Efficiency is improving, Ghezzi says

Dr. Ghezzi says Forum is not in a position to successfully challenge HMHP.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Forum Health has recorded its second consecutive month of strong revenues and improved operating performance, said Dr. Keith T. Ghezzi, interim president and chief executive officer.
Dr. Ghezzi, writing in this week's Forum Flash, a newsletter published by the company, said Forum Health is "making real progress in implementing cost-saving initiatives. Every Forum facility is operating more efficiently and with more attention to the bottom line."
However, more needs to be done, he said, including lowering wage costs, reducing the workforce and eliminating some services that can't be provided cost-effectively.
In the first quarter of 2006, Forum was burning through $1 million in cash a week and facing possible bankruptcy, Dr. Ghezzi said.
"We are making real progress in implementing cost-saving initiatives. Every Forum facility is operating more efficiently and with more attention to the bottom line," he said.
Difficult season
But the summer months are traditionally difficult for hospitals, he said, with low patient volumes and low productivity as patients delay elective care and physicians and employees take their summer breaks. The clear risk is that the gains of the last two months could be quickly erased, putting Forum right back where it started, he said.
Dr. Ghezzi said Forum's core strengths, as well as those places where Forum does not or cannot make the best use of its resources, have been identified.
In healthier economies, many hospitals need only maintain the status quo to grow, because their patient base and business expands with the population, Dr. Ghezzi said. But in the Mahoning Valley, where Forum competes for a dwindling base of patients and an aging population, and in a stagnant economy hard hit by business failure, Forum can't grow its way out of its problems.
"All we can do is go to head to head with Humility of Mary Health Partners. But we are not currently positioned to win this competition. The only way we can get into that position is to dramatically change," he said.
The core problem is that Forum is no longer structurally equipped to compete. Its buildings are old and inefficient, and the services it provides are not balanced in a way that allows Forum to make enough money on profitable services to continue to support services that are unprofitable, Dr. Ghezzi said.