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Vision firm in dizzying expansion of hospital

The chief executive of the East Pasco Medical Center is planning upgrades such as a cardiac unit.

By JAMES THORNER
Published December 11, 2005

ZEPHYRHILLS - Scott Pittman strides into his CEO suite at East Pasco Medical Center wearing charcoal slacks and a white short-sleeve polo shirt.

But there's no tie around his neck, despite a slate of daily business meetings. It might as well be a noose. He urges his tie-wearing visitor to drop the knot and loosen his collar.

"I don't wear ties," the hospital's 47-year-old president and chief executive says, popping open a can of Coca-Cola and propping his foot on the table. "It cuts off the carotid artery."

The West Virginia native will need healthy oxygen flow to the brain as he takes the Zephyrhills hospital, part of a chain owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, on a dizzying expansion.

In February he will launch the hospital's $22-million cardiac unit, bringing open heart surgery to east and central Pasco for the first time. Two more floors will be added to the hospital by 2008.

In March the hospital computerizes patient records. The $5-million overhaul should end the era of scribbled, illegible bedside charts and reduce the potential for errors.

And the siren's song of suburbia is pulling the 154-bed hospital toward Wesley Chapel and New Tampa. By 2010 Pittman plans a $75-million sister hospital on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

Is it too much, too fast, too soon for a 20-year-old hospital that has focused largely on elderly retirees who dominate Zephyrhills' sick rolls? Pittman doesn't think so.

"A person who doesn't have vision needs supervision," Pittman says.

Morale had cratered at East Pasco Medical Center when Pittman took over in November 2001. Five months earlier, his predecessor, Paul Norman, had committed suicide with a pistol in his Lake Bernadette home.

Not only was the hospital largely rudderless, but some employees wondered whether the course set by Norman was clouded by the former CEO's apparent untreated depression.

A hiring committee snagged Pittman from Princeton Community Hospital in West Virginia, where he was the hospital's chief operating officer.

Pittman won admirers almost instantly. There'd be no house cleaning in the corporate front office in Zephyrhills. He would keep Norman's crew on board.

Owing to his country upbringing, he could keep up with the Zephyrhills good old boy network. Like some of those small business owners and retirees, he said "JOO-lie" for July.

"He's not an outsider or a suit. He's just a good old boy who talks their language," says Kevan Metcalfe, the hospital's No. 2 executive under Pittman.

Pittman also resuscitated two initiatives that had been on corporate life support: the cardiac center and the expansion to Wesley Chapel.

He prides himself on being the big idea guy, leaving much of the execution to his staff. An open door policy prevails in the executive suite.

"We've been talking about Wesley Chapel since 1990. He's been the only one who has picked up the ball and run with it," hospital vice president Robert Ruchti says.

The Adventist Health System is faith-based, and Pittman makes no apologies. A mural of Jesus dominates the lobby. Forget "holiday trees." More than 50 Christmas trees adorn the front lawn of the hospital.

Pittman realizes hospitals are big businesses with roots in Christian charity. "We are servants of God to you the patient. We want people to know we're an extension of the healing ministry of Christ," Pittman says.

But it's a ministry that can test one's Christian patience.

East Pasco lost $4.8-million last year serving Medicare patients. The hospital logged 42,000 visits to the emergency room last year. As a nonprofit community hospital it turns no one away, financial health of the patient notwithstanding.

Private insurance picks up the tab for Medicare and the uninsured. "It's an indirect tax on people with private insurance," Pittman says.

The challenges of a medium-sized hospital in Pasco County seem like a hill of beans compared to the Appalachian mountain Pittman already has climbed.

Pittman and his siblings led an Army brat existence of frequent moves and switching schools. His father, Danny, was an Army airborne paramedic. His mother, Joyce, was a nurse.

His father retired and moved everyone back to his native West Virginia. Family stability proved elusive. His mother died of pancreatic cancer. Ten months later, his father drowned in a whirlpool while fishing in the New River in West Virginia.

Scott was an orphan at 12. His grandmother, Gertrude, took in Pittman and his six siblings. To survive they grew corn and potatoes on a 10-acre plot.

"It creates a strong sense of self dependency," Pittman says of the loss of his parents.

Pittman never finished high school, opting instead for the Army. He says, he "wanted to get out of Dodge."

He left the military and studied electrical engineering. But after committing himself to Christ, he married. He and his wife, Janet, moved to Texas. He marched through a series of colleges. Over nine years he earned degrees in theology, business and hospital administration.

While working nights as a nurse's aide and chaplain's assistant, Pittman fixed on his future career, combining Christianity and health care. The Zephyrhills posting is his first chief executive position.

The Pittmans live north of Dade City and have two children: April, 19, and Adam, 15. Pittman's co-workers chuckle about his propensity to launch into long speeches laced with biblical and spiritual references. Give Pittman five minutes, he'll talk your ear off for 10.

"That's kind of a standing joke," said Sharon Heinrich, director of the foundation that raises money for the hospital. "He's learned and well-read. I've not come across a subject yet he can't talk on."

For the hospital's 20th anniversary gala last month, ventriloquist Jay Johnson, who had a role in the 1970s sitcom Soap, provided the entertainment.

Johnson's dummy sported a large nose, a receding hairline, a bald spot and looked suspiciously like a certain hospital CEO.

Pittman enjoyed the lampoon as much as anyone and accepted the plastic lookalike as a gift. "It was in good taste," he says.

Considering the wrenching changes and challenges of next year, levity should be a hot commodity.

First comes a name change to "Florida Hospital." The heart unit arrives in February and computerization in March.

If Pittman's Adventist superiors loosen the purse strings it won't be long before he seeks state permission for the multistory tower in Wesley Chapel.

"People often say medicine and the ministry don't go together," Pittman says as people stream into the hospital lobby behind his office window. "My job is to balance the two."

[Last modified December 11, 2005, 02:15:36]