CONNECTING THE DOTS; In east Tennessee, Wellmont Health System, Mountain States Health Alliance look for masterstroke deals as they expand.

Modern Healthcare, June, 2007 by Galloro, Vince

Byline: Vince Galloro

The way Richard Salluzzo assembles a hospital's operations is analogous to the way an artist composes a pointillist painting.

Pointillism uses thousands of paint dots in the primary colors to produce an image. To the eye, the primary colors blend to form secondary colors, even though the dots remain distinct when examined up close. Each dot must be the right size and shape to produce the desired image.

By the same token, hospitals are collections of scores of distinct processes. In the three years since Salluzzo joined Wellmont Health System, Kingsport, Tenn., the system has introduced 175 processes that employees follow, said Salluzzo, president and chief executive officer of the system and a physician. Each of those...

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