Now that Chestatee Regional Hospital in Dahlonega is under new ownership, the CEO has high hopes for new services, new equipment and additional staff.
In the past few years, some services - such as labor and delivery - have gone by the wayside. In fact, the third floor of the facility has gone largely unused, but Jim Yarborough said Durall Capital Holdings, LLC has plans for immediate improvements.
"They had already expressed an interest before the closing date of investing in our hospital, investing in improvements in our current facilities, investing in equipment, investing in current services that we offer, investing in physician recruitment," Yarborough said in a Wednesday morning phone interview.
The company, based in Sunrise, Fla., purchased Chestatee Regional Hospital for approximately $15,000,000 from SunLink Health Systems, Inc. in a deal that was finalized on August 19.
"The former company that owned the hospital was a publicly-traded company on the Securities and Exchange Commission, and as a result, most of what was happening before the public release had to be kept extremely confidential...so as far as the transaction itself, most of that [information] was held very closely at corporate," said Yarborough.
Yarborough praised Durall Capital Holdings, saying the new company is "looking to the future." He noted that Chestatee Regional Hospital is their first acquisition.
"They're looking to expand and grow our current services, and equally as important, they're looking at new services," said Yaborough. "[Durall] has not traditionally been in the hospital business, so they don't think necessarily traditionally as do some folks who've been in the hospital business for quite some time. They're actually going to 'get out of the box'."
Yarborough said change will come quickly to the hospital.
"In the last month...and in the days since the closing, there have been numerous owners/consultants/investors that have been on site. They've surveyed the facilities, they've surveyed our equipment...their goal is to make changes fast."
Yarborough said he believes part of the change will be new hires. Currently, Chestatee Regional Hospital has 178 employees - a combination of full time, part time and contract workers.
Yarborough said he realizes the change in ownership is a chance for Chestatee Regional Hospital to have new life, especially since so many rural hospitals in Georgia and the rest of the country have closed.
"It is a tough struggle in today's financial environment to maintain a positive bottom line or to break even," Yarborough said. "With the current state of our healthcare - specifically healthcare reimbursement - and the amount of uninsured patients that are receiving services that hospitals are having extreme difficulty getting compensated for, this is great news for us."
