Losses continue to grow for JCH

As a vote on integration with IU Health draws near, the financial issues that led to pursuing such a move for Jay County Hospital are continuing.

Hospital CEO Dave Hyatt reported to his board of trustees Wednesday that through August the facility has lost nearly $8 million in fiscal year 2017.

In reviewing the numbers, Hyatt noted a loss of $770,863 in August, continuing a trend that has been ongoing for more than a year. That brought the total budget deficit for 2017 to $7.99 million.

As has been consistently the case recently, both admissions and surgery numbers were under budget and down from the same time in 2016. Physician office visits in August were up from the same month the previous year but remain about 6,000 under budget for the year. Labs continue to be the strongest-performing area for the hospital as they were up by more than 8,000 over August 2016 and are just below budget for the year.

The regular meeting followed a joint executive session that included the hospital board, Jay County Commissioners and Jay County Council. The groups discussed the status of the integration negotiations with IU Health in order to allow the county government officials a chance to ask questions and provide comments prior to the agreement being presented publicly.

“We want to be as transparent as we can without potentially damaging the strategic position of the organization,” Hyatt said after the meeting.

The hospital board last month approved a letter of intent to integrate with IU Health.

The next step in the process is to complete the integration agreement, which is expected to be made available for public review early next month. A public presentation of the deal, to possibly be followed by a vote by the hospital board, council and commissioners, is tentatively slated for mid-October.

If it were to pass at that time, the goal would be to have integration complete by Jan. 31.

•Approved the appointments of Dr. Krishnan Kartha, Dr. David Burdette, Dr. Adam Sciuk and Dr. Jennifer Mayne (teleradiology) to the courtesy staff and Rick Spangler and Joseph Hampton (nurse anesthetists), Matt Sieg (family nurse practitioner) and Tonia Childers (social worker). Also approved the reappointments of Dr. Stephen Myron (family medicine, emergency medicine) and Jerry Whetzel (family medicine) to the active staff, and Dr. Nathan Strabala (radiology), Dr. Kevin Scripture (ophthalmology) and Dr. Daniel Daunhauer (radiology).

•Heard that 77 Jay County Hospital Auxiliary volunteers put in 1,352.75 hours in July, and 73 volunteers put in 1,459.5 hours in August. The group also made $517 in profit from its book sale and sold $161 worth of items at the Jay County Heritage Festival.

•Accepted the resignations of Dr. Dariusz Bulczak, Dr. Nirmit Goel, Dr. Monte Zarlingo, Dr. Joe Parkey and Dr. Scott Peplinski (teleradiology) and Dr. Irfan Munir (nephrology).