Forney gone as Family Health Services CEO

SANDUSKY — Wilson Forney has stepped down as chief executive officer of Family Health Services of Erie County, the community health clinic at the south campus of Firelands Regional Medical Center.Forney's resignation became effective at the board's meeting last Thursday, said Dr. William Zucker, a dentist who is president of the Family Health Services board. Although the clinic operates on hospital property, its board is separate from the hospital's.Referring to the board members and to Forney, Zucker said, "We came to a mutual decision it was best for him to go.""We've talked about it for a few weeks," Zucker said.The board is looking for a fresh face and new ideas, Zucker said."From our point of view, it was more of a matter, he'd been there 7 1/2 years," Zucker said.Zucker said he could only speak for himself and not for other board members, but said he was disappointed that Family Health Services wasn't busier and hadn't moved more aggressively to expand into services that now have to be referred out from the clinic."I just wanted to grow. I got into this originally to serve our patients," Zucker said. "I can't think of any service the community needs we wouldn't like to have in house."The clinic would like to expand into more space and consider satellite offices, he said.Forney, who could not be reached for comment, became the first CEO of Family Health Services in November 2008. Before that, he was chief operating officer for three years at Community Health Services, a community health clinic in Fremont. He holds a bachelor's degree from Appalachian State University.Zucker said Don Branum, chief financial officer at Family Health Services, has been named acting CEO, and a search has been launched for Forney's replacement. Advertisements in trade journals should go out in about a week."I've never done this before, but I would guess that the process is going to take two or three months. We're actually going to form a search committee," Zucker said.Sandusky has two community health clinics which receive major funding from the federal government and which serve a population that includes many Medicaid recipients and people who have no health insurance. The other clinic is run by the Erie County Health Department.Zucker said he would like to see more dental services offered in Sandusky for the population the clinic serves."I got on the board originally to try to bring a dentist into town," he said, noting that originally the health department and Family Health Services had planned to run a clinic together. The health department decided to go its own away and was the first clinic to set up a dental clinic.Zucker said he believes there is still room for more dental services in town, either from expansion at the health department or a clinic run by Family Health Services.Both of the Sandusky clinics are rated as Federally Qualified Health Care Centers, meaning that they both receive heavy federal funding, and both recently received site visits from inspection teams from the Health Resources and Services Administration."We did OK. They had some suggestions," Zucker said.The suggestions included ideas on where to expand, he said, which fit with some of the board's ideas about expansion.Wilson Forney has stepped down as CEO of Family Health Services of Erie County.