by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
Michael Aubin was just over 24 hours into the job Tuesday morning as hospital president of Wolfson Children’s Hospital on the Downtown Southbank, having spent the first day emptying boxes.
Tuesday, he planned to visit the units of the hospital as well as attend a briefing meeting on new construction, and then spend the rest of this week meeting people and starting to attend the many events already booked for him.
One of his visits would be to the hospital’s emergency department and intensive care. Those areas carry the pulse of a hospital, he said.
The career hospital administrator, who succeeded retired Wolfson Administrator Larry Freeman, said children’s hospitals are different.
Half of the patients are under the age of 2 “and are totally vulnerable,” he said, while their “parents are having the crisis of their lives.”
The teamwork shows throughout the hospital.
“There’s a vibrancy,” he said. “You feel it. There is a palpable sense of caring,” said Aubin, 55, who took the position Jan. 1.
Aubin comes to Jacksonville from Tampa, where he was the founding administrator and chief operating officer of St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital. He holds degrees in health services administration, with his bachelor’s degree from Providence College in Rhode Island and a master’s from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
It’s a career that began when he was 16 and took a job washing dishes at a children’s hospital.
Aubin said his two foremost challenges will be funding and enhancing a system of measuring treatment outcomes in pediatrics.
Well familiar in Florida with Medicaid issues, he will work with legislators to educate them that 50 percent of his patients are covered by the Medicaid program. Program cuts can affect the system of health care, particularly physicians.
For now, Aubin is also settling in, buying a house in the San Jose area for his wife and 16-year-old son. He has three older daughters, with two in their 30s and employed and a 21-year-old in college.
Aubin and his family enjoy the outdoors, he said. He is a runner, likes to kayak and the family travels to snow ski, too.
While he’s familiar with hospital administration from a business side, he also learned about it from a personal angle.
About five years ago, his son had orthopedic surgery and couldn’t walk for a year. “I’ve lived the inside of a children’s hospital for seven days,” said Aubin.
Wolfson Children’s Hospital, which is part of Baptist Health in Northeast Florida, is a 194-bed pediatric referral hospital. It is part of the Baptist Medical Center Downtown campus.
Established in 1955, it serves children in North Florida, Southeast Georgia and beyond. Aubin’s first-floor office window looks out onto the construction site of the 11-story Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Adult Tower that should be completed in 2012.
Wolfson was recognized by U.S. News & World Report as being among the top 50 children’s hospitals in the nation for diabetes and endocrinology.
Wolfson works with Nemours Children’s Clinic, the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville and Mayo Clinic Florida.
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