Forum: Sales, closings are over

Trumbull Memorial is in better financial shape than Northside Medical Center, the new CEO said.

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGS-
TOWN — Forum Health has no campaign going to sell or close anything else, said Lowell Johnson, the hospital system’s new president and chief executive officer.

“The charge I’ve been given by the Forum Health Board of Trustees is to be a hospital operator. We’re here to run hospitals,” said Johnson, for whom Forum was the 25th hospital turnaround in which he was involved.

Johnson gave that assurance Wednesday at a press conference where media representatives had their first chance to interview Forum’s new leadership team.

Friday is the last day as president and CEO for Dr. Keith T. Ghezzi, who has led the hospital system’s financial turnaround the last two years.

Dr. Ghezzi said cash in investments grew from $166 million to $177 million from 2005 to 2007, and debt will have been reduced from $179 million to $146 million by the end of March. If the debt service reserve kept as collateral were included, the debt would be $120 million by the end of March, he said.

The operating loss of $33 million in fiscal 2005 was turned into a $7 million profit in fiscal 2007, he said.

He said the most impressive thing to him is that during the tumultuous two-year period, quality of care was not sacrificed.

“I’ve never been in a situation before where finances and quality of care were improved at the same time. It is nothing short of extraordinary,” he said.

Still, the work is not done, officials cautioned.

Using a medical analogy, Johnson said the “patient [Forum Health] is better, but not completely healed.”

He acknowledged that Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren is in better shape financially than Northside Medical Center in Youngstown.

Forum Health consists of the Western Reserve Care System, which with the sale of Beeghly Medical Park and Beeghly Oaks, both in Boardman, now is only Northside, TMH and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland.

Johnson said Forum Health will focus its resources on the hospitals, improving clinical outcomes while continuing to identify additional operating efficiencies, particularly at Northside.

Of particular interest to the entire system is to stem the flow (out migration) of people in Mahoning and Trumbull counties going elsewhere for quality health care, said Todd Hickey, the new interim president and chief executive officer of TMH, effective March 8.

“Our patient care [clinical outcomes] is as good as anybody’s, and we need to get that message out,” Hickey said.

One of the moves during the turnaround that caused a furor in the community was the closing of Tod Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Ghezzi explained the reasoning behind that move.

“At Tod, we were trying to be a small hospital, which was financially inefficient and not cost-effective,” he said.

With the purchase of Beeghly Medical Park by Akron Children’s Hospital, where it plans to establish a children’s hospital, Dr. Ghezzi believes children’s services will in time be enhanced.

“I’m confident that in five years, people of the Mahoning Valley will say they have more and better pediatric services than they had,” he said.

“Once Akron Children’s opens in Boardman there won’t be any reason to leave town for medical care unless for a transplant or some other major-league problem,” Johnson said.