The public can be let in on more of the data being used by the Hospital Facilities Commission in its quest to determine whether Allen County Hospital should be replaced or remodeled.
Mary Ann Arnott, commission chairman, said a recent closed meeting focused on financial information, which is considered proprietary and remains so. Hospital Corporation of America manages Allen County Hospital for profit. Also revealed at the June 7 meeting, however, was information released after review by Scott Buckley, financial adviser for Hospital Facilities Group, the county’s consulting firm, and Joyce Heismeyer, ACH chief executive officer.
Buckley concluded that:
— Potential exists to increase inpatient and outpatient volume.
Outreach to Humboldt and Yates Center would encourage more use of the hospital, as would recruitment of a general surgeon and orthopedist, development of specialty clinics and upgrading medical equipment and the facility itself.
— Twenty-five inpatient beds is sufficient and appropriate, including three for obstetrics, two back-up post-partum beds and two intensive care beds. Best would be two operating rooms plus a procedure room, six emergency rooms, expanded and integrated rehabilitation therapy space and a fixed base magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine.
The 25-bed threshold is important to maintain ACH’s designation as a critical access hospital. Critical access designation permits the hospital to receive cost-based reimbursement from Medicare and attract Medicare funding for construction.
Buckley’s recommendations tried to answer how much space the hospital would need to meet current and future demand.
BUCKLEY also looked at patient origin and migration, utilization trends for the hospital, ACH’s market share and physician numbers in Allen County.
On average, over the last five years, 77.4 percent of ACH patients came from Allen County. Next was Anderson County with 8.1 percent, Woodson with 6.4 percent, Bourbon, 2.2 percent, Coffey, 2.1 percent, and Neosho, 1.8 percent.
Obstetrics cases involving Allen County patients have increased in the past several years, from 61 in 2005 to 86 last year. However, last year 71 new Allen County mothers were patients at Neosho County Regional Medical Center and 18 went to Mercy Hospital in Fort Scott.
Surgical discharges during the same period dropped from 492 to 455, a trend that could be reversed with full-time surgeon. Also, Buckley’s proposal of outreach clinics in Humboldt and Yates Center would direct more patients to ACH.
Allen County is projected to lose population in the near future. Statistically, the decline is put at 497 people by 2014, from last year’s 13,582 to 13,085.
HOSPITAL Facilities Group of Wichita and the community-based Hospital Facilities Commission will make recommendations to Allen County commissioners some time in mid- to late July.
Ultimately, county commissioners will decide whether the hospital builds new or is remodeled, and whether management is by the county or by lease to a private corporation, as it is now the case with HCA.
They also will have to decide financing.
If projected revenue were sufficient, bonds to pay construction and equipping costs could come from profits generated by the hospital. If not, some tax support, either property or sales, would be required.
