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Hospital CEO discusses how to cope with upheaval

June 14, 2016by Robert Whitcomb in Uncategorized tagged , ,

 

In this interview, Darlene Stromstad , president and CEO of Waterbury (Conn.) Hospital and the Greater Waterbury Health Network, of which the hospital is a part, discusses how she copes with the strains of having to make tough decisions in a time of healthcare upheaval that has included the need to downsize.

Becker’s Hospital Review asked her: “If you could eliminate one of the healthcare industry’s problems overnight, which would it be?”

She answered:

“There is still a lack of access to healthcare for many people, even if it is only because they perceive they don’t have access. There are members of this community that do not know how to use the healthcare system. There are many reasons for that, including socioeconomic and language barriers. Some may be intimidated by the size of hospitals and intimidated to go to the doctor’s office. We need to find better ways to bring healthcare to where people live, delivered in a way that is meaningful to them. The causes are complicated, but every day we are taking care of patients whose illnesses are preventable. They are not accessing healthcare in a way that works for them.”

 

Conn. nonprofit system says things are ‘dire’

March 30, 2016by Robert Whitcomb in Uncategorized tagged , , ,

rockville

Rather quaint-looking Rockville General Hospital, in Vernon, Conn.

Eastern Connecticut Health Network, the nonprofit  that runs Connecticut’s Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals, says that increasing taxes, debt and regulations are drowning it.

“I can’t express enough the dire situation we are in,” Eastern Connecticut Health Network President and CEO Peter J. Karl told state hearing officers.

But Los Angeles-based Prospect Medical Holdings has proposed to buy ECHN’s assets for $105 million. The state Office of Health Care Access and the attorney general’s office will decide  whether to approve the  proposed sale in June. ECHN leaders voted for the sale last year as a way to survive as a community healthcare provider.

The Hartford Courant noted that  Prospect owns hospitals in California, Texas and Rhode Island and seeks to buy the eastern Connecticut hospitals and Waterbury Hospital, in the south-central part of the Nutmeg State. Those same hospitals and two others had agreed to merge with Texas-based Tenet Healthcare but the deal fell apart in 2014 after Tenet rejected state regulators’ proposed conditions.

Conn. reports surge of young mentally ill

April 20, 2015by Robert Whitcomb in Uncategorized tagged , , ,

 

A new Connecticut Health Department report says that mental disorders surpassed all other ailments as the leading cause of hospitalization in 2012 in the Constitution State for children 5-14, older teenagers and young adults.

Of course, many of these young people have other health problems related to their mental illnesses, such as substance abuse. We wonder how many of these young people frequently present at the state’s Federally Qualified Health Centers.

The New Haven Register reported: “The data show five hospitals had increases of more than 12 percent in the number of days that patients with behavioral health problems were hospitalized. The biggest increases were at Yale-New Haven Hospital, which saw the number of patients rise 61 percent, and inpatient days jump 51 percent; and Waterbury Hospital, with 26 percent more patients and a 37 percent increase in inpatient days. The increase at Yale-New Haven is partly due to its merger with the Hospital of St. Raphael in 2012.”

 

Nutmeg State’s small-hospital nightmare

January 8, 2015by Robert Whitcomb in Uncategorized tagged , , ,

Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie writes well about the difficulties of Connecticut’s community hospitals. Residents are used to living close to these institutions and not that far from a couple of  major regional ones, too, especially Yale New Haven and Hartford Hospital.

But the little  hospitals are under much stress from, as he notes, longevity, industry consolidations, advances in medical technology and dramatic changes in payments for services.

And the trend of “inadequate Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements will continue. Almost every time the hospitals make cost reductions to meet lower reimbursement rates, the rates get lower again.”

Thus Waterbury Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, in Waterbury, Bristol Hospital, Manchester Memorial Hospital and Rockville General Hospital, all nonprofits, are imperiled.

Meanwhile, political, ideological and regulatory pressures have repelled such out-of-state for-profit hospital chains as Tenet that could save some or all of these little hospitals if they’d buy them.

 Something gotta give!

 

 

 

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