FARMINGTON – The Board of Trustees of the Franklin Community Health Network approved unifying its financial and governing structure with MaineHealth Tuesday, a proposal that, if finalized, would result in a single entity leading FCHN and nine other organizations.
The proposal needs to be approved by the other nine organizations and MaineHealth, all of which will conduct a due diligence review into unification. Assuming no issues arise out of that process, FCHN and the other participating healthcare systems would be governed by a single Board of Trustees beginning in January 2019.
The MaineHealth Board of Trustees would be the organization’s governing authority, overseeing the financial structure and be the employer for approximately 18,000 personnel. The local board would continue to have a role in formulating budgets and strategic plans for FCHN, which operates Franklin Memorial Hospital and a number of local health services.
“This decision gives us an opportunity to fully leverage the scale and expertise of MaineHealth,” said Clint Boothby, chair of the FCHN board said in a statement released Wednesday. “At the same time, this proposal leaves in place a strong local board that will oversee the care we provide here in our community.”
The new system would allow all 10 organizations to operate within a single financial structure. Supporters of the proposal have argued that a single structure would allow resources to flow more easily through the system. Currently, larger facilities such as Maine Medical Center in Portland have seen a significant growth in profits over the past few years, while small, rural hospitals have operated at a loss. One significant reason is that many patients requiring more complex and more profitable procedures are migrating to larger facilities that can offer specialized service providers. At a meeting on unification in June, hospital administrators said that while Maine’s 36 hospitals had showed a combined profit of $29 million over the previous year, if one removed the two largest facilities from that list – Maine Medical Center and Eastern Maine Medical Center – the remaining 34 hospitals showed a $50 million loss.
FCHN originally joined MaineHealth in December 2013 in an effort to deliver better care while controlling costs; that decision came on the heels of a September 2013 announcement that the organization had operated at a $7.2 million loss over the course of the previous fiscal year. Over the past year or so, FCHN began discussing further combining efforts with other MaineHealth organizations.
In a statement about the decision released Wednesday, FCHN leadership indicated that “extensive discussion” had focused on the impact of less local control.
“We had a number of concerns that had to be addressed before we were willing to adopt this change,” said Boothby. “We wanted to make sure the system board couldn’t take away services arbitrarily, and we wanted to know that, as a small hospital that is part of a larger system, we would continue to have a voice.”
In addition to the continued utilization of the local board of trustees, the unification proposal would guarantee FCHN a representative on the statewide board for the first five years. After that point, representation from every member organization would not be guaranteed, although there is a stated commitment to maintaining “geographical diversity.”
Previously, MaineHealth leadership had indicated it had no plans to change the local identities of organizations such as FMH or NorthStar EMS.
“In the end, our board concluded that MaineHealth has been good partner since we joined the system three years ago,” said Boothby. “Joining with the other members gives us an opportunity to provide great care here in our community in partnership with an excellent healthcare system.”
So much for our own hospital. Procedures or operations which could be done closer at Lewiston or Augusta will be transfered to Portland, making travel more difficult for patients or family, unless the patients say no. To bad with large salaries for CEO and multiple vice presidents at these rural hospitals that they loose their ability stay independent, change is not always good for all.
Maybe, just maybe FMH will now have a direction and some fiscal
responsibility. Local control has run the hospital into the ground.
Layer upon layer of over paid management. Look at what the management structure was five years ago and what it is now. Last president of hospital retires, and then immediately begins working for guess who?
The days of the provincial, self protecting, moral crushing days have come to an end.