A Few Updates

Good morning.

Tomorrow marks one week since UMMC Greenwood, formerly Greenwood Leflore Hospital, became a member of our health system.

Since 1951 – four years before UMMC was opened in Jackson – that hospital has cared for patients in Leflore County and surrounding areas. Residents considered it “my hospital” for good reason. Plus, they likely knew or grew up with most of the people working there, and it was where they would go for just about anything that ailed them. 

I grew up close to Greenwood in Carroll County. I remember driving my grandmother, Onyx Heath, to GLH in the late 1970s and early '80s. She considered it “her hospital.” I understand what this hospital and its emergency department mean to those who live nearby. It’s a safety net, a medical home.

Over the recent years, changes that have been impacting hospital operations, especially rural ones, across the country, struck Greenwood, and were magnified through the COVID pandemic.

When the state’s only academic medical center was called upon to help, we were ready.

We are proud and excited to now be a part of this community with the addition of this hospital that will connect to our existing hospitals in Lexington and Grenada. I think when an academic medical center establishes a presence in a rural area like Leflore County, the importance of the strengths it brings cannot be overstated. With the UMMC name comes a top-level of clinical care along with the research and education programs that can make everything even more impactful.

Last Monday, I toured the hospital to see all the activity with Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for health affairs, and Dodie McElmurray, CEO of adult and community hospitals. The parking lot was full of cars, many of which represented UMMC employees from Jackson helping get everything switched to our processes. The biggest one is a change to our electronic health record, Epic. That’s a massive project, which our DIS and Epic teams have navigated masterfully.

There have been hundreds of people working on this project for months, and I appreciate the thousands of hours spent on it to make the transition as smooth as possible. This has been a heavy lift. I appreciate all the work of the operations teams to execute a smooth cut over.

While I was there, I could feel the energy of the employees, many of whom worked in that hospital before. There’s a real sense of purpose. A drive to be helpful and make a difference. Several patients and visitors in the hospital – some who were there just for lunch at Café Leflore, which I hear is very tasty – who saw my badge or figured I was from UMMC came up to me just to say, “thank you.”

I want to say my own “thank you” to everyone who helped make this happen, including the Greenwood City Council, Leflore County Board of Supervisors and several state leaders.

Change is hard, but we are excited. I think this will be positive for Leflore and surrounding areas. We are proud to serve Greenwood as a local employer and health care provider, and we are honored to be able to provide a connection to the state’s most advanced health system. Above all, our mission is to improve the lives and well-being of the residents of this state, and UMMC Greenwood is another step toward our goal of A Healthier Mississippi.