Challenges Await Flynn in All Saints Job

Patrick Flynn’s new job won’t be a cakewalk.

Flynn, who recently left Fayetteville’s Washington Regional Medical Center, where he had been CEO for the past six years, was to assume a similar position with All Saints Health System in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 6.

The two-hospital All Saints system lost nearly $18 million in 1999 but has implemented a tough restructuring plan with help from the Hunter Group, an acclaimed turnaround firm from St. Petersburg, Fla. The restructuring plan calls for eliminating $15.5 million from the system’s annual budget by reducing clinics, a 13 percent staff cut and renegotiating supply and managed-care contracts, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. This year’s loss is expected to be just under $2 million.

The Fort Worth paper said Flynn began talking to All Saints in December, which was about the same time Washington Regional held the official ground breaking for its new $70 million hospital in North Hills Medical Park.

Jack Mitchell, who’s been Regional’s chief operating officer, is now interim CEO and will be considered as a candidate for the permanent job, said Roy Clinton, chairman of Regional’s board of directors.

Clinton is also heading up the board’s four-person search committee, and he said interest in the position is strong. Inquiries about the position began almost immediately after Flynn’s resignation was announced.

“Jack is a definite candidate, and we’d like to have [the search] wrapped up as soon as possible, whatever that means,” Clinton said. “We’re proceeding along.”