Health Care Plans

UMass Memorial Health Care Plans To Acquire Harrington Hospital

UMass Memorial Health Care is poised to obtain another Central Massachusetts hospital, as members of the Harrington HealthCare System voted Tuesday night to support entering into a letter of intent with UMass Memorial to pursue an acquisition agreement, officials said Wednesday.

Harrington formed a 10-member Strategic Executive Committee during 2018 to evaluate long-term options to maintain the Southbridge hospital. Priorities for the committee were quality affordable care, health of the community, financial viability, investments in infrastructure and continued employment, according to a news release.

“There are significantly fewer independent hospitals in the Commonwealth, and the country, compared to 20 and 30 years ago,” said Harrington President and CEO Ed Moore. “We are in a fortunate position in that we are a strong organization with an outstanding medical staff, talented employees and great community support; we wanted to take the reins to shape our own future.”

UMass Memorial Health Care is the largest employer in Central Massachusetts. The Medical Center is the region’s only Level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center, Level 3 NICU and certified stroke center.

Harrington is a regional healthcare system that serves more than 25 communities across south Central Massachusetts and northeastern Connecticut. The system includes the hospital in Southbridge, Harrington HealthCare at Webster and three medical office buildings.

“The UMMHC mission and vision strongly mirrors that of Harrington’s. Their geographic location is an obvious match for our current footprint; their advanced technology would be an asset to our infrastructure; and the investments they can offer will provide our community a stable, long-term plan for keeping healthcare local to south central Massachusetts and northeastern Connecticut,” Moore said. “We want our patients, their family members and the more than 200,000 individuals we care for to know how invested we are in protecting their access to high quality, affordable healthcare.”

Some benefits of the agreement between the systems could include capital support for routine and strategic capital needs and for technology and infrastructure upgrades; commitments to retain critical services in an affordable setting; and commitment to be a positive employer in the local market. UMass Memorial does not expect changes to the Harrington HealthCare system status quo in the near future, according to the news release.

If accepted, Harrington will become a member hospital within UMass Memorial Health Care, joining UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton, UMass Memorial Marlborough Hospital and UMass Memorial Medical Center. Final approval is expected to take six to nine months, according to the news release.

“This proposed strategic partnership recognizes the enormous potential to expand and strengthen the care for patients in our region,” said Dr. Eric Dickson, the president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health Care. “Harrington Healthcare is not a stranger - we have worked with them on several levels over the course of the past two decades. This proposed stronger relationship is possible because both organizations recognize that to better serve patient needs now and, in the future, hospital organizations have to work in closer collaboration."

In 2017, Harrington Hospital voted to close its birthing center and send patients to the maternity center on the memorial campus of UMass Memorial Medical Center.

UMass Memorial Medical Center has been operating in the red for a few years. In 2018, UMass Memorial Health Care ended the year with a $28 million loss, its first operating loss in five years. Last year, the system reduced its loss to $10 million, thanks in part to the sale of a management and consulting specialty pharmacy company that brought $208 million into the system’s finances.

Tuesday night’s vote does not impact patient care services currently offered in the Harrington system, according to the news release.

“This is just the first step in the process,” assures Harrington President and CEO Ed Moore. “We want our patients to know that services remain open and accessible, now and in the future.”

The agreement would allow Harrington HealthCare System and Harrington Memorial Hospital to maintain local community boards with reserved powers held by a UMass Memorial subsidiary, which will become the sole member of HHCS, according to the news release.

Additionally, the HHCS board will have representation on both the parent and community hospital boards of UMass Memorial.

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'Scares The Living Devil Out Of People': Biden Lays Into Sanders Healthcare Plan

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered some of his most detailed criticism of Sen. Bernie Sanders's "Medicare for all" healthcare plan at a town hall in eastern Iowa.

"I believe that healthcare is on the ballot. Obamacare is on the ballot," Biden said Monday to a crowd of roughly 200 at the University of Northern Iowa. Biden served under President Barack Obama for eight years and is a vocal advocate and defender of the administration's signature domestic achievement.

Without mentioning Sanders, 78, by name, Biden, 77, lit into the 'Medicare for all' concept, which would effectively abolish private health insurance in favor of a government-run program.

[ Related: 'A flat lie': Biden and Bernie Sanders fight over Social Security]

"As one of the leaders of the 'Medicare for all' effort said, 'I don't know how much it's going to cost, but we have to do it,'" said Biden, a Delaware senator for 36 years. "Others out there propose they’re going to spend $60 trillion over the next 10 years, more than doubling all the federal spending, with an explanation that they'll tell you how they’re going to pay for it later. I think it scares the living devil out of people."

Biden also said "Medicare for all" would take too long to give Americans proper access to healthcare.

"It's going to take at least four years to get it passed, and after that, we have to have a structure. It might take as much as 10 years to actually make it work," Biden said. "Well there’s that old saying, 'Well, in the long term we’ll all be dead,'" Biden said.

Study: Strategic Plan Needed To Lower Healthcare Costs

INDIANAPOLIS (Inside INdiana Business) — A new report from the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI aims to help Indiana leaders develop a strategic plan to lower healthcare costs. The school says the report, “Addressing Factors that Affect Health Care Costs: Recommendations for Indiana Stakeholders,” details more than a dozen factors that contribute to rising costs. Nir Menachemi, one of the authors of the report, says creating a strategic plan will require an all-hands-on-deck approach where all stakeholders work together.

Menachemi, chair of the school’s Department of Health and Policy Management, tells Inside INdiana Business the goal was to create a level playing field of information to advance the discussion about costs of care and population health in Indiana.

“There’s been a lot of healthy conversation and healthy public discourse about the issue of overall costs and to some degree, one of the observations I was making was that different stakeholder groups were implicating other stakeholder groups as responsible entities and while I personally believe everything I heard was generally correct, there was a lot of cherry picking of which data points or which bits of information were shared as implicating and we wanted to sort of do a more comprehensive study that says, ‘Here’s everything that there is to know about this issue’ to maybe advance the dialogue and make it a little bit clearer to any entity to participate in the discussion,” said Menachemi.

The report provides a characterization of the healthcare context in Indiana, as well as a list of 16 factors that affect the overall costs of care and/or population health outcomes. Those factors include provider and payer concentration, public health activities, and consumer-facing price and quality transparency tools.

The report then provides recommendations for stakeholder action based on conclusions from the first two sections. Paul Halverson, founding dean of the Fairbanks School of Public Health and co-author of the report, says he was particularly surprised by the report’s findings.

“The reality is that Indiana has poor health; the health status of the population, we as the state of Indiana have people that are sicker than other states. The general health status is poor; in fact, we’re ranked 41st out of 50 states for our overall health status,” said Halverson. “So the idea that we would have higher health costs is not really surprising because it’s always cheaper to keep people healthy than it is to fix them once they have a disease.”

Halverson says the report shows the state needs to increase investments in public health. He says they wanted to provide evidence for policymakers so, as they consider alternatives to address public health, they will have evidence to support their decisions and they would consider initiatives that have been successful in other areas.

However, Menachemi adds there isn’t one “cure all” solution.

“Any one idea, whether it’s good or otherwise, is unlikely to solve the problem,” said Menachemi. “The problem, I think based on our work, will only be solved when a portfolio of ideas are implemented together, bringing folks together each owning their piece of the problem and working together to fix it.”

You can connect to the full report by clicking here.