Dorchester Reporter On Strategic Plan For Carney Hospital

The Dorchester Reporter gets its hands on documents detailing the strategic plan for Steward Health Care System's Carney Hospital, following the abrupt departure of its president Bill Walczak under murky circumstances after only 14 months at the helm. (Steward intitially said Walczak resigned; Walczak told The Globe he didn't resign.)

The Reporter notes that on Monday Carney's new president and CEO Andrew Davis, a former health care executive in North Carolina, "was introduced to the Dorchester Avenue hospital’s board at a private meeting." The story continues:

Before he left, Walczak was mapping out the immediate future of the hospital. A document obtained by the Reporter that was billed as the strategic plan for 2012 to 2015 stated, “The Carney Hospital is at a critical juncture at which it must now reestablish itself as a premier health care institution in Dorchester, or continue to slide toward obsolescence.”

The document noted that while the Carney had “suffered significant losses in patient volume over the past generation, it is viewed by the greater Dorchester community as vital to the health of the community it serves.”

The plan, which was approved by a committee of the hospital’s board, but never voted on by the full board, called for increasing the number of primary care providers to 38 from 11 and the development of a new department of family medicine. Collaboration between Carney and Quincy Hospital, which Steward recently acquired, was also discussed as a possibility.

“The goal of a vibrant, innovative, profitable Carney Hospital is attainable through excellent management, the addition of services that meet community needs, and the creation of facilities which allow the services to grow,” the document said.