If all goes according to plan, South Los Angeles is just two years away from what is likely to be one of the most celebrated ribbon-cutting ceremonies in recent memory, leading to what its backers hope will is a tranformation of healthcare in one of the region’s most economically-deprived communities.

Currently under construction on the campus of its former home near the intersection of 120th Street and Wilmington Avenue, the new Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital — or, to give its full name, Martin Luther King Jr./Los Angeles Healthcare Corporation — is scheduled to open in 2013.

Licensed for approximately 136 beds, the private, not-for-profit facility will provide in-patient primary and general acute care, basic emergency, medical and surgical services, as well as health education and outreach services.

Overseen by a seven-member board, which includes two African-Americans, two Latinos and one Asian-American, the governing body was selected by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and by the University of California Board of Regents.

The Board of Regents has also agreed to provide physician services and play a leading role in developing and maintaining the new facility’s medical care quality standards.

Subsequently, it will provide a chief medical officer and work to re-establish a teaching/residency program at the hospital.

Retracing the dark steps, it was just over four  years ago when county supervisors voted to unanimously shut inpatient services, following a 124-page federal inspector report that detailed dozens of errors and failures during a make-or-break review.

The hospital, borne out of the Watts Riots and opened in 1972, had been cited more than a dozen times for patient care lapses and blamed for a series of deaths.

However, voicing her confidence in a brighter tomorrow, MLK’s new interim CEO Melayne Yocum, a 25-year veteran of in healthcare management, sat down with The Wave to discuss how the plans for the hospital are coming along.

What are your roles and duties and how did you become interim CEO?
Well, we’re just getting started. The new organization … is an independent 501c3. So, we have to do everything an organization would need to do as a start-up, which is to file articles of incorporation, filing with the state and get our tax exemption from the IRS. It was the county and the UC system that really had the idea to create this new entity, they were around before me and the board. The county seated the seven-member board and they [in turn] went about finding myself and other consultants needed to carry out the work.

What are your main challenges?
There are many challenges. One, we are acclimating ourselves in doing quite a bit of research to understand the health needs of the community in much more detail.
So, we completed that by engaging a needs assessment, much like the county is doing now for outpatient care. It had [previously] been done by the county, but it was several years old and needed updating. It concerned the data for SWA6 or South West Los Angeles 6, where various studies showed what the health care needs of the community were … shortages in things like physicians. Some might think, well you’re a hospital why are you worrying about physicians. Well, we need physicians to admit, care for and discharge patients back to their primary careers. So, we’ve had to look at those needs in the community and how they changed since the county first initiated the studies several years ago.

How long are you contracted to be in charge and would you like to be the permanent CEO?
Right now I’m a consultant and I serve at the behest of the board. So, if they want to bring in a full-time staff next week, that comes with the territory. I haven’t even thought about a permanent position. I’ve got so much on my plate trying to get all these opportunities in line. [Although] I do think it’s [such] phenomenal job that anybody would be crazy not to want it. I think it’s going to be a delight to serve in this diverse community and watch the health care [services] grow, where there was such a gap.

How will you guard against the staff failures that led to the hospital’s closure?
That’s an excellent question. The quality and the need for transparency encompasses a great deal of the board’s time. As I’ve said, it’s the county and UC system that birthed this organization and the UC’s contract is that they will provide us with a quality assurance system, just as they do in many of their other hospitals. So, we’ve already begun the discussion with them to plan out the timeline as far as getting our quality and reporting metrics sorted out. We’ll undertake an open and fair hiring process, we’ve [still] got to develop all our human resources policies and procedures, but as you may know, community hospitals generally draw their staff from an area that’s close by. For one thing, many of them need to be available fairly quickly. In our hiring, we’ll be working with the UC, so anybody who comes to work for us will need to undergo skills testing and verification and background checks, just like at any other community hospital.

What is your vision for the hospital?
What I would say is to think integration. We’re trying to reach out to all the quality federal health clinics, so St. John’s, The Watts Health Foundation, The Eisner Clinic, all of the county clinics that are providing either public or private health and specialty care. I don’t necessarily want to say we’re the glue, but we’re trying to educate, and wouldn’t it be much better to teach kids today how to eat healthier and exercise and how to stay in school and get an education and even provide scholarships for health careers. Yes, we’ll provide those emergency services when things go bump in the night, but wouldn’t it be nice if the health disparities report for this community of 1.2 million people could change dramatically from the worst in the county, to the best. When you look at the top conditions for hospitalizations, you see they are diabetic and obesity-related. So, it’s the diabetic complications; amputations, Retna problems and chronic heart failure. Believe me, I know. I’m Native American and Native Americans have an extremely high rate of adult onset diabetes. Everyone in my family has diabetes at 55. Well, I’m over 55 and I’ve beat this thing so far, but because I know I’m predisposed to diabetes I know I need to control my weight — and as painful as it can be, I need to get out and exercise.

Photo: Melayne Yocum is interim CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr./Los Angeles Healthcare Corporation. Credit: Gary McCarthy