sets high goals for hospital

By

JOan Gandy

The nAtchez Democrat

Natchez &8212; The new CEO of Natchez Community Hospital has a simple formula for success: Focus on the customer.

Tim Trottier, on the job in Natchez for about a month, brings experience to the position from both administrative and financial arenas.

Clearly he has a vision that drives his goals. &8220;We have three primary customers,&8221; he said. &8220;First and foremost is the patient, and that includes the patient&8217;s family, as well.&8221;

Second, physicians are the hospital&8217;s customers. &8220;They choose to be on our staff. They have to be treated like customers, too.&8221;

Third, the hospital employees most be treated in the same way patients and physicians are treated, Trottier said. &8220;I believe that creates a positive environment within the hospital.&8221;

Following his formula, success is easy to measure, he said. &8220;You measure success by earning the future business of your customers.&8221;

Empowering employees to make decisions is another part of the formula. &8220;I believe decisions need to be made as close to the bedside as possible,&8221; he said.

Trottier divides the hospital staff into two broad areas. They are the people who work directly with patients and the staff members who support those working with patients.

&8220;Natchez is a very good, high-quality hospital with a seasoned staff,&8221; he said. &8220;My challenge is to maintain that high quality and excellent care offered here all along.&8221;

Trottier (pronounced TRA-tee-er) grew up in Connecticut. After two years of active duty in military service, he spent eight more in reserves, taking advantage of the GI Bill to get his college education at Seattle University in Seattle, Wash., where he majored in accounting. He also holds an MBA.

&8220;I got into health care through finance,&8221; he said. Joining a large CPA firm that had many health care clients, he targeted that area in which to work. After four years, a client of the firm offered him a position in Scottsdale, Ariz.

&8220;I worked there for two years before going to work for HMA,&8221; Trottier said.

In 1998, he joined Health Management Associates and has found the company a good fit for him.

He started as a controller for the hospital in Midwest City, Okla., just outside Oklahoma City. There he was promoted to assistant administrator. &8220;I jumped from the financial side to the administrative side,&8221; he said.

Next the company sent him to Williamson, W.Va., where he was CEO of a hospital &8220;deep in Appalachia. We were in Hatfield and McCoy territory. I had descendants of both families on my staff.&8221;

In Williamson, he became involved in community and state activities, serving, for example, as president of the Chamber of Commerce and as a board member for the state hospital association.

From West Virginia, he moved to Washington, where he oversaw the acquisition of a hospital that had been run by Sisters of Providence for 113 years and was losing $5 million a year. &8220;In year one, we brought it back,&8221; Trottier said.

A hospital is a business and must be run as a business, he said. &8220;If you don&8217;t run it as a business, you will have a hard time being successful,&8221; he said. His emphasis on customer satisfaction fits into that philosophy.

Married and the wife of two daughters, 11 and 9, Trottier looks forward to their getting settled into Natchez.

Parents and children enjoy spending time together, he said. They like water sports in the warm seasons and snow skiing in the winter.

Involvement in community activities will be a part of his life in Natchez, Trottier said. &8220;That&8217;s an aspect of my job that I really enjoy.&8221;