This post was in a couple of threads, so I thought I'd bring it to the front page...it's a question posted on the "News & Views" website. (http://danvillenewsandviews.com/)
"Why was the Danville Regional executive team in Nashville last week? To discuss downsizing at DRMC?
The Danville Regional Medical Center leadership team was in Tennessee, along with their counterparts from all of the company’s hospitals, to attend the annual operations meeting. There are no plans to downsize DRMC. Rather, there are plans to continue to increase services at DRMC with the expansion on the sixth floor, the purchase of a linear accelerator and additional diagnostic equipment."
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34 comments:
Wow...a legitimate question and a legitimate answer. Imagine!
I Still don't believe it.
Lifepoint still thinks they can run floors with fewer nurses and have a safe work environment.
LPNT stock...down to 28.4 at 1:45 today.
It opened at 28.55 and hit a 52 week low at 28.18 earlier today.
News from the week-long meeting must be leaking out, or perhaps the folks who were there are selling their stock.
The week long meeting is an annual event. Nothing groundbreaking about it. As for the stock..what stocks have not dropped over the last few weeks. LiifePoint losing stock value is not a good thing for this company, DRMC or the community. Why can't you see that?
We can see that it's not a good thing. Stocks are down for all of LPNT's competitors. It's a weak segment and everyone is reducing their guidance based on Q2's results. The question is, how will this market volatility impact us at the local level? We were once insulated somewhat from these national market forces...no longer the case.
We are concerned about it because of the contempt LifePoint has shown for us and this community. Your boss sees us as "low-hanging fruit," and we'll be the first to suffer when it comes time to make the stockholders happy.
Yeah, and the stock was down even more today, while the whole market rallied nicely.
This sector is but a slice of the total market and has its own challenges unrelated.
Check out this article...
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/healthcare/10372563.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
"Yeah, and the stock was down even more today, while the whole market rallied nicely."
Did you check out the other hospital stocks? Not so good. HMA lost almost 50% of their stock value when they reported the same news LPNT did on bad debt.
Most of the so called hospitals that are for profit are offshoots of each other lifepoint is the 3rd spinoff of a hosp corp long known for corruption and destroying communities.So naturally they all do poorly together....same pitiful philosophy
Hmmm...so what does that say about the sector as a whole? And about the way they do business?
Just a thought.
Oh wait...all the troubles at DRMC are just figments of our collective local yokel imaginations. Never mind.
Hmmm...so what does that say about the sector as a whole? And about the way they do business?
Response: where hav eyou been health care is a mess we are experiencing what is happening nationwide. the buisness of healthcare is complicated and multidimensional. We are told what we can charge often less then what it costs us to provide. We can never turn away customers and we have shortages of all types of professionals. This is not just a DRMC problem.
It's predominately a FOR profit problem that's why the best hospitals over all are NON profit particularly if they are non profit with a college attached.
"Hmmm...so what does that say about the sector as a whole? And about the way they do business?
Response: where hav eyou been health care is a mess we are experiencing what is happening nationwide. the buisness of healthcare is complicated and multidimensional. "
I've been in healthcare since the late 1980's, so I'm pretty aware of how the business works. Heck, I had even traveled to Californee before managed care crossed the Miss'ssippi Rivah.
My point was that DRMC was dealing with national healthcare trends (both positive and negative) long before LPNT rolled into town. These are just amplified now due to an overall corporate response to market issues by LPNT...not just local responses to regional payor and national reimbursement issues.
Exactly what I meant. wise people would never have sold the hospital to set it up to deal with things that it didn't have to. should have affiliated it with another non profit or best case, a non profit teaching facility.Leaves out all that corporate greed that is ruining the entire USA.
"There are no plans to downsize DRMC. Rather, there are plans to continue to increase services at DRMC with the expansion on the sixth floor, the purchase of a linear accelerator and additional diagnostic equipment."
Who's going to run the equipment?
The staff is down to bare nothing now, strung out and wasted.
Nice sight!
To the above poster, so true. What are they going to expand? They cut staff in every department and even phased out some departments. Expansion of the 5th and 6th floor was NOT done by Lifepoint. The money for those two projects were already in place. Besides, they had no choice. Old DRMC had already obtained a certificate of need for the two floors. If they had not built those two floors when Lifepoint took over they would have never gotten another CON form the state. I guess the expansion of services that they are talking about relates to the email from Ruth. Heart center and cardiac rehab will be hiring about 3-4 full-time and 4-5 part-time people and they will be doing all EKG's and placing pt's on remote telemetry. It seems that wonderful Meditech system was not charging for these procedures when they were put in as orders. Were we not told that this was a state-of-the-art system that would capture all charges and automatically bill the patient? Guess not.
Same goes for the linear accelarator. Old DRMC already had the CON for this project AND the money allocated for this project before Lifepoint took over.
"they will be doing all EKG's and placing pt's on remote telemetry"
We have been told this will happen soon, but how will they be held accountable if they aren't nurses.The nurses will still be accountable but have less control, does anyone else see a problem with this, I also understand DRMC tried this "team" a long time ago and It didn't work then either.
In speaking with an employee of the heart center it appears that no "new" employees will be hired, rather, they are going to pull nursing assistants into these positions. So what are the floors going to do when they are even more short-staffed?
exactly lifepoint generates nothing for the communities it infects,only readjusts workforce to drop costs to pocket the money for the O's, same HCA/lifepoint story different melody.
Your "HCA/Lifepoint" monotony is tiring. Would be great if you had substantial knowledge about that which you speak. DRMC is nothing more than a typical hospital in a challenging market with too many minds stuck in status quo. The large Baptist system in Dallas had a tremendous financial year last year, yet they're sounding the alarm of the need to cut costs (including staffing) and no one's trumpeting "fraud" signals. Until you understand the REAL economics of healthcare, you should reserve your superlative comments.
"...the real economics of healthcare" amounts to Executives + Lawyers + Bank Boys minus people who are in the medical business to help other people divided by government dollars then multiplied by greed equals large bonuses for the "o"s, dividends for stock holders and $200 mil in play money.
and you don't think the citizens of Dullsville understand economics...by golly I think we've got it!
I think people who have a hard time making ends meet are scared and angry that they will not have available healthcare when they need it.
People who can google the stock exchange, look up financial statements, and have come to realize that making healthcare choices involves deciding whom to trust.
Lifepoint has lost credibility in the community. Citizens do not understand paying a large percentage of their income to healthcare that has been proven substandard and to executives whom have also been shown to be substandard.
Stop fussing. This could go on forever. And please stop calling each other stupid-it's a waist of time. We need to learn to respect each other, non-judgementally. Think teamwork. Good communication. Productivity. Otherwise we could go on like this forever.
There is a lot of anger and insecuritites on here. Sure it needs to be vented. So get it over and then examine it, closely within yourself. Good, bad, or ugly, then deal with it, and move forward.
Otherwise we're just a bunch of keyboard junkies.
"There are no plans to downsize DRMC. Rather, there are plans to continue to increase services at DRMC with the expansion on the sixth floor, the purchase of a linear accelerator and additional diagnostic equipment."
Lifepoint is not doing these things because they hae great plans for DRMC. These are contractual obligations from the sell of DRMC two years ago. So don't get the idea that they are investing for the future.
"Investing in the future...."
Candid idea. I heard today that the bigwigs from DUKE had a meeting at DRMC and the outcome did not sound like LPNT trying to increase the size of the hospital or retain staff. The issue at hand is will DRMC keep their Open Heart Program. I hear that DRMC has 6 months to keep the program. After that, I guess all patients that require Open Heart will have no other option but to go out of town.
The Heart surgeon is leaving.
That's good, isn't it? With the terrible problems at Danville-LifePoint, why would you want open-heart surgery going on with so many superiors facilitties nearby? How often is open-heart surgery an emrgency procedures????? Please educate me.
Open Heart surgery can be an emergency in more cases than you hear about in the paper. It is just not the patient with CAD it can also be the gunshot wound to the chest that comes in through the ER. I hear he is a great surgeon and I am sure that the hospital will lose more than just him when he is gone.
Lost, Credibility
Duke affiliation
Young talented Surgeon.
His Nurse Practitioner.
Approx. 20 years of
progress
The Heart OR(?)
The heart OR RN's(?)
ICU staff reduction(?)
ICU heart incentive
bonuses(?)
(?)=Just a thought.
My husband says who gives a d--n about the gunshot victim, but in this city it could be anyone walking downj the street!
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