Grady CEO takes hands-on approach to follow money

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 10, 2008

Days before he took office, new Grady Memorial Hospital CEO Michael Young decided to examine every check over $1,000 that the Atlanta facility had issued to vendors for one week in July. The massive hospital is a spending monster with hundreds of vendors, so there were more than 100 checks totaling upward of $1.7 million. Young hit upon checks that shocked him, such as the $100,000 one-week payment for temporary employees, including nurses and X-ray technicians. While it is not uncommon for a financial auditor to review spending this way, it is rare for a CEO to take on such a mundane, time-consuming task, experts say.