When Joel Wernick was still in high school, he was lucky enough to get a summer job mowing the grass at his local hometown hospital. And while he mowed, he realized he wanted a life job that was never about the day of the week, or making it to the week’s end. He wanted to run a hospital and be around like-minded professionals with a goal of helping their fellowman. 

And so he went off to college and graduate school to study the business of healthcare, landed a few hospital jobs and eventually arrived at Phoebe 25 years ago this month, a new CEO ready to grow a hospital he describes as a “diamond in the rough” poised to meet the region’s demand for increased health services and more physicians. 

“I was able to connect the dots way back then in high school,” he said. “The job I have now is not without its risks and challenges, but it has immense rewards. I’m blessed to play on a great team – a championship healthcare team.

“I had a sense in the beginning that people were often leaving the area, but the volume was here and we needed to organize a system to handle the volume.  Our board members were receptive to a growth strategy and they saw the potential of providing care close to home.  They issued a mandate to do so, and today we see the outcomes in programs like oncology and heart, and in our physician growth.  Back then, our deficit was the facility, but we had other important pieces, and we used our clinical efficiency and community pride as the foundation for growth.”

Mr. Wernick can name a long line of Phoebe folks who were eager in 1988 to point the way, lend advice and supply support for the work ahead, including then board chairman, the late Harry Willson.  Today, he says those who have been at Phoebe during his tenure and longer can likely recall many significant changes throughout the organization, some of them a product of shifts in healthcare delivery and regulation, but many a result of employees who have embraced the job of making a community-owned asset “as good as can be.”

Cassandra Washington says she has seen Phoebe’s evolution into a preferred hospital of choice for the region’s citizens since she started working in 1981. “I’m proud to have a premier hospital in my hometown and proud of our programs and accomplishments.”

No doubt, when asking veteran Phoebe Family members to glance back over the past 25 years, “vision” always surfaces, a trait consistently linked to the Wernick name and credited for the organization’s growth.  Mr. Wernick himself doesn’t necessarily own up to being able to see around corners, but vision, he says, isn’t what you can see, but what you can’t see.” 

Wanda Hubble, who has been here for 36 years, credits extraordinary vision for the organization’s strength and ability to deliver care to an entire community, regardless of a patient’s circumstances.  “I’m always amazed at his vision in the changing healthcare environment.

Without that kind of vision, many businesses are not able to survive.”

Mr. Wernick said his early direction was quite clear. He knew the organization had to “grow or die, and not growing was not an option.” Within two years of his arrival, Mr. Wernick and the board of directors saw the wisdom of securing the future through a reorganization into a health system, making it possible for Phoebe to deliver services outside Dougherty County. Today, more than 55% percent of Phoebe’s patients live outside of Dougherty County, and family medicine centers, a large physician group, specialty clinics and regional hospital facilities – both owned and managed – weave a strong network of care delivery to keep access as close to home as possible for citizens in Southwest Georgia.  At the same time, a 20-year master plan was announced in the late 80s for aggressive facilities expansions so that Phoebe would always be a place where physicians want to practice and people want to come for healing.

“When I started working here in 1988, Phoebe Putney was a basically a community hospital, which well served the Albany area, but nothing really beyond that,” said Charles Hawkins, MD. “What I have seen in 25 years, is growth of this facility to become a regional medical center and a leader in a variety of medical fields, particularly in oncology and cardiovascular health. In the laboratory and pathology department, we have worked hard to stay abreast of the rest of the medical staff and the growth that we have seen in the complexity of the medical care that we provide here.”

Mr. Wernick said the game plan has indeed been one to make Phoebe a healthcare leader by providing the resources and tools for everyone to be successful in their role at Phoebe. “We knew we had to be financially successful to carry out our plan and we never wanted to be in the position of saying no to cutting edge technology.”

In the first decade of the master plan, more than $20 million annually was reinvested in new facilities and technologies, including the South Expansion, Medical Tower 1, a family clinic inCamilla and the region’s first parking deck.  Abandoned grocery stores saw a rebirth as Phoebe East and Northwest, offering urgent care, corporate health, family medicine and physical and sports medicine.  Meredyth Place became an off-site destination for advanced care and technologies  and physician practices, and the Willson Hospice was realized as the region’s first in-patient facility for end-of-life care. 

Growth was more than facilities, and Mr. Wernick points to the Phoebe Family as his source of greatest pride, growing from approximately 1200 employees to almost 4500.  “The creation of so many jobs,” he says, “because there is satisfaction in knowing so few have to leave the region, and when friends say their children are coming back to live and work here, I know we’ve been successful.”  

Mr. Wernick has also been known for an extraordinary commitment to “upstream investment,” a community health philosophy that underscores prevention and reaches out across diverse needs to improve the health of all citizens.  Phoebe’s community health programs over the years have earned state and national recognition, including a NOVA Award for teen pregnancy prevention and the prestigious Foster G. McGaw Prize.

“Upstream investment harnesses the collective energies of the community to address the patterns of a problem before they become issues of care inside the hospital,” said Mr. Wernick, who frequently refers to the “parable of the river” when he talks about community health initiatives.  “It’s not enough to fish people from the river and build a hospital to make them well again.  “Eventually, we must look upstream and find out why they are falling into the river in the first place.

“We have made a commitment to upstream investment that breaks the cycle of disease and removes barriers to health.  The extent we’re able to get upstream allows us to stretch scarce resources and mobilize those resources to improve the health and quality of life in Southwest Georgia.”

Mr. Wernick knows the years ahead hold many uncertainties for those who work in the healthcare arena.  He calls new federal regulations and the Accountable Care Act, a “big, big unknown” that belies prediction but carries with it a reduction in resources and a mandate to redefine work processes. 

“Today quality and cost are welded together and we must redirect resources to continue to meet the community’s needs and fulfill our mission of service,” he said. 

He’s confident the Phoebe Family is up to the task. “I don’t know who coined the phrase Phoebe Family, but I sure like to use to describe our workforce and our culture. It’s about both the challenging and comforting culture of our organization,” he said. “Most of the Golden Rule culture still exists here, and the charm of the South Georgia approach to life is what our folks take with them into the healthcare experience.  It’s been at the foundation of our success.”