjunction with JFL, the medical staff and operational entities within the facility.

Feature Image: Dr. Kendall Griffith at Wednesday night’s JFL board meeting.

Image Credit: VIC.