By: Max Hackett
Source: The Herald-News
05-06-2007

Rhea Medical Center CEO Ken Croom hails from Westwego, La., a small city that sits southeast of the New Orleans French Quarter on the south bank if the Mississippi River. When he was young his family traveled to the Smoky Mountains to vacation in the cooler Appalachian air. He moved to Dayton in 1994.

Croom is anxiously awaiting the completion of the new Rhea Medical Center and took the Herald-News on a tour of the facility Thursday.

As he welcomed a visitor Friday morning in his office, Croom stretched his long frame out and leaned back in his desk chair, his hands clasped behind his head. When he began to talk about the future of Rhea Medical Center he adjusted his glasses and leaned forward.

H-N: We went inside the new Rhea Medical Center yesterday and saw how the work is progressing. Can you tell us what the new facility will mean to the citizens of Rhea County?

CROOM: Well, we’ve just about outgrown the center that we have. We’ve chronicled a case for that, the E.R. needs more room, the operating room is insufficient for the future. The new O.R. will allow us to do things we can’t do now because the room is too small. Everybody is in a semi-private room, and people want private rooms these days. We wanted to bring in more technology, and this allows us to bring in more technology. For instance, people really wanted us to have our own MRI, and this gives us a place to have that, and we’ll be able to do all of our diagnostic imaging in-house, and that’s been something people have told us they really want.

H-N: Construction projects are notorious for falling behind schedule and going over budget. How do you feel about the progress at the new hospital?

CROOM: I have come to develop a great deal of confidence in the builders and their ability to keep things moving. It seems like they are so conscientious. You know, you go into a construction project with, I guess, a certain amount of trepidation, worrying about having confrontations over getting things done. Isn’t that the history of construction? Everything’s late and things aren’t done right?

I have not had that happen. When there have been issues, the builders have tried to make sure everything is done right, and they get to us if something is problematic ahead of time.

H-N: So the construction is on schedule?

CROOM: The projection since last year has been to finish by the end of July and that’s still the projection. Even allowing for the state inspection, where they might find something that we can’t see, when they get up in the ceilings and say this or that needs to be fixed, which isn’t unusual, we still should be all moved in and ready to accept patients in the early fall, just like the billboards say.

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