Northwest Health Attempts to Re-Stock it’s CEO Position

Greg Stock plans return to Louisiana’s Thibodaux hospital

Greg K. Stock, Northwest Health System’s CEO since December 1997, is leaving in late September to return to his former job in Louisiana.

“Leaving here was a very difficult decision for me,” Stock says. Two factors influencing his decision were a desire to spend more time with his family, which includes seven children, and an attractive offer from the board of Thibodaux Regional Medical Center to lure their former CEO back.

Stock’s tenure in Northwest Arkansas has been brief, but a number of major changes have occurred under his leadership. Chief among them was the sale of the system, which includes Northwest Medical Center in Springdale and Bates Medical Center in Bentonville, to Quorum Health Group, something Stock says he hadn’t anticipated when he was named CEO under a management contract the system had with Quorum.

“I came here under a little bit different set of circumstances,” he says. “I didn’t know the system was going to sell. I learned that in [my] first board meeting.”

In August 1998, the board announced it would sell the hospital system to Quorum.

“I’ve been treated exceptionally well,” Stock notes. “[Northwest Arkansas] is a beautiful place to live. It’s a very nice area, the schools are excellent and I do get excited … about new things that you can develop.”

But, he adds, the hospital system “is going to require a lot of time and attention … for the next 18 to 24 months, and I feel at this point in time I need to spend more time with my family.” He’ll be returning to the management side of Quorum, which manages the Thibodaux hospital. A nationwide search has already been launched to find Stock’s successor at Northwest.

A new $13 million information system is scheduled to go on line Oct. 1 at the hospital. Other portions of the system are to be phased-in during the next 24 months, Stock says.

The system has experienced a 53 percent increase in annual revenues – up from $130 million to $200 million – in recent months. “We have continued to grow as a system, we’ve grown in obstetric volume, surgical [and] emergency-room volumes, [and] volume of outpatient procedures,” Stock says.

Stock says a private company is currently preparing a study to advise the system on the size and needs of the new hospital planned for Bentonville.

Additionally, Stock says, a new $400,000 radiography and fluoroscopy unit is being installed at Northwest Medical Center in Springdale. “It’ll provide state of the art imaging for our patients.”