Deaton moves to Danville

By MARK SAGE/Staff

Wythe County Community Hospital Chief Executive Officer Eric Deaton is going to visit his father in Johnson City, Tenn., on Sunday.
On Monday, at 7 a.m., he’ll walk into his office at Danville Regional Medical Center.
In a whirlwind couple of days, Deaton went from the CEO of a 400-employee hospital to the CEO of LifePoint’s biggest facility, a 300-bed hospital with more than 1,000 employees.
On Thursday, the Danville hospital’s board announced that Deaton would take over on Monday as the new chief executive, replacing Jerel Humphrey, who stepped down last week. That same day, Deaton gave his two-day notice to Wythe County staff members, board members and volunteers. The announcement brought to a close Deaton’s two-year, seven-month tenure at WCCH.
“It’s hard to leave here,” Deaton said on Friday. Of all the moves he and his wife, Rives, have made, Deaton said this has been the hardest. He said they’ve made a lot of good friends and met a lot of good people here. “The town embraces you,” Deaton said. “It’s a very welcoming place to be.”
It was sudden for the hospital staff and almost as sudden for Deaton. Management at LifePoint contacted him two weeks ago, he said, and told him there may be a change in leadership at Danville. The president asked if he would be interested in taking the job.
“It was totally out of the blue,” Deaton said.
He was the only who had been contacted.
Deaton said he hasn’t had the type of challenge awaiting him after the weekend yet, but it’s one he’s ready for. It’s a natural progression for his career, he said. So the packing Friday was done with mixed emotions, sad because he was leaving friends but excited about what was ahead.
Deaton said he was excited about the opportunity to grow the Danville hospital, which serves populations in the Dan River areas of Virginia and North Carolina and has formed affiliations with Duke and Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He said he also looked forward to the challenges ahead. Deaton said he would be naïve to say there are no concerns about tackling the new job; however, he said he plans to stay grounded and focused on his family, his faith and doing the right thing. Among the challenges is the possibility of competition as early as next year. According to a news report from WSLS, Virginia-based health care provider Centra is looking to locate an emergency department and same-day surgery center in Danville.
There are no easy jobs anywhere, though, Deaton said. He said he believes the Danville board and physicians want a great health care system and he hopes to bring the leadership needed to help develop the center into a place to be proud of.
Deaton arrived at WCCH in July 2007, taking the reins from interim CEO John Berry of Clinch Valley Medical Center. Berry had served for several months, replacing John McClain who had resigned after less than two years on the job to take post in the Chattanooga, Tenn., area.
While here, Deaton oversaw a $5.5 million expansion/renovation that more than doubled the emergency department’s size. He said he is proud what was accomplished under his time at Wythe County. He said the hospital added new services, including recruiting surgeons to bring in vascular and thoracic surgery and two new clinics, one in Rural Retreat and one in Wytheville. He said the hospital also focused on improving quality and saw results, seeing marked improvements in Medicare’s core measures. New technology was also a source of price. Deaton said the hospital’s new digital mammography can detect breast cancer five years earlier than before. However, Deaton said he was most proud of the people. He said the leadership team “made my job so easy,” and the medical staff is some of the finest he’s worked with.
On Monday morning, Deaton will become the fourth CEO in nearly as many years at Danville Regional Medical Center. Humphrey’s two years stand as the longest of any CEO at the medical center since it was bought by LifePoint in 2005, according to a Danville Register & Bee story published last week.
Deaton will still be in touch with the community. For starters, he’ll be involved in the search for his replacement, working with the local hospital board and LifePoint. However, Deaton said if he knows how LifePoint operates, the search for a new WCCH CEO likely started even as he was offered the Danville job.
In the interim, Deaton said a somewhat retired former chief executive from Terre Haute, Ind., will serve as CEO. Jerry Dooley, who worked for 25 years, Deaton said, in Indiana was picked as interim chief executive officer. Deaton said Dooley routinely fills in as interim chief while hospitals search for a permanent replacement. A quick search of the Web discovers reports of Dooley serving as interim CEO at several Indiana hospitals.
Wythe County Community Hospital Board Chairman Travis Jackson said in a press release that Deaton “leaves our hospital in a better place for his tireless efforts in working with our physicians and associates, nurturing strong relationships with our community and creating an environment where people want to practice medicine here, they want to be a part of the hospital’s team and feel good about sending family to our hospital.”
While at Wythe County, Deaton served on the Southwest Virginia Emergency Services Council and as vice president of the Wytheville-Wythe-Bland Chamber of Commerce’s executive committee and as chair of the staff/parish relations committee for St. Paul United Methodist Church. In addition, he is trained as a lay speaker in the United Methodist Church and is active with March of Dimes, Boy Scouts of America Leadership Council and Rotary Club.
Deaton, known also for his love of hunting, said he hears the turkey hunting is good around Danville and that’s he’s looking forward to spring gobbler season. He said he was looking forward, too, to coming back to Wythe County, where some friends have invited him to do some weekend hunting in the mountains.
Contact Mark Sage at 228-6611 or jsage@wythenews.com.