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BLUE HILL — Last
week’s close vote to change the governance
structure of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems
has moved Blue Hill Memorial Hospital one step
closer to an affiliation with the Bangor-based
regional health care system.
If all goes as
planned, the BHMH board of directors will be
asked to vote on a draft affiliation agreement
at its Dec. 15 meeting.
The draft has
been amended by a BHMH committee and is now on
the desk of Norman Ledwin, president of Eastern
Maine Healthcare Systems. Ledwin has told Tim
Garrity, the Blue Hill hospital’s chief
executive officer, that the changes he envisions
are “not significant.”
Corporators of
Eastern Maine Healthcare, the parent of Eastern
Maine Medical Center, Acadia Hospital and
several affiliates, voted Wednesday, Nov. 17, to
disband their corporation. The vote was 139-120.
The elimination
of Eastern Maine Heathcare places its
subsidiaries directly under the governance of
Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, on the same
footing with the other hospitals in the regional
network. Those hospitals include The Aroostook
Medical Center in Presque Isle and Sebasticook
Valley Hospital in Pittsfield.
Instead of the
400 corporators of Eastern Maine Health, who
came from the Bangor area, EMHS will create a
200-member corporation that approves the EMHS
board of directors. Members of the new
corporation will represent the nine counties
served by the health-care system, each county
assigned a specific number of corporators based
on population.
The EMHS
reorganization had to take place before Blue
Hill Memorial Hospital would take the
affiliation discussion to the next level,
Garrity said. “It was very important to us that
the Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems governing
structure be representative of the nine counties
served by the system, and not centered in
Bangor.”
He said as much
at last week’s meeting in Bangor, which he
attended along with Dr. Gardner Smith, a BHMH
board member.
His hospital,
Garrity said in a speech to the Eastern Maine
corporators, “is nearly ready to vote for
integration with EMHS. The major thing holding
us back is the completion of the proposed
reorganization. We want to see a positive vote
so that we know EMHS governance will be
effective and representative of the entire
region, rather than focused in Bangor.”
A strategic
planning effort at BHMH recommended looking into
an affiliation with Eastern Maine Healthcare
Systems. Blue Hill has been clinically
affiliated with Eastern Maine Medical Center for
the past decade in an effort to streamline the
transfer of patients from one hospital to the
other.
In 1997, Blue
Hill entered a “strategic affiliation” with the
hospitals in Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems,
sharing what Garrity describes as “knowledge
resources.” The affiliation enable the hospitals
to collaborate on medical staff policies, he
said, such as “the best way to treat a patient
who’s had a heart attack or a stroke or
congestive heart failure.”
If its board
votes “yes” on Dec. 15, Blue Hill would be
“economically integrated” with the Eastern Maine
system. According to Garrity, such an
integration brings economies of scale for all
members, most immediately in joint purchasing,
employee benefits and a unified information
system.
For patients,
advantages are expected to include a single set
of electronic medical records that would be
available both in Blue Hill and Bangor. This
would make it easier for doctors to avoid
prescribing conflicting medications.
While member
hospitals retain their own boards and bylaws,
and make up their own budgets, those would have
to be approved by the EMHS board. The system has
to be fiscally integrated in order to be viewed
as a unit by the IRS.
Garrity would
report to the BHMH board and to Ledwin as EMHS
president. Both would evaluate his performance.
Recently, he
said, managers from hospitals already affiliated
with EMHS visited the Blue Hill hospital to meet
with employees. “They said their board picks
their CEO. Technically that’s not so, but to
these managers that was not apparent,” he said.
Garrity and
others have been adamant that Blue Hill will
retain ownership and control of its endowment
and real estate. If Blue Hill wants to use
endowment funds or fundraising proceeds buy or
sell a building or a piece of equipment, Garrity
said, Eastern Maine will have no say over that
decision.
“EMHS has to
approve the budget,” he said. “If something is
consistent with the strategic plan and if we
have a means of funding it, it’s up to us.”
If Blue Hill
approves the document it will go to the EMHS
board for approval. It then must be approved by
government agencies, including the Maine
Attorney General, the IRS and Medicare and
Medicaid.
It could be six
months before the affiliation took effect,
Garrity said. |
