Quarter century of leadership Sheron celebrated for 25 years as Wooster Hospitals CEO – Wooster Daily Record

WOOSTER A banner dropped, and a celebration of Wooster Community Hospital itself becamea ceremony honoring its administrator of 25 years and counting.

Hospital CEO Bill Sheron completed his presentation on the hospitals fifth time to win a Watson Health 100 Top Hospitals award in 2019 and became upstaged by Dan Wakefield, a member of the hospitals board of governors, introducing a program in Sherons honor.

"We wanted to celebrate both (Sheron and the hospitals award)," said Scott Boyes, the hospitals chief financial and operating officer.

Sheron believed next on the agenda was Dr. Paul Moodispaw, the hospitals chief of staff, scheduled to speak on the award from the medical staff perspective, Boyes said. Instead, Wakefield proceeded to the podium accompanied by an unfurling banner falling from the first floor lobby and dropping about three feet from Sheron.

Family members and associates showered hospital CEO Bill Sheron with accolades on a video put together for the occasion. Several speakers also were part of the program earlier this week to which area community leaders were invited for Sherons"well-deserved" recognition, said Boyes.

Before Sheron arrived in 1994, there was talk in the community concerning the future of the hospital, said Tom Capek, a member of the board of governors, on the video.They wondered, "What's going to happen to our little hospital?"

"Bill's initiative was, we can grow, we can prosper and we can continue to provide care for our local people," Capek said.

The video included comments from cardiologist Cyril Ofori, who said when he met with Sheron in late 1999, he told Sheron he "thought the hospital could support a cardiac catheterization lab."

"I could see the excitement and feel the enthusiasm with his response," Ofori said.The two approached the board, "and the rest is history."

Board member Yvonne Williams credited Sheron with "the footprint, that is the landscape, of our facility." Under his leadership,It has grown and become a state-of-the-art complex, she said.

Sheron has "a passion for this community and for service to the patients two of the most important things a hospital administrator can accomplish," Williams said.

Wakefield called Sheron "a true leader" who has continued to help develop at the hospital "a culture of hard work, high ethical standards and a real caring concern for our patients."

"Always pushing everybody to get better," Boyes described Sheron on the video, labeling Sherons drive "to move onto the next thing even before we finish the last thing" as"the secret sauce" of the hospitals success.

In his presentation, Sheron talked about the importance of the hospitals most recent Top 100 award.

"This is the oldest and most prestigious hospital award," Sheron explained. "This is the academy award."

Wooster Community Hospital was chosen as one of only 20 medium-sized hospitals in the country to be included in the top 100 list, Sheron said, out of a field of more than 1,000.

"We've won two times in a row, five times in 11 years, and the way we have done that, the No. 1 job for us," said Sheron, "is that we take care of our patients."

A 2019 article in Modern Healthcare Magazine said of the data-based award, "IBM Watson Health projected that if all hospitals were to achieve the same performance benchmarks as those included on this years list, it would save an additional 103,000 lives, generate inpatient cost savings of $8.2 billion and result in a typical patient having 12 percent lower medical expenses than the average individual receiving care."

"Hospitals included on this years list had overall 24.9 percent lower inpatient mortality, 18.7 percent fewer complications and 19 percent fewer infections than their peers."Also lower in number were the average length of stay, wait times in the emergency department and inpatient costs.

High on the survey was the patient experience score, said Modern Healthcare.

Sheron talked about how the hospital reduces readmissions, shortens emergency department wait times, and positively impacts patient outcomes.

In a follow-up conversation about the event, Boyes said Sheron called the hospital"his lifes work." Sheron has taken it from"a relatively small community hospital" to a health system encompassing interventional cardiology and a full line of physician specialists serving our community."

Before coming to Wooster Hospital in 1994, Sheron had served as executive director of Humana Hospital-McFarland, Tennessee, and as executive director of Charlotte Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A graduate of the University of Vermont with a degree in business administration and of the University of South Carolina with a masters degree in health administration, Sheron is active in the community.

He is the president of the board of the Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the board of Wooster Growth Corp. and Prentke Romich. He is also an adjunct professor at The College of Wooster with the Community Care Network program.

Reporter Linda Hall can be reached at lhall@the-daily-record.comor 330-264-1125, Ext. 2230. She is @lindahallTDR on Twitter.

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Quarter century of leadership Sheron celebrated for 25 years as Wooster Hospitals CEO - Wooster Daily Record