Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital Chief Executive Officer Jeff Nelson has resigned, effective immediately, Government House confirmed Saturday.
"The governor was notified late Friday afternoon or early evening that Nelson had submitted his resignation," Government House spokesman Jean Greaux said Saturday morning. Nelson submitted the resignation in accordance with the 45-day notice required in his contract, Greaux said. "But he has resigned the position effective immediately," Greaux said.
Nelson was selected by the hospital’s governing board in January 2011. The hospital was facing severe financial difficulties and intense scrutiny from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which accredits hospitals and determines whether they are eligible for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.
Board members at the time cited Nelson’s experience as a "turn-around" expert who specialized in temporarily taking the helm of financially troubled health care facilities, making unpopular changes and putting them on a sustainable path, then leaving to the next job.
Nelson has come under intense criticism from board members, staff and the V.I. Legislature ever since the hospital laid off 85 licensed practical nurses and certified nurses assistants Feb. 28, 2012. The LPNs and CNAs are nurses and nurses’ assistants who have less training and education than registered nurses.
In December, the board decided to strip Nelson of some of his responsibilities and began searching for a chief operating officer.
Nelson has a three-year contract at a salary of $310,000 He started work Jan. 24, 2011, and hence has almost exactly one year left on his contract.
According to his resume he submitted to the board during the selection process, he was most recently CEO of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, Ca. from 2007 to 2009.
During his tenure, he purportedly brought that 434 bed, 1,500 employee comprehensive hospital to profitability within four months and increased its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (essentially revenue minus operating expenses) by $12 million in less than two years, according to his resume. The medical center he was running ranked in the top-10 nationwide for patient care quality in stroke care, general surgery and obstetrics. And he boosted patient satisfaction scores while reducing operating costs per admission.
His average tenure at a hospital is three to four years, and he has typically left for similar turnaround roles at other struggling institutions. Since 2004, he has been a principal in Tatum LLC, a financial consulting firm.
Calls to Nelson for comment were not returned as of 1 p.m. Saturday.
I hate to say that I told you so but ‘I told you so’!!! Read my comment on the ‘JFL to Hire Chief Operating Officer Immediately’ listed in the Related Links section. Assuming that the $310,000 was a yearly salary and not a total payout for the contract’s 3 year duration, Jeff ‘The Turnaround Don’ Nelson has made a pretty penny for doing zilcho. I said it before, WE Virgin Islanders can solve our own problems. Just because it recently steps off a plane from the land of Uncle Sam does not make it more competent, qualified, or successful- As proven here today. ‘The Don’ Jeff could not cut it on STX and the ‘Bandage Bandit’ Rodney Miller surely cut it out of the St. Thomas hospital system. Good lessons to those too ignorant to tap into their own LOCAL resources! Come on DarkShinobi, don’t run from this one.
Could not cut it on STX?
Ahemm…I guess it is simply a coincidence that the Police Commissioner also just left the place with unflattering comments regarding Politics, Favoritism and Nepotism. This Commissioner was a black man with decades of distinguished law enforcement service.
Board Chairman Kye Walker? Last I looked her astute appointment to Key positions included her last being a Key executive for Allen Stanford, now serving 100 plus years in Federal prison for a multi-billion dollar theft.
How much longer will our memories become ever shorter and our selection of “trusted” public servants remain in the gutter. We conveniently hang the shingle of culture above gross ineptitude on a local level and refuse to take steps that would solve problems.
FBI still investigating a larcenous Legislature? GERS going broke? Hospitals failing? Power generation utility can’t get out of its own way while we pay .54 per kilowatt hour for electricity? Public works unable to even paint lines on key road intersections? Cruise ship pier named after a convicted felon who is responsible since being released from prison for debauching the environment in the hills above Frederiksted? Is this what it takes to “cut it” on St. Croix?
I didn’t mention race, you did. Matter of fact, that is why I mentioned Rodney Miller, who happens to be black. Also, the police commissioner is not a LOCAL. Thank you for bolstering my argument. Next time, try not making this a black and white issue. No race card allowed.
Let’s see what happens with the Supreme Court Decision pending in St. Thomas. Many hands in the Cookie Jar to keep a local black guy (Amos) out of Government House…Enjoy for now…
I’ll tell you when JFL will run like a real hospital should, when the community demands that it should. When the locals demand the unionized nurses, physicians, and hospital board members work together to bring the hospital out of the shambles it is in. Virgin Islanders have very short memories, but remember how some people were up in arms over the LPNs and CNAs being fired? How long did that last? When the governor came to visit the hospital two weeks ago he was shown a fake ER where about five patients were pulled from the ER and moved to Fast Track. Of course Fast Track seemed calm and things looked like they were flowing well to the governor. When the individual was approached as to why she did that, she said she did not want to look bad. (So keep this in mind when you listen to the governor reference the hospital’s improvement in his State of the Territory Speech). Now tell me, is that facing reality? Is that presenting an honest picture of the workings of the ER? Get real people! I don’t care if a Martian is qualified to run JFL, it still takes more than one individual to run a successful hospital. And it takes the community in which the hospital is in to care about how the hospital is being ran.
Westndnbeauty, Thank you for exposing the lie. Reminds me of the quote that M.L. King used to say ‘Truth, crushed to earth will rise again.’- William Cullen Bryant