PORT ANGELES — The Olympic Medical Center board has hired an executive search firm to help it bring on an interim chief executive officer until a permanent CEO is appointed.
The vote on Friday came a day after CEO Darryl Wolfe submitted his resignation to board, just as OMC is in the middle of a partnerships exploration process and facing the possibility it could lose Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) certification.
The most pressing concern is the possibility CMS will end its agreement with OMC if the hospital doesn’t remedy repeated deficiencies identified by the state Department of Health and Human Services by Aug. 15.
Termination would result in Medicare ceasing to reimburse OMC for any services after that date.
In a May 12 letter to OMC, the Department of Health included a list of violations found in an April 25 visit that needed to be corrected to meet CMS’ conditions of participation and for OMC to remain eligible for payments.
Those included establishing a plan for correcting the practices that lead to the violation, a plan for implementing the corrections, the completion date for each correction, a tracking and monitoring system implemented to ensure the violations do not occur again, and the title of the those responsible for implementing the plan.
In a follow-up visit on June 12, the Department of Health determined OMC was still not in “substantial compliance” with CMS’ conditions of participation.
Some of the violations it found were new, while a number were repeat violations from the April visit that hadn’t been corrected.
OMC representatives did not respond to a request for comment prior to press time Monday.
Meanwhile, OMC is in the decision-making phase of a project to find a potential partnership with another health care system that began in December 2024 when it hired Juniper Advisory to manage the process. Earlier this year, it sent nondisclosure agreements to 10 health care systems to move the process forward, but it has not made public who responded or was a finalist.
The next step will be board approval of a non-binding letter of intent with a preferred partner. According to the timeline established by Juniper Advisory, that will occur this summer or fall.
The board’s next regular meeting will be at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in Linkletter Hall at Olympic Memorial Hospital, 939 Caroline St., Port Angeles.
In its execitive search, Wolfe has agreed to stay until an interim CEO comes on board, which could be before the end of the month or sooner.
Commissioner Philip Giuntoli said Friday that OMC does not have anyone with the required experience to take on the CEO role, even on a temporary basis.
“We’re imagining a CEO search that’s going to take months,” said Giuntoli, who participated in the meeting remotely.
The interim CEO’s length of service would depend on the board’s timeline for meeting strategic planning goals, and the position would only last until a permanent CEO arrives. It is not expected to be a stepping stone to a permanent position at OMC.
“The interim CEO has a different skill set and their role is to come in and do a full assessment of the organization and find where we have weak spots and where we have strengths,” board President Ann Henninger said. “The expectation is that this person is going to hit the ground running and potentially make tough decisions.”
That person will evaluate OMC’s organizational structure, administration, staffing and operations, identify areas in need of improvement and implement changes. These would not be short-term fixes, Henninger said. Instead, they would be meant to position OMC for the future.
The board hired WittKieffer to oversee the process.
WittKieffer managing partner Lydia Haynes said the agency already has candidates in mind for the role. All have backgrounds in rural hospitals and could “parachute in” to begin change management immediately.
Candidates will be interviewed in executive session and selected by the board in an open public meeting.
OMC will pay a weekly rate of no more than $12,000 to WittKieffer for its services, which includes the interim CEO’s fee.
Giuntoli urged the board to act quickly.
“We’re in a difficult situation, and were’re trying to make that better,” he said.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
