Bedford County Medical Center CEO Dan Buckner tells a "town hall" crowd about plans for the new Heritage Medical Center. (T-G Photo by Sadie Fowler) [Click to enlarge]

Dan Buckner, Bedford County Medical Center's CEO, hosted a "town hall" meeting Friday in which he promised Bedford County a new hospital of which it can be proud.

"You're going to be impressed," Buckner assured the large group of people who filled the BCMC auditorium. "You're going to wonder, 'Why did I ever go to Murfreesboro?'... If you can trust us, we promise we'll deliver."

Buckner discussed the current hospital's strengths and weaknesses prior to updating the crowd about what they can expect at Heritage. He said patients are expected to be moved to the new facility July 12.

"We are a month ahead of schedule...who ever heard of that with a construction project?" said Buckner.

Buckner told the group approximately 60 percent of county residents go elsewhere for hospital care. This needs to be corrected, he said, claiming only 15 percent of patients should be visiting other hospitals.

Buckner said BCMC's shape up will begin with a heavy-duty spring cleaning assignment. His goal is to improve and establish better habits now, ranging from cleanliness of the current location to customer service, so when doors to the new building open the staff will be ready to deliver.

"We brought in an outside crew to blitz this place," Buckner said, pointing out he couldn't afford to keep such a large crew on the cleaning staff permanently but it will help with the immediate goal of cleaning up the hospital's image -- now.

Another immediate goal is improving staff awareness about things they may be "immune" to, such as feeling empathy toward a woman whose loved one may have just been diagnosed with cancer, for example.

The hospital will not allow smoking, Buckner said. It will be an entirely non-smoking campus.

Strengths of the current hospital were highlighted as well.

Quality care by what Buckner termed a "wonderful" clinical staff, of which he says he rarely hears complaints, was emphasized.

"I get systematic complaints more than anything," Buckner said. "And those are my fault."

Buckner also discussed improving the billing department, shortening the average emergency room waiting time and recruiting new staff members.

Buckner said he wants to reduce prices for self-paying patients.

"A lot of people have insurance that makes them self-paying," Buckner said. "We'll charge you 130 percent of what we can charge Medicare." Also, Buckner said payment options will reward those who pay quickly.

The crowd listened intently as CEO Dan Buckner discussed improvements in the new Heritage Medical Center. (T-G Photo by Sadie Fowler) [Click to enlarge]

Although Bedford County emergency room wait times are far below the national average time and especially below Murfreesboro's, Buckner says, he plans to reduce the average at Heritage to two hours. That's 45 minutes less than BCMC's current wait.

Attracting new physicians is another goal, but they must practice in a specialty Bedford County can support. Plans to bring in a pulmonologist, a gastrologist, a neurologist and 24-hour cardiac coverage are in the works.

"We don't want to be a trauma unit, but we do want to be the best community hospital we can be," said Buckner, asking everyone to give the county hospital another shot.

Following his presentation, Buckner fielded questions and comments from the audience ranging from praise for the current hospital to objections about Heritage's location to insurance-related questions.