Valley News
By Elodie Reed
White River Valley community members will discuss the future of their health care access next Tuesday.
That’s after a recent state-commissioned report recommended major reductions in service at four small Vermont hospitals, including Gifford Medical Center in Randolph.
The recommendations include converting inpatient beds to mental health care, changing emergency department staffing to a non-physician model, and moving obstetric services outside the hospital.
The report says without major restructuring, 13 of Vermont’s 14 hospitals will be operating at a loss by 2028 — and that nine already were in 2023.
Leadership at Gifford Medical Center say the report’s recommendations are based on inaccurate data, including admissions, birth and emergency department numbers.
“The report argues that Gifford’s patient numbers were too low to justify current operations, yet the consultant’s data was severely flawed,” Gifford President and CEO Michael Costa said in a press release last week.
North Country Hospital in Newport has made similar claims. And in response to North Country, the lead author of the report, Dr. Bruce Hamory with the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, admitted to making some data errors.
Hamory stood by the overall conclusions of the report.
“If you do nothing, best projections are that in the next three to five years, you’re going to have a bunch of folks bankrupt,” he told Vermont Public last month. “They will either be hospitals, or they will be citizens, or they will be both. That’s the bottom line.”
Following Gifford’s press release about inaccuracies in the report, the consulting firm sent a statement to press explaining the discrepancies.
“For the financial projections, [Oliver Wyman] required data that included financial information, as opposed to strictly volumes of services,” the statement reads. “This claims-based data was the most appropriate, accurate, and reliable source. The volume data identified by some hospitals in recent press releases could not be relied upon for this analysis as it does not include financial information.”
Hospital advocates have pushed back and say “significant flaws” in the report invalidate its findings.
Last month, the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems called for the Green Mountain Care Board — which hired the Oliver Wyman firm — to retract the report, apologize to providers, and assure them as well as patients and communities that their care will be protected.
“The impacts of this report are already having negative and counterproductive results for our health care system,” VAHHS President and CEO Michael Del Trecco wrote in a statement. “Hospitals have had staffing agencies refuse to make placements, recruited providers change their minds, and much-needed health care workers leave hospitals over the findings of this report. This report is causing harm.”
Leaders of the state chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians also issued public letters earlier this autumn opposing the report’s recommendation to convert emergency departments to non-physician models, citing patient safety concerns.
“As written, this recommendation threatens the quality of health care delivery in Vermont and the safety and well-being of Vermonters,” wrote Matthew Siket, who is president-elect for the Vermont Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. “We ask the members of the Green Mountain Care Board to reject it.”
In a statement, Green Mountain Care Board Chair Owen Foster repeated the voluntary nature of the report.
“The Oliver Wyman report does not mandate any changes at any Vermont hospital. Rather, it provides a projection of Vermont’s financial headwinds and provides options for local communities and hospital leaders to consider,” Foster said. “Vermont has gaps in care to essential services, including long term care and home health and hospice, mental health care, and primary care, that the Oliver Wyman report identifies and provides options for addressing. While some of the options are significant, it is important to note that Vermont faces unique challenges due to our demographic trends and we have an opportunity to build an affordable and sustainable healthcare system that meets the needs of our aging population.”
For its part, Gifford said the Oliver Wyman report has created “broken trust” and made “an already challenging situation more difficult.”
“Gifford’s leadership no longer considers this report a credible foundation for future health care planning,” said Gifford President and CEO Michael Costa.
Moving forward, he says Gifford will work with the state Agency of Human Services and Green Mountain Care Board to map out its future.
Gifford’s public forum is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, at the Judd Hall Gym at Vermont State University’s Randolph Center campus.