For six years Barry Keel has held the reins of Vaughan Regional Medical Center, leading the facility through many transitions and growth. But in the next few weeks, he will hand those reins over to someone else, as he prepares to leave the hospital.

Keel announced earlier this week he would be leaving Vaughan in the next month to take over hospital operations at facilities in Anniston and Gasden, working with Health Management Associates.

“It truly is a mixed emotion situation for us,” Keel said Friday. “We have grown to love and appreciate Selma, and Vaughan specifically, during our six years here.”

In announcing his departure to hospital staff, Keel expressed his appreciation for their service to the hospital and the community.

“I … want to thank the Vaughan board, medical staff and employee family for the collaboration and progress we have been able to experience during our tenure together,” Keel wrote. “Vaughan is well positioned to continue to be a financially stable and thriving hospital for our west central Alabama residents for many years to come.”

Keel said the process to find his replacement is already in its early stages, but should be completed relatively quickly.

“As with most replacement opportunities, it’s difficult to say how long all of that will take,” Keel said regarding the search. “Typically though, it is not an exceptionally long process and I would say on average these searches can take anywhere from one month to six months. And, I would say a 60-to-90 day range is more common. And, if need be, there can be an interim CEO that could be placed in to ensure that continuity is still there.

“I am very confident there will be a very smooth transition in all of this.”

As Keel looked back on his tenure at Vaughan, he said the biggest point of pride for him is the improvement in the hospital’s personnel.

“I think there seemed to be a fair amount of high anxiety when I came here in 2006 due to the transition in previous years involving the Vaughan and Baptist merger,” Keel said. “That transition had happened a few years before I got to Selma and there was still a lot of concern about where Selma was going and where Vaughan was going; whether it was going to be a viable entity.”

Keel said the environment when he took over was challenging, but he saw the opportunities ahead.

“We took the approach to respect and appreciate the hospital’s history, but looked at how we could move forward. And we tried to focus on the biggest asset we had here at Vaughan is our people, our employees, our physicians, the people who are providing the care,” he said. “We treated it that way and built a lot of camaraderie and developed a group of employees here who are committed to great healthcare for this community.”

Keel said he hopes whoever takes his place as Vaughan’s CEO, continues to keep the focus on the employees, the people and the community.

“The greatest asset this hospital has is the people and continuing to lead, and interact, and perform strategy wise to make sure our people and employees here are treated as the greatest asset,” Keel said. “My experience, over 30 years in this business, is that we can do many things, but if we ever lose sight of the fact that we are a people business and the people are the greatest asset we have to offer, then we often are very unsuccessful. I think the people, keeping the nucleus of employees together is so important.”