Chilton Medical Center is beginning a new chapter. The hospital board has named Larry Jeter to take the facility’s top position of CEO. Jeter has a strong background in accounting, receiving his bachelor’s degree in accounting and business and a master’s degree in business administration. Though he is not a doctor, Jeter has worked as either chief financial officer or CEO of hospitals for more than 20 years. Not being a doctor gives him a different perspective in medicine.

Jeter understands that a hospital is a business and that it must make money. But the only way hospitals can make money is to improve their level of care and have a high number of patients staying in the hospital every day. Doing both of these things will make our local hospital more valuable to our community.

While we are welcoming Jeter to Clanton, we had to say goodbye to former CEO Rob Followell, who has moved on to another opportunity in his career. Followell helped our hospital improve tremendously in the short time he was here. He helped unite the hospital and medical staff to form a community within the walls of the hospital. He also was able to provide investment opportunities to the doctors of the CMC so that each doctor could actually have a say in how the hospital was running.

That is something that Jeter hopes to build on. CMC is the third hospital like this that Jeter has been a CEO of. He actually prefers to work in hospitals like that, and that is a tremendous plus for our community.

We’ve all heard the horror stories about CMC. Every hospital has them. No medical facility is immune to them, but just because you hear this doesn’t mean the hospital isn’t a good hospital. If you haven’t been by the hospital lately, stop in and see just what it has to offer.

Having a good hospital is something that will promote growth in the county. We have a good hospital, and we hope that Mr. Jeter will keep up the good work and make it the best it can be.