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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels May 26, 2004 Hospital selects new CEO By Steve Zimmerman Ashland Daily Tidings Ashland Community Hospital has named a 26-year veteran of hospital administration as its new CEO. Mark Marchetti will take the helm at ACH from retiring CEO and President James Watson around July 1. Watson will oversee the transfer until Aug. 1. Hospital Board Chairman Paul Nicholson introduced Marchetti to the staff and local media Tuesday. He said Marchetti was chosen from more than 75 applicants. "It is a bittersweet day. Jim has been our president and CEO for the past 16 years, has a profound impact on the hospital and its culture, and has developed what is undoubtedly one of the finest small hospitals in the country, according to some of the people who applied for this position," he said. "And at the same time it is an exciting day because we have a new CEO who is thoughtful, enthusiastic about the future and is wanting to continue to build on the extraordinary work Jim and his staff have done over the years." The final five consisted of Marchetti, two other male applicants and two female applicants. Marchetti was the unanimous choice of the committee that interviewed the final five applicants. Marchetti comes to Ashland from Chillicothe, Ohio, where he was head of Adena Health System, a regional health-care system consisting of two hospitals, six outpatient centers and numerous physician practices in rural South Central Ohio. He said the decision to move to Ashland was easy despite knowing nothing about the community. "I knew nothing about Ashland," he said. "But I have had about 25 years of hospital management experience and I have worked in organizations large and small. I really enjoy the environment of a small hospital. There is a great sense of loyalty, of belonging and family, that does not exist in a big organization. ... When I saw the brief job description it seemed like a good fit. Then I came and visited and was overwhelmed with the organization and the community." The physical beauty of Ashland and its number of activities also were attractive to Marchetti, who has a wife and a daughter about to enter sixth grade. Watson leaves with very big shoes to fill as he was well-liked among the community and inside the hospital. Marchetti said he will not try to copy Watson because that would not be fair to him. But he does admit that their management styles are very comparable. "I bring a very broad base of knowledge of hospital management and health-care issues," he said. "But I think a lot of people have that. I bring a sense of mission and commitment to community hospitals and what community hospitals are about. I bring real positive interpersonal skills that are essential to hospital management." Marchetti started his schooling in hospitality management. He quickly decided he did not want to manage a hotel and was swayed by a visiting professor at Cornell University in his junior year to move into hospital management. "I took a course in hospital food services taught by an administrator from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York," he said. "He didn't talk a lot about hospital food service management. He talked about hospitals and the health-care industry and issues in the health-care industry, many of the issues we still are talking about 30 years later. It seemed like an opportunity to be involved in a field that made some meaningful contribution to the world. We were all looking to make meaningful contributions to the world. It was the '70s." Marchetti said the two biggest issues facing him as he moves to Ashland are the same issues that confront health care providers nationwide, uncollectable debt and the rising cost of malpractice insurance. "I need to get up to speed on the issues that are going on in Oregon," he said, "although I am not so sure the issues in Oregon are really different than anywhere else. Ohio has a major problem with malpractice insurance now, as does Pennsylvania and many other states. If there was an easy answer to the problem, someone would have come up with one by now. Hospitals have a certain mission to take care of the community and hospitals take care of whoever comes through the emergency room. The problem is it is an increasing challenge and burden to meet those costs when so much of the population is in fact uninsured. It is something that not only the state Legislature is going to have to deal with but the federal government is going to also have to deal with." Nicholson said there were a couple of key factors that led to the hiring of Marchetti. "Mark really understood, at a visceral level, the culture of the hospital," he explained. "He really knows this is a collaborative place, this is a place where people care about each other, support each other, are compassionate about each other and work together. He made it very clear to the staff how much he understood that. The other factor from a board perspective is that he is a very thoughtful, intelligent man who has come up with some pretty creative and imaginative ideas for how to lead a hospital through some challenging times." DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams