How the last 6 years of healthcare changed Ken DeFurio’s mind
Never an advocate for the “bigger is better” mentality in healthcare, Ken DeFurio’s 20-year tenure as the president and CEO of a longtime single hospital health system changed some years after the COVID-19 pandemic, when he and his colleagues “worked harder than ever.”
In an interview last week, the outgoing president and CEO of the former Independence Health System said West Virginia University Health System’s recent acquisition of the health system probably would not have happened if not for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even when formed on Jan. 1, 2023, Independence Health System went through financial challenges that DeFurio said took years to stabilize.
“The reality was we probably need to find some additional resources and talent to work with, and that’s how we landed on WVU Medicine,” DeFurio said. “They have 25 hospitals across West Virginia, several other states. Culturally, they just lined up.
“When they have acquired community hospitals, they have invested in community hospitals.”
The now-former president and CEO of Independence Health System had his last shift in that role Sept. 30. He is now in a “strategic growth activity” advisory role with WVU Medicine.
DeFurio said amid the change, the health system plans to reintroduce local governing boards, a system that Independence Health System eliminated when Butler Health and Excela merged. The boards will be in place for each of WVU Medicine’s “tertiary sites.” There will be a board for Butler and Clarion counties and one for Westmoreland County.
“At that level, they have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure across the system that things are being managed properly,” DeFurio said of the local board control. “We will have two members of our board sit on the parent board, and we will have members of staff who will attend the WVU Health System parent board meetings as well. So, good connectivity at the local level and at the parent level.”
Further, administration of the newly acquired hospitals will not change.
Matt Schnur, who is currently the president of Butler and Clarion Hospitals, will continue in the role; Brian Fritz, who is the president of Westmoreland, Latrobe and Frick hospitals, will continue; and Dr. Dave Rottinghaus, who is the president of the physician group across all of Independence’s former facilities, will continue to be the president of the physician group across all of the former Independence footprint.
Not only has DeFurio worked in Butler Memorial Hospital for 40 years — he was born there, and so were his children.
Now a grandfather, DeFurio said his priorities have changed, which is one reason he is taking a step back from healthcare administration, even though it’s a career he said he enjoyed all the way.
“I don’t want to be one of those guys who didn’t know when to step aside, because I have been doing this a long time, and I really enjoy it, and it has been a good run,” he said. “It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience and a rewarding career.”
DeFurio earned a degree in respiratory therapy from Indiana University of Pennsylvania then started his career at Butler Memorial Hospital in 1986. Working in respiratory therapy led DeFurio to all ends of the hospital — the ER, nursery, intensive care unit and emergency room — which he said gave him a grounding in patient experience.
“I really enjoyed that, and throughout my training, I got a look at what good medicine looked like, and I got a pretty good eye for what high-quality care looked like,” he said.
DeFurio went on to get his MBA at University of Pittsburgh and became president and CEO of Butler Health System in 2006 — a time he said was marred by some controversy, mainly around the potential to build a new hospital.
In DeFurio’s time as CEO, he oversaw the creation of the Crossroads campus, and he said he is especially proud to have been the administrator while the health system developed its palliative care. Additionally, he listed the creation of the tower at Butler Memorial Hospital and its emergency department among his favorite accomplishments.
The first of the mergers he oversaw was with Clarion Hospital in 2019, ahead of the most challenging time he saw in healthcare administration.
Working through the COVID-19 pandemic and the past six years are what led to the system to talk with WVU Medicine, he said.
With full-time administration in the rear-view mirror, DeFurio said the acquisition is in line with his attitude of working with patients who have socioeconomic challenges.
“This is something I’m really happy about working with WVU because it has kind of been in our DNA: We take care of poor people; we take care of uninsured people; we take care of underinsured people; we take care of people who live in the rural areas who don’t have the greatest access to healthcare,” DeFurio said. “WVU has all the glitz of an academic medical center and research and all that stuff.
“They also already are the best rural healthcare provider in the United States, and we are going to become part of that and be even stronger.”
DeFurio also said patients of all of the former Independence Health System sites will likely not notice any change — at least for a while.
CEO Albert Wright said the signage at these hospitals has already been the most obvious change, but he estimated that in about six months to one year, Butler Memorial Hospital and some other sites will be subject to some capital projects.
He said there are plans to expand Butler Memorial Hospital’s emergency department, as well as to create more space for services championed by WVU Medicine. In total, WVU Medicine has promised capital investment of $800 million.
After about a year, the health system will integrate Pennsylvania patients into its electronic medical records system, a move he said will make transparency “1,000 times better.”
“The big changes will start after the first of the year when we roll out our Epic electronic medical record,” Wright said Tuesday. “Images, labs, prescription notes is going to follow you wherever you go. All of that is going to show up in your MyChart.”
Wright also said patients will have access to all of WVU Medicine’s facilities for treatment options. The health system has more than 25 hospitals across West Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Wright said treatment options will expand through the acquisition of Independence Health.
The former Independence Health System had a patient population of more than 750,000 people, DeFurio said, which is now taken over by WVU Medicine. Wright said the expansion of population is only a good thing for the combined health systems, with an increase in the economy of scale.
WVU Medicine is an education-based health system, Wright pointed out, which is also aided by the expansion.
The former Independence Health System was preparing to welcome its second cohort of medical residency students, which will still be taken on at WVU Medicine. Wright said medical students will have more access, and even employees will benefit from WVU Medicine programs.
“We’re excited about those residency programs, and we’re going to support those as much as possible,” he said.
