East Cooper: Shake-up at the top

3 upper managers lose jobs; new CEO says hospital needed 'a new leadership team ... for the future'

The Post and Courier
Thursday, November 20, 2008


Just weeks into the job, the new chief executive officer of East Cooper Regional Medical Center has made sweeping changes among her top-management ranks, saying it's time to bring in new leadership as the Mount Pleasant hospital enters a new era.

Sinacore-Jaberg

Sinacore-Jaberg

Three high-level executives, including chief medical officer John Langley and chief operating officer Bill Cone, recently left their jobs, the hospital said. The other was Tony Ojeda, who was director of business development.

No specific reasons were given for the departures. No replacements have been named.

"These changes are being made in part due to the anticipation of East Cooper opening our new hospital in January of 2010," CEO Janie Sinacore-Jaberg said in a statement Wednesday.

"While we are extremely grateful to the staff who have gotten us to this point, we need a new leadership team who can help us create a vision for the future of our hospital."

Langley, who resigned, according to a memorandum that was sent to employees Friday, declined to comment Wednesday. Cone and Ojeda could not be reached. Cone will stay on to oversee construction of the hospital, according to the memo.

The changes came five weeks after Sinacore-Jaberg took over the top job at the Tenet Corp.-owned hospital on Oct. 15, replacing former CEO Andrea Wozniak.

Dallas-based Tenet is in the process of replacing its facility near U.S. Highway 17 and Bowman Road with a $153 million, 140-bed hospital under construction not far from its existing campus.

At the same time, East Cooper Regional is bracing to face major head-on competition for the first time since it opened in Mount Pleasant in 1986: Roper St. Francis Healthcare has started work on an 85-bed, full-service hospital in the north end of town. Roper plans to open in Mount Pleasant late 2010.

While saying she was "truly appreciative of the insight" she received from the former managers, Sinacore-Jaberg added that the hospital needed "to take a fresh approach to developing and growing our services as we strive to meet the needs of our growing community."

"This will take leaders who have the passion, drive and commitment to make our hospital the best it can be," Sinacore-Jaberg said.

A marketing director also left East Cooper Regional as part of the management shake-up. No other major staffing changes are planned at this time, said Sinacore-Jaberg, who did not respond to a request for further comment Wednesday.

Reach Katy Stech at 937-5549 or kstech@postandcourier.com.



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Comments

This article has  10 comment(s)

Posted by Tides on November 20, 2008 at 2:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Power freaks?



Posted by CedarPosts on November 20, 2008 at 6:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Nationalized Health Care run by Soup Nazis. Won't be long they give her the axe as well. Nice chins though.



Posted by islandbenzbc on November 20, 2008 at 6:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Something needs to be done at East Cooper to improve care! My wife recently had surgery there and was taken to a room after the surgery and promptly FORGOTTEN! No one came to the room to help her up to go to the rest room or check on her in any way until I got back to the hospital a few hours later and had a heated discussion with the nursing supervisor...I was escorted from the hospital by security because I made such a scene. We later received a letter of apology from the hospital for the lack of care but I would not reccommend East Cooper to anyone! They need the new hospital in Mount Pleasant...the competition may help improve the care at East Cooper, it certainly needs to get better!



Posted by RTC on November 20, 2008 at 9:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)

ECRMC is a horrible hospital. I won't go into details of how two of my family members almost died there.
Can't wait for Roper to finish building. In the meantime, we will continue to go downtown.



Posted by jeg111 on November 20, 2008 at 10:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)

ECRMC should be closed and should have been closed years ago. It is a terrible health care facility!! I had a friend that they misdiagnosed with appendicitis. He continued to get worse and his wife had enough medical knowledge to have him transferred to Roper....his appendix had ruptured right there at ECRMC and he nearly died. Thank God we have good health care in Charleston. NEVER GO TO ERRMC.



Posted by zoomru on November 20, 2008 at 10:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Mrs. Sinacore-Jaberg....??

Hom much does it COST the hospital to dispose of the BIO-hazard Waste ???

Uh...oh !!!

Young LADY....please educate yourself at www.startech.net !!!

I'm sure you are looking at ways to ...WHAT ??!



Posted by Neponset on November 20, 2008 at 12:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)

One word - Tenet



Posted by gamecockcougar on November 20, 2008 at 1:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I love East Cooper hospital. I had an operation done on my finger and they were so nice there. The food was excellent. I will always go there because everyone is so nice and we don't like the traffic downtown.



Posted by BigCity on November 20, 2008 at 10:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Employees are afraid for their jobs and they are threatened by upper management. The good upper management people were fired and they kept the crap people.



Posted by jeg111 on November 20, 2008 at 10:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Gamecockcougar...I think you are in a class by yourself . Be thankful it was just your finger!