Guthrie is pursuing plans to determine its personal licensed house well being company in Tompkins County, nonetheless its undertaking has drawn debate in a regulatory committee and within the well being care group.
The Guthrie Clinic of Sayre, Pennsylvania, utilized for a Dwelling Care License in Tompkins County with plans to determine a visiting nurse service just like the Visiting Nurse Service of Ithaca and Tompkins County. Though the primary try at buying the license was not authorized at a gathering hosted by the New York State Division of Well being, Public Well being and Well being Planning Council Undertaking Assessment Committee on Could 13, Guthrie officers made it clear they are going to proceed to pursue the undertaking.
Well being care professionals in Tompkins County are involved that Guthrie is not going to convey employees and must recruit from Tompkins County, which might destabilize suppliers, have an effect on staffing, and would thus have an effect on already current companies. As well as, they are saying the prices for these companies would improve.
“Suppliers in our space have an extended historical past of collaboration,” mentioned Sue Ellen Stuart, director of Visiting Nurse Companies. “It’s very bothersome Guthrie didn’t come to speak with any of us for collaboration. We’d be prepared to collaborate.”
Cayuga Well being collaborates with numerous organizations, like Visiting Nurse Companies (VNS), all through Tompkins County and past to handle the care of greater than 50,000 attributed lives, or about 50% of the Tompkins County inhabitants, in accordance with Dr. Martin Stallone, president and CEO of Cayuga Well being.
“The appliance submission by Guthrie solely covers roughly 600 attributed lives in house well being care and the necessity in our group is much higher,” Stallone mentioned in a press launch. “With out VNS, these 50,000 lives are vulnerable to experiencing declining affected person care entry and administration, affected person well being outcomes, cost-effectiveness in the usage of well being care companies and group inhabitants well being.”
Stallone continued: “I imagine this undertaking will negatively impression the residents of Tompkins County.”
Within the committee assembly, Guthrie acknowledged its place that it will enhance the standard of care in Tompkins County.
“We don’t anticipate drawing from different counties or Tompkins County per se staff, or we don’t anticipate it being a burden to tug healthcare employees away from different organizations in these counties,” mentioned Jeffrey Jenkins, a registered nurse and senior director of submit acute care who was one in all three individuals who spoke on behalf of Guthrie through the committee assembly. “We do have our personal staff at this level, and we’d transition as soon as that closure plan was accomplished and accepted and we develop a plan to ramp up our (licensed house well being company).
Some committee members had been involved about Guthrie’s plans.
“A big well being system coming right into a group and controlling your entire well being care supply system on the expense of nonprofits which were serving that group for years, and efficiently doing so, and the premise that you may’t work with an area nonprofit who’s efficiently been supporting that group for years — I disagree with,” mentioned Scott LaRue, a member of the Committee on Public Well being. “You may, if you wish to. Individuals have the explanation why they choose native nonprofit suppliers and there needs to be an area in the neighborhood for them.”
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“I’m very troubled by what I see is a scarcity of dedication to collaboration,” committee member Ann Monroe mentioned.
Nonetheless, one other committee member, Dr. John Bennett, mentioned competitors ought to be inspired.
“I believe that one of many issues we’ve to recollect is that whereas he rightly argues the dominance by a bigger well being system in a group, I do not know that the choice if we limit competitors to permit the native smaller group to dominate is any higher a monopoly,” Bennett mentioned through the assembly. “And I believe we’ve to be conscious that competitors is efficacious.”
Bennett argued for rigorously regulated competitors.
“I believe I’ve seen too many small communities the place the native hospital or system has in essence whole monopolistic energy and it would not result in innovation, and it would not result in greater high quality and it would not result in decrease price,” Bennett mentioned. “Can the bigger methods do higher? I believe we have to give them a chance to indicate. The winner ought to be the outcomes … I believe it is our function to get the enjoying discipline degree and let one of the best individual win.”
Bennett supported the appliance.
“We won’t proceed to make use of our regulatory authority to assist organizations that are not profitable,” Bennett mentioned. “If the (licensed house well being companies) will not be profitable it might be as a result of their enterprise mannequin will not be assembly the wants of the residents, and what this represents is a chance to innovate round that.”
He continued: “And I believe if we’ll make progress in well being care, we won’t preserve supporting failing fashions. Now we have to permit for innovation and competitors. It’s completely important.”
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