Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Forum Health’s intent to sell its assets may have torpedoed the talks, one person speculated.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — Officials offered no explanation for why talks about a joint venture for pediatric health care services broke down among Forum Health, Humility of Mary Health Partners and Akron Children’s Hospital.
Discussion of a three-hospital partnership is over, all sides said, but none gave any reason for the failure.
However, the two-year affiliation between HMHP and Akron Children’s Hospital will continue. Akron Children’s helps staff and operate the pediatric inpatient unit at HMHP’s St. Elizabeth Health Center and will locate a pediatric unit in St. Elizabeth’s new Boardman hospital.
In a joint statement, HMHP and Akron Children’s said Tuesday that there is no three-hospital partnership that consists of HMHP, Akron Children’s and Forum.
“While all parties shared the same philosophical vision, we were unable to finalize the process,” the statement said.
In response, Dr. Keith T. Ghezzi, Forum Health president and chief executive officer, said he regrets the development and believes the community’s pediatric health needs would have been best served by a partnership among Forum, Akron Children’s and HMHP.
Forum Health continues its efforts to identify buyers and investors for Forum’s facilities and businesses. The Akron Children’s/HMHP announcement will not affect that goal, Ghezzi said.
Insiders’ opinions
Two individuals who were not involved in the discussions but are insiders offered possible reasons why the talks did not succeed.
Sallie Tod Dutton, whose family has been involved with Tod Children’s Hospital since its inception, said she believes part of the problem was Akron Children’s desire to locate at Beeghly Medical Center in Boardman.
Also, Dutton said she is not surprised that Forum is out of the mix because the hospital system is in the process of liquidating its assets.
“It would make no sense for Forum to be involved because, if its assets are liquidated, it would cease to exist as an operating hospital,” Dutton said.
Dr. Elena Rossi, head of pediatric services at St. Elizabeth, said the talks all occurred at the highest levels and really never got down to the “worker bee” level.
She said discussions never progressed much after the proposed partnership was made public in January, possibly because Forum Health announced shortly thereafter that it intended to liquidate its facilities.
“The breakdown was not on our end,” Dr. Rossi said of St. Elizabeth.
Forum closings
Forum closed the Tod Children’s inpatient pediatric unit in the spring and announced earlier this week that the Tod Children’s emergency department would close effective June 30.
Dr. Rossi said Humility of Mary has a long history of collaboration with other health care providers and will continue to work with Akron Children’s, as it has for the past two years, to enhance the provision of children’s services at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown.
The St. Elizabeth inpatient pediatric unit has been expanded to include 23 beds to accommodate the closing of Tod Children’s, and has a full staff of pediatric nurses and pediatric hospitalists from Akron Children’s Hospital, Dr. Rossi said. She said physicians and nursing staff from Akron Children’s will soon join the current emergency staff at St. Elizabeth to provide expanded emergency pediatric services, and St. Elizabeth has an ambulatory care center with a pediatric clinic that operates from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Plans are also under way for Akron Children’s to occupy the seventh floor of the new St. Elizabeth Boardman hospital at Market Street and McClurg Road. The full-service, 20-bed pediatric unit is scheduled to open in November.