Future of NHRMC

Lynn Gordon, Legal Officer, New Hanover Regional Medical Center

Lynn Gordon, NHRMC. photo by Jeff Wenzel

Lynn Gordon, Legal Counsel at NHRMC spoke to us on Tuesday, Jan 14th about a “Future Partnership Exploration” for the hospital.

As background, Lynn noted that NHRMC serves patients from New Hanover Co. and six surrounding counties.

NHRMC is unique in the country being one of three large independent non-for-profit hospitals. However, the costs associated with operating a major hospital center are staggering.

So the dilemma is how to adapt to the future of health care for a hospital like NHRMC. With no tax dollars from New Hanover Co. or any of the other six counties served, it is difficult to maintain current levels of service and plan for future needs in staff and infrastructure.

Moving from a ‘Fee-for-Service’ management style to a ‘Value-Based Payment’ style also will require ‘data mining’ of the local population to learn tendencies. This kind of information is the same that retailers rely on to ‘figure’ out what you would like to buy next. But for hospitals it is a whole new arena of operating. The idea here is to learn about health tendencies that of local population.

Changes that NHRMC is seeing in payer shifts. Less private payers and more governmental payers i.e. Medicaid and Medicare.

Volume demands (%) by medical unit at NHRMC are much higher than average for NC urban hospitals (67%)

Partnership Advisory Group is formed with distinguished members from across the community.

Planning for the next 5 years

The decision timeline

No decision has been reached yet! Contrary to what you may see as ‘negative advertisement’ on TV and the internet.

This web link takes you to the NHRMC next-steps list in which you will note that the NHRMC Partnership Advisory Group has not even held the public hearing yet. So they are a long way away from making Decision 2020 for NHRMG.

You can stay informed by signing up for email updates and find presentations at www.NHRMCfuture.org.

Thanks to Lynn Gordon and Carolyn Fisher for providing the PowerPoint presentation of Lynn’s talk.

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