Illinois Valley Times

City of Princeton issued the following announcement on Jan. 10.

The Princeton City Council plans to meet Monday, Jan. 18, where it’s expected to take the final vote on the hospital affiliation with OSF Healthcare, in regard to Perry Memorial Hospital.

To finalize the city’s agreement to the hospital affiliation, a second and final vote must be taken on the ordinance.

The first vote taken Monday, while favorable towards the agreement, did not come without hesitations by some council members.

Council member Ray Mabry supported the agreement saying, “at this point, I think it’s our best move forward,” but he brought up concerns from prior past experiences when the City Council was presented inaccurate information about the hospital. He was talking about the year when Perry’s annual report showed the hospital had a projected profit of $800,000, then six months later it reported it actually had a $3.4 million loss. The later report came after a proposal was made to build the new $5 million clinic.

“I’m not blaming the [hospital] board members. I just think there’s administration issues we’ve had to face in the past that maybe haven’t given us accurate information. That’s my own personal opinion,” he said.

Council member Hector Gomez also briefly addressed the same concern and said he never would have voted in favor of a new $5 million clinic if he’d been given the correct financial information about the hospital’s debt.

Gomez questioned how OSF would continue to maintain net income and not cut services during a time when the cost of health care was on the rise and reimbursements from the government for medicaid continued to drop. His concern was addressed by Bob Sehring, OSF Healthcare CEO, who was in attendance during Monday’s meeting. Sehring’s answer was “radical efficiency,” which he said OSF strives for. This strategy includes changing the mindset of people who choose to use the emergency department, a hospital’s most expensive care, as its primary care. Hospitals are working to provide care in a way that’s less costly, more efficient and, in the long run, provides better care for the patient.

Council Member Jerry Neumann, who has been a city liaison to the hospital board for years, said Princeton was fortunate to have OSF look at it and have the opportunity to form a relationship over the past two years.

“We’re on the verge of making a monumental decision that’s going to impact this community in a big way,” he said. “I’m glad we’re still talking and moving forward because this decision is in the very best interest of this community. There is no doubt in my mind.”

Council member Ray Swanson wanted to ensure the city would be involved in appointing a representative to sit on what will be a hospital advisory board to OSF, rather than a hospital board of directors, when the affiliation became final — he was assured the city still would appoint a representative to that board.

Two people speak out about the affiliation agreement

The public had an opportunity to make comments Monday about the hospital affiliation, and two people did so.

Michael Stutzke, of Princeton, read a prepared statement that addressed frustration and dismay about the hospital being “handed over to OSF over $1.”

He asked a number of questions in his statement, which Linda Gustafson, chairperson of the Perry board of directors, promised to answer and display on the hospital’s website.

Stutzke questioned why the hospital went on to build a $5 million clinic when it was facing debt and why unused space in the hospital wasn’t retrofitted instead; why the billing of Perry’s services had been “negligently overseen” with Medicaid billing encoded improperly and untimely when hospital income was so important; why the past administrator was hired with little or no hospital administration experience; what would happen to the 150-plus employees who would possibly lose their jobs with the takeover; and what will the economical lost mean to businesses and home sales in Princeton when skilled workers had to move out of the community to seek work elsewhere. He said it’s a “well-known fact” that OSF claims to increase services, but in reality it shuts down services making patients seek services at other OSF facilities, such as Peoria. He also questioned how the community would fair when local contributions to community causes no longer existed.

Stutzke recommended the City Council take a step back, seek out an experienced administrator who could correct the financial mismanagement in a time frame of 30 months.

“If in that time, experience leadership is still unable to reduce the debt, the decision for consolidation could be made. At least our community could be assured that all efforts were made to save our 100-year-old Perry Memorial Hospital,” he said.

CEOs from both Perry and OSF addressed a handful of Stutzke’s questions. Regarding the reduction in services, Sehring said he “wholeheartedly disagreed” and encouraged others to take a look at the services OSF has brought to neighboring communities, such as Mendota or Kewanee. When it comes to employees, Sehring admitted there are some impact that comes with consolidation that falls in line with back office efficiencies, he used the billing department as an example.

The statement that it’s OSF’s intent to move services to Peoria, Sehring said was false. He said Peoria is full and is not looking to bring more patients there, but rather looking for ways to provide primary and secondary care in the communities served by OSF to improve the local clinical care.

Perry’s interim CEO Patty Luker addressed Perry’s billing issues, saying administration had worked “extremely hard” to correct them. The hospital hired a consultant to come in and clean up the issues.

As far as the 30-day turnaround requested by Stutzke, Luker said Perry didn’t have 30 months. An analysis done this summer showed the hospital had 18 to 24 months in its reserves.

Gustafson pointed out Perry has not been financially strong for years, and today it’s now surrounded geographically by larger healthcare systems.

“It is very difficult to expand the number of patients that we have. It’s very difficult to do many of the things we want to do when you’re a small, rural hospital in the center of this geographic setting. We’ve done a wonderful job maximizing what we do have and serving the people,” she said.

Gustafson also touched on the importance of protecting employees, which was a prime focus of the board when negotiating the affiliation agreement. Gustafson assured the board did not want to see a reduction and that’s not what was anticipated.

Is the agreement moving too quickly?

Rick Brooks of Princeton voiced concern over how quickly a decision was being made on this agreement and how little the general public knew about it.

He asked when the affiliation agreement was made available to the public, which Luker said Friday, Dec. 18, after a meeting when the hospital board voted to send it the agreement to the Princeton City Council.

However, when a reporter from the Bureau County Republican asked for a copy of agreement in the days following the meeting, the reporter was asked to file a Freedom of Information Act request to receive a copy. That request was not granted until the afternoon of Jan. 4. By that time, a copy of the agreement had already been sent to the press in the Princeton City Council meeting packet Thursday, Dec. 31.

Brooks questioned how anybody would know what was in the 50-plus-page agreement between Dec. 18 and now.

“That’s part of the challenge we have with government is that the public does not fully understand the decisions being made,” he said. “This is not the way democracy should work and I would bet there are very few government officials and a few board members here don’t have a throughout understanding of what’s in the agreement and its impact.

“In the end, it’s a legal agreement of good intentions made by good people making an honestly attempt to rescue a hospital that has 100 years of traditions to uphold and serve well.”

While he recommended the involvement of more community members and more time to communicate what’s in the agreement, Princeton Mayor Joel Quiram pointed out this talk about Perry had been ongoing for two years, a number of presentations have been made by hospital CEOs, public hearings were held, press releases were printed in the local newspaper and information was shared on social media.

“The information has been out there. There’s only so much we can do from here … I think we’ve done our due diligence in getting this information out and inviting people to learn.”

Gustafson urged she and the hospital board members wanted to be as transparent about the decision as possible.

“It isn’t just our decision. It’s been a tremendous responsibility for us to decide what is best for the community. There are so many factors in this that it’s very, very difficult to explain everything, but we will explain everything we possibly can or to anyone else who has a question because we want transparency and we want this community to support this decision.”

Original source can be found here.