Challenges await new hospital CEO: Ready to roll up your sleeves

In recent years, Södertälje Hospital has shortened the times for doctor visits to the emergency rooms and at the birth, the results are best in the entire region. Now the hospital’s CEO Christophe Pedroletti is leaving his post to become CEO of the much larger hospital in Danderyd.

Recently, the emergency room at Danderyd Hospital received sharp criticism from the Swedish Health and Care Inspectorate, Ivo. The supervisory authority considers that the hospital has serious shortcomings that risk patient safety. According to Ivo, the ward must have had a shortage of both beds for patients, food and adequate supervision. In the spring, the Swedish Work Environment Authority threatened with fines for deficiencies in the work environment in the same department.

– I will not sit and wait for a year, it is more urgent than that to address the problems. The employees should feel that a new CEO has taken over and I am prepared to roll up my sleeves, he says.

Emergency medical care flows – the patients’ journey through the hospital – he sees as the hospital’s biggest challenge.

– We need to look at what we can do to create space so patients can move on from the emergency room faster and there are no shortcuts. We must work with leadership, make demands on our managers, include and thereby make demands on our employees.

Last year, the nurses and assistant nurses in the emergency room in Danderyd worked the most overtime of all staff groups at all units in the Stockholm Region. In order for the patient flows to be better and the seriously ill to avoid waiting for hours in the emergency room, the supply of skills is a key issue, and a well-known problem both in Danderyd and in many other emergency hospitals.

– A workplace with a good manager, where you feel safe and can develop, has no staffing problems, there are no shortcuts.

In addition to the problems in the emergency room Danderyd Hospital is still struggling with the aftermath of the storm of criticism that started last autumn over maternity care. More than 50 midwives resigned in one go from Danderyd – which was the hospital hardest hit by redundancies.

Since then, about half of the midwives have chosen to withdraw their resignations in some form or return to the hospital. Managers and midwives at the birth now describe a “settler spirit” that Christophe Pedroletti hopes to carry on.

– A crisis was reported, and it was a crisis in the sense that many left in a joint action. Now many are back and more midwives have been hired, it is a bit of a restart that has a positive force, he says.

To be the CEO of a hospital means not only that you are ultimately responsible for the medical part but also the financial part, to avoid red numbers despite a high care pressure. Something that has proven to be a challenge for several hospitals.

– Most things become easier if you push in money, but we need to drive development forward with a cost control perspective. The needs are great and it is important that we maintain a good working environment for the employees to be strong, at the same time we need to have a balanced economy.

Changing hospitals, from being ultimately responsible for the care provided by around 1,400 employees in Södertälje, to managing around 4,500 doctors, nurses and assistant nurses in Danderyd also means that the requirements will be higher.

– The smaller a unit is, the easier it is to really be a part of everything that happens, which is why the management lines are so very important at a large hospital like Danderyd. I feel the press and I enjoy it.

At Södertälje Hospital, Anders Kling, who is currently head of operations at geriatrics, will be acting CEO when Christophe Pedroletti leaves.