New leader picked to follow Friedrich at Blake Medical Center

Blake Medical Center, Manatee County’s first and only Level II Trauma Center and one of three major hospitals in the county, has chosen a new leader to replace Dan Friedrich, who is retiring Friday.

North Carolina-native Randy Currin, 43, will become Blake’s new chief executive officer on Nov. 13, Currin confirmed Thursday. He worked for Blake’s corporate parent, Hospital Corp. of America, five years ago as vice president of orthopedics and spine for the 16 hospitals in HCA’s West Florida Division, including Blake.

Currin, who worked for HCA from 2008 to 2012, most recently worked at the non-HCA Bay Medical Sacred Heart in Panama City. There, as chief operating officer, he was part of a northwest Florida facility that serves seven counties and, like Blake, has a 323-bed Level II Trauma Center.

Currin worked at Health First, another non-HCA hospital corporation, in Brevard County, from 2012 to 2016. Health First also had a Level II Trauma Center, Currin said.

Although Currin had only been at Bay Medical since June 2016, he said he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be a CEO and be captain of his own ship.

“The Panhandle has been a great experience,” Currin said Thursday by phone from Panama City, where he is still working. “But I had the opportunity to interview for the role of CEO at Blake and that has been a career aspiration of mine. Also, obviously, a part of me wanted to return to HCA, so those two things worked together.”

Currin said his ambition, and he calls it a challenging one, is to elevate Blake to the top 10 percent of the nation’s 4,500 hospitals when it comes to national hospital performance surveys, which evaluate actual outcomes and patient perceptions.

“We are not there now,” Currin said. “I know 10 percent is lofty, but that’s my goal.”

The Currin family is now house-hunting in Manatee County.

“It’s exciting to become part of the Manatee community,” Currin said, talking about his family, which includes his wife of 13 years, Jessica, his aspiring actress daughter, Raleigh, 9, who will be checking in with the Manatee Players when she arrives and son, William, 4. “It’s a real blessing for us.”

Currin becomes only the sixth CEO in Blake’s history, which began in 1973 under John Moore and continued with Dick Scheffer, Lindell Orr, Bill Nowak, Orr a second time and then Friedrich beginning 15 years ago.

Friedrich is bringing to close a career that saw him lead a drive to create the first trauma center in Manatee County and establish Blake as a burn center and a facility noted for specialized hand surgery. He built a staff of 1,300 and 400 doctors with 383 beds.

Friedrich’s greatest accomplishments, however, are the personal relationships he built at the hospital, said Julie Galvano, who has been Blake’s director of business development since 2005.

“Dan has been a great leader and friend and mentor, so Randy definitely has some big shoes to fill,” Galvano said Thursday.

A respect for nurses, janitors, doctors

Blake Medical Center’s new leader loves nurses, janitors, physicians, other medical workers as well as the University of Miami, where he holds a master of business administration in Health Sector Management and Policy, and his family, although maybe not in that exact order.

“It’s a tradition that when an administrator leaves a hospital, they give him or her something to hang in their new office,” Currin said. “They bought me a huge University of Miami flag and everyone signed it and left comments or well wishes on it. I’m going to frame that and hang it in my office in Bradenton. It really was a humbling experience to be part of this organization here.”

On nurses, Currin said: “Oh my. My mother is a nurse. They are, honestly, the heart and soul of an organization. I have tremendous respect for nurses.”

On janitors, Currin said: “Well, we call them environmental services specialists now and, really, they are the front line of infection prevention, room in and room out. Limiting infections is something I focus on in my group. I can’t tell you how important these people are.”

On doctors, Currin said; “Everything that I have done that has led to successful implementation involves physicians. They are integral to the delivery of healthcare.”

Carol Whitmore, a Manatee County commissioner who also works as a nurse one day a week, met Currin for the first time recently when he came to Tallahassee to honor Julie Galvano’s husband, Sen. Bill Galvano, who had a well-attended designation ceremony as the future president of the Florida Senate.

“He seems very engaged, very enthusiastic and experienced running a trauma center,” Whitmore said Thursday. “I think he will be a very good addition to the community.”

Bill Galvano said he was also impressed with Currin.

“We were pushing 200 there, all kinds of folks from Bradenton,” Bill Galvano said of his designation ceremony. “The fact that he would come tells me he really wants to be part of our community. I look forward to working with him in his official capacity.”

This story was originally published November 2, 2017 at 5:13 PM with the headline "New leader picked to follow Friedrich at Blake Medical Center."