BOARDMAN, Ohio -- Ed Muransky admits he’s a stickler for details.
Take, for example, a typical patient suite on the second floor of the Surgical Hospital at Southwoods in Boardman. Muransky, president and CEO, gestures to a small board on the wall at the front of the room.
“There was a suggestion that we needed a white board and a cork board” that nurses can use to post notes and to write instructions. “I said, ‘You’re not having either.’ They look junky and there’s always stuff all over them.”
Instead, the team at Southwoods designed a board that has a corklike interior, but the exterior is finished so that it resembles a deep, brown color that blends with the wood-paneled room. The white board is actually off-white and protected under glass.
There are no erasable marking pens dangling from the corner or black smudges on the tablet. Instead, the pens and erasers slide neatly into a hollowed-out wooden ledge at the base of the board, out of sight.
While seemingly insignificant, it’s this attention to detail on which Muransky thrives, and then applies, to all aspects of the medical campus at Southwoods. Here, he’s overseen the addition of some of the most sophisticated diagnostic and clinical equipment in the business, provided custom-made chairs in rooms that allow for better mobility, and offers choice filet on the menu.
“When you walk out of that elevator, I want you to feel like you’re in a Hilton, not a hospital,” Muransky says. “They thought I was crazy to put filet on the menu,” lest visiting family members take advantage of the food service.
That has never occurred, Jennifer Capezzuto, director of inpatient services, assures a reporter. Indeed, family members visiting patients at the surgical center often decline such fare even when it’s offered.
“I come around and talk to families to see if they’ve eaten,” Capezzuto says. “It takes a lot of prompting sometime.”
It’s all part of what Muransky dubs “The Southwoods Way,” a method, he says, of providing health care in a fashion completely different than anyone else in the region.
“I am not a clinician,” Muransky says. “I always challenge everyone, not on the clinical side, which I know very little about, but on the social side as far as how patients and families’ needs are taken care of.”
The latest addition to the Southwoods portfolio is TuDor Physical Rehabilitation Centers, a physical therapy and rehab operation with 10 sites in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties, Muransky reports. The acquisition made sense because TuDor performs treatment for wound care and lymphedema as well as orthopedic rehabilitation.
“The outpatient rehab ties in real well to the orthopedic side of our business,” he says.
The acquisition of TuDor was spurred by a series of negative patient surveys that reflected their overall poor experiences with post-op rehabilitation care in this region, Muransky says.
“That’s what gets my mind working,” Muransky relates. “How can we do this better? On the wound care side of the business, there’s a need locally to make sure those wounds are getting healed.”
In May, Southwoods hosted a ribbon cutting to inaugurate its new, $10 million Southwoods Imaging, a free-standing medical diagnostic center that fronts the medical campus at 7623 Market St. in Boardman.
Muransky reports the average waiting period between an imaging session and full diagnosis in the United States is 28 days. “If you’ve ever been through that, it’s unacceptable,” he says. “Locally, we’re a little better than that. We’ve got some good institutions doing it.”
Still, Muransky challenged the staff to develop what he calls the “most comprehensive and advanced imaging center in the region” where a patient can receive a scan and diagnosis within a day. “It was driven by a need for men and women to go from questionable images and diagnoses to an image, a biopsy and, by the end of the day, find out if you’re going for cancer treatment or you’re healthy.”
Muransky notes the new imaging center is replete with the most technologically sophisticated equipment in the Mahoning Valley. Its Titan 3T MRI is one of only two such units in the region, and uses a stronger magnet capable of producing clearer, more detailed images with shorter examinations.
Southwoods Imaging also features a women’s health suite that includes 3-D digital mammography, automated whole breast ultrasound, and a dedicated nurse navigator on staff capable of streamlining the diagnostic process.
The new imaging center also means that patients don’t have to leave the area and drive to Pittsburgh or Cleveland for a diagnostic scan.
“If you had a friend or family member that had a bad mammogram, how long would you want to wait to know whether it’s a lumpectomy, mastectomy, or we’re OK? “ Muransky asks aloud. “I’m proud this place is open. It’s filling a need in this community.”
It’s this need that first launched Muransky into the health-care industry nearly 20 years ago. A standout lineman at Cardinal Mooney High School and then the University of Michigan, Muransky went on to play professional football with the Los Angeles Raiders three seasons and then a single season with the Orlando Renegades of the former United States Football League.
Upon returning to the Mahoning Valley, Muransky started working with his father-in-law in the insurance and real estate business. “I loved the real estate side of things and had some office buildings,” he recalls.
About 20 years ago, one of Muransky’s good friends, Dr. Louis Lyras, suggested that he look into developing an outpatient surgery center in Boardman.
By 1993, changes in Ohio law made it possible for Muransky to proceed with establishing a for-profit surgical center on land purchased from the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. at the Southwoods campus, the former site of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube research center. A joint venture was formed with 24 area doctors and by 1996 the Surgical Center at Southwoods had opened for business.
“From there, we’ve grown through seven expansions” on the medical campus, Muransky reports. “It’s a piece of Boardman that I’m proud of.”
While The Surgical Hospital at Southwoods began as an outpatient facility, today it holds 12 operating rooms and 24 inpatient beds for those who need longer stays to recover from procedures such as a hip replacement or total knee replacement surgery, reports Steve Davenport, chief operating officer at Southwoods.
“We’re a much smaller facility, but people like coming into a more intimate environment,” Davenport says. “They feel more comfortable and at peace when they go through this.”
Between 1,000 and 1,200 patients undergo inpatient procedures such as total knee replacement, urologic, gall bladder, spinal, and complex reconstructive surgeries, Davenport notes.
Meantime, outpatient services continue to grow, Davenport says. “We did our first expansion here in 2003-2004,” he says. “At that time, we did 12,500 outpatient procedures.” By 2008, that number had grown to 14,000 a year.
Today, 23,000 patients visit the Surgical Hospital each year for outpatient services, Davenport says. “We project the same number coming out of the imaging side of the business,” he says, referring to the new Southwoods Imaging center.
In addition to the surgical and imaging centers, six office buildings mostly related to the medical and health-care industry are there, Muransky reports. Out-parcels that line Market Street include a Dunkin’ Donuts and Panera Bread shop now under construction. And, in September, a women’s boutique, Ivory & Birch, will open.
“There are medical and dental offices, inpatient/outpatient surgery at the hospital, an oscopy center at the hospital, and pain management at the hospital,” he says.
Among other developments are the offices for the Muransky Companies, Hometown Pharmacy and a sleep center. There are roughly 450 full-time and part-time employees in the Southwoods complex, he says.
“These are nursing jobs, office manager jobs, physicians in the community,” Muransky adds. Slots in medical technology and nursing can be filled by graduates directly out of college, he says. And he urges the local health community to forge closer ties with Youngstown State University, Eastern Gateway Community College, and the career centers to strengthen a pipeline of health-care professionals that will help the industry grow.
“People are living longer and baby boomers are moving into their 60s,” Muransky relates. “Our population of those 60 and over will double over the next 15 years.”
Advancing the Mahoning Valley’s medical industry is critical to providing care for this aging population, Muransky says. “We’re either going to take care of them here, and have good-paying jobs and grow our area, or somebody will jump in the car and go to Cleveland to have work done.”
Muransky says that he also has an advantage over other systems in that all of the decisions are made in Boardman, not by an administration out-of-town.
“The decision-making team is a team of one, and that’s me,” Muransky says. “I have a lot of people around that I listen to, and I take every bit of information seriously -- right down to cleaning the floor.”
PICTURED: The shine on the floor reflects “Southwoods’ clean-floor” philosphy, says CEO Ed Muransky, pictured with Vickie Thomas and Colleen Soares from the housekeeping staff.
Editor's note: This story was first published in the July edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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