The CEO of Nashville General Hospital has been sidelined as city leaders contemplate downsizing operations to save money. And Thursday afternoon, the Hospital Authority plans to finalize a long-overdue performance review with just two weeks left on Joseph Webb’s contract.
Webb was not consulted before Mayor Megan Barry announced her plan to eliminate in-patient care at General Hospital. And he was not invited by Meharry Medical College to be on the panel redesigning what should happen at the facility. Barry also kept the hospital’s taxpayer subsidy flat this year, even though Webb warned even then that he would have to come back for another mid-year cash infusion — which is still up in the air.
This month, Webb said he’s focusing on the day-to-day running of the safety-net hospital.
“I don’t take that personally,” he said. “I believe that I am here to do what I’m doing, and that is to see to it that the resources we have go towards taking care of the population that present in our environment for care.”
Webb was hired by the Hospital Authority in January of 2015. He came in with plans to attract a larger share of paying patients to balance out expenses associated with caring for the uninsured. But the more pressing issue has been a steep decline in overnight patients while still requiring just as much taxpayer funding.
The Hospital Authority meets Thursday afternoon to go over a review that was supposed to happen nearly two years ago. The board member overseeing the process, Harry Allen, declined to comment ahead of the meeting.
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