BY MAGGIE BEAMGUARD, Insider Editor
If you found yourself feeling under the weather and waiting in the drive thru COVID-19 testing center in Pinehurst hosted by FirstHealth of the Carolinas this past January, you may have been handed your paperwork by none other than the CEO of FirstHealth, Mickey Foster. New to FirstHealth in 2019, the majority of Foster’s tenure has taken place during the pandemic. Foster shared a few experiences from this admittedly “stressful” time at the March 1 meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Seven Lakes.
Foster, who once ran the second busiest trauma center in the state of North Carolina, thought he’d seen it all — until COVID.
FirstHealth has completed a quarter of a million COVID tests since the pandemic started, not including those tests done by the health department or physicians’ offices. In January 2022, the busiest testing month, FirstHealth completed 30,000 COVID tests.
“Do the math,” he said, “That’s 1,000 COVID tests a day that our network pushed through.”
As of March, those tests, in total, resulted in 44,609 positive cases across its 15-county service area. Although FirstHealth observed a 98 percent recovery rate for patients with COVID-19, the 2 percent who succumbed to the virus represented family, friends and neighbors.
“I would go to our ICUs and some of our ICU nurses described it to me as: ‘We don’t know what it is like for a patient to make it.’ You know, once you get on a ventilator and intubated, the mortality rate, whether you are at FirstHealth or Duke or Mayo Clinic, is extremely high. And it was a toll on the staff.”
Twice — so far — Foster has had the somber and unenviable task of hiring a morgue truck to supplement the hospital morgue. All resources have been stretched to the maximum.
Describing what it was like to live through the most recent wave of the coronavirus, Foster shared that, for all of the pandemic, FirstHealth faced the highest number of coronavirus patients — 140, most at the Moore Regional Hospital campus — in January 2022. At the same time, 250 employees were out sick. But there was still a job to do and care to be provided.
“Here we are, busier than we’ve ever been, 250 employees out. And we end up implementing what we call a Capacity Management Plan. That means whatever your day job is, you’re out of it. You’re taking care of patients. I cleaned patient rooms and did three shifts of housekeeping staff because we didn’t have anyone else to do it. You’ve got to lead by example. All of our leaders did that.”
Leading FirstHealth as CEO has, pandemic or not, been a dream come true for Foster, a Sanford native. He got his start in healthcare at Moore Regional Hospital, landing a 10-week internship in the summer of 1993 in pursuit of a degree in community health at East Carolina University.
Encouraged by those who noted his leadership potential, Foster went on to obtain a master of Health Services Administration degree from Central Michigan University. He has over two decades of hospital administration experience in North Carolina and most recently served as president of The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina. But Foster’s dream was always to come back home.
Eager to get back out and speak on the “civic group trail” following a COVID hiatus, Foster shared with the Seven Lakes Kiwanians not only the challenges of the pandemic, but the successes and future hopes of FirstHealth.
The sprawling FirstHealth system serves patients in a 15-county region through four hospitals, including Moore Regional. FirstHealth services include inpatient and outpatient rehab, 20 primary care practices, six fitness centers, three sleep disorder centers, onsite laundry services, 10 community care clinics, the Clara McLean House, critical care transport, occupational health and wellness and charity care. Foster oversees this major economic engine that employs 5,300 people.
The thing that gives Foster the most pride as CEO is the inclusion of Moore Regional Hospital on IBM Watson’s Top 100 Hospitals list. Using various data such as publicly reported patient satisfaction data and hospital financial data, the nation’s 6,000 hospitals are analyzed by a supercomputer to determine the top 100 performing hospitals in the entire nation.
“There is only one (on the list) in North Carolina, and it’s 15 minutes from here. That is the gold standard for health care delivery. What I try to tell people is that we are not perfect. But to be top 100 IBM Watson is a big, big deal, and is very, very difficult to achieve. And Moore Regional has been on that list multiple years. And we did it in the middle of a pandemic.”
In addition to being recognized as a top 100 hospital, FirstHealth won more awards and recognitions in 2021 than at any point in its history. These include Business North Carolina magazine’s acknowledgement of FirstHealth/Moore Regional Hospital, including its Richmond and Hoke campuses, as the number one in Patient Picks based on mandated patient satisfaction surveys — for 14 years in a row.
“I consider FirstHealth an anomaly,” Foster says, “A rural community should not have a top IBM Watson 100 hospital and all these other recognitions. It truly is a blessing to have this in our backyard.”
Foster described the ambitious plans for the future of FirstHealth, beginning with a $60 million powerplant replacement necessary for the expansion of the Moore Regional Campus. The current powerplant is at the end of its life, and a new plant will allow for the construction of a 50-bed tower. This tower will likely house a women’s and children’s center, accommodating the area’s shift to a younger demographic. The number of newborn deliveries has tripled since the early 1990s, approximately 3,000 last year.
A $13 million expansion of the Moore Regional Hospital campus in Raeford is also underway, adding a second operating room and doubling the size of the emergency room. Plans for replacing Montgomery Memorial Hospital in Troy are also in the works.
Seven Lakes Kiwanians were among the first civic groups to see a video showcasing the new four-story FirstHealth Comprehensive Cancer Center under construction and on schedule to open for patients early next year.
The new cancer center will consolidate care for infusion/chemo care and radiation oncology under one roof. It will feature a radiation oncology center on the first floor as well as a bistro serving healthy smoothies designed for cancer care. Fifty FirstHealth cancer patients contributed to the design of the second floor, where every infusion chair will overlook a healing garden.
Patients will be able to visit their physicians on the third floor. And the fourth floor, what Foster calls the “differentiator,” will provide support services: a small gym and fitness center offering meditation, exercise, wellness, and exercise; palliative care; support group meetings and even healthy cooking classes. It’s an entire floor designated for taking care of cancer patients and their caregivers.
When Foster dreamed of coming back to FirstHealth, that dream, he says, did not include a pandemic. This is still his dream job, he says, whether he is cleaning patient rooms or envisioning building new ones.
The Kiwanis Club of Seven Lakes is a volunteer organization for those who want to serve the community and its children. If you would like more information or would like to join this group, contact Bill Platt at billoplatt@gmail,com or visit the website: https://www.kiwanisclubofsevenlakes.org/.
Contact Maggie Beamguard at maggie@thepilot.com.
