Steering continues

This is not just a decision for today, tomorrow or even a year from now. It’s something that will effect Jay County for generations.

That’s the way Jay County Hospital’s steering committee is approaching the process, which so far has included gathering input from the community, setting priorities and making visits to other health care providers, as it works toward making a recommendation about the facility’s future.

The need to take action become clear as since mid-2016 the hospital has posted consistent financial losses. In the first seven months of fiscal 2017, which began in October, the hospital has had an operating deficit of $4.7 million. Revenue is down by almost $8 million from the same time span from the previous year.

In response, the hospital board in February chose to partner with Quorum Health Resources for strategic planning for the future. (It is also working with financial firm Deloitte and, pending board approval Wednesday, legal firm Ice Miller.) Part of that process was the creation of the steering committee, which has included the hospital board, local government leaders and hospital staff.

Financial stability is a key concern, but it’s far from the only consideration.

“From the very get go, I think the steering committee has said, ‘It’s not about getting a check … We want to find somebody that’s going to add services to the community, protect what we have,’” said hospital CEO Dave Hyatt. “It’s more than just, ‘Partner X is offering $15 million, Partner Y is offering 17 million.’ It’s a lot more important than that because we’re talking about a generational decision.”

Based on community input, the steering committee set some general priorities for the future of Jay County Hospital:

•Expand services

•Retain local input

•Keep medical staff input

But the overarching goal is even simpler than those targets.

“I think what came out of it is the community as a whole wants a hospital,” said board president Dave Littler.

After establishing those priorities, a group of “ambassadors” from the steering committee made a series of hospital visits in May and June.

The first set of those involved going to other hospitals similar to Jay County Hospital — rural critical care facilities — in an effort to see how their partnerships with different regional partners work on a day-to-day basis. Littler found those visits encouraging, saying that each hospital seemed to be happy with its relationship with its regional partner.

“It’s one thing for a system to say, ‘This is how we do things,’ it’s another to visit one of their facilities and talk to the local leadership and talk to staff in the hallways,” said Hyatt. “The steering committee … before they went to talk to large partners in the corporate headquarters, they wanted to see how regional health care partners in our region ran smaller facilities. So they intentionally went to hospitals like Jay before visiting corporate.”

The second set of visits were to corporate headquarters of potential regional partners to discuss how Jay County Hospital could be integrated into their systems. Littler and Hyatt agreed that all of the groups the ambassadors met with showed significant interest in the possibility of forming a partnership.

The steering committee has decided not to disclose which hospitals and potential partners it has visited as it goes through the evaluation process.

Regional health systems in Indiana include IU Health, Lutheran Health Network, Parkview Health and St. Vincent.

Because IU Health could potentially be involved in the process, Hyatt, an IU Health employee, has recused himself from this part of the steering committee’s process. He was also not involved in any of the visits.

The next step is for the steering committee, which is now being expanded to include all of its primary care providers, to discuss the partnership options. That process gets underway in earnest this week, with steering committee meetings scheduled for 5 p.m. today and all day Tuesday.

Once the committee feels it has settled on a potential partner, it will then go into deeper discussions about how that relationship would function. If that process goes smoothly, Hyatt said the proposal will be presented to hospital employees, Jay County commissioners and council and the public before it is brought up for any kind of vote.

Littler and Hyatt were reluctant to set any kind of timeline for the process, simply saying they want it to move as quickly as possible while still allowing time to make the right decision for the future of health care in the community.

“Ultimately what we want to happen is the least dramatic change in the way that business is done on a day-to-day basis here at Jay County Hospital,” said Littler.