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Valley and Englewood hospitals oppose hospital reopening
(by Karen F. Mrnarevic - October 01, 2008)
While local officials and thousands of residents of the Pascack Valley and beyond have been clamoring for a full service hospital to reopen at the site of the former Pascack Valley Hospital (PVH) in Westwood, the necessity for the hospital is now being called into question by two other area hospitals, Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Valley Hospital, in Ridgewood.
The two opposing hospitals commissioned a study by Lewin Group, a Washington, D.C.-based healthcare and human services consulting firm. The study concluded that the closing of PVH in November of 2007 actually benefited
Englewood
Hospital and
Valley
Hospital “without creating undue hardship to the residents of
Bergen
County .”
“At present,” reads the report, “both hospitals have absorbed PVH volume without reaching capacity or adding additional infrastructure, improved their credit profiles and mitigated reimbursement declines by adding volume while controlling expenses.” On the other hand, “Reopening a facility where PVH stood offers no immediate benefit to the citizens of Bergen County, and runs counter to every report and indicator suggesting the need to consolidate services in the State of New Jersey.”
Englewood and Valley have gone so far as to sponsor a Web site featuring an online petition to oppose the issuance of a Certificate of Need to HUMC North at Pascack Valley, the full service, 128-bed hospital that Hackensack University Medical Center plans to open on the site. The petition asserts the following: “With
Pascack
Valley
Hospital filing for bankruptcy less than a year ago, it makes no sense to start another hospital in the same location, when high quality care and services are available at the hospitals already established in
Bergen
County . Such a plan goes against the findings of Governor Corzine’s own Commission and its report on Rationalizing Health Care Resources, which stated that too many hospital beds in
Bergen
County damage the operational effectiveness of the hospital system and threaten the quality of care for the County.”
Corzine’s commission (also called the “Reinhardt Commission”) not only concluded that “the State currently faces an oversupply of hospital beds,” but that the surplus of beds is “most pronounced in the Hackensack, Ridgewood and
Paterson … market areas. Furthermore, states the report, “while not currently in financial distress, a large number of hospitals appear headed toward distress in the next few years… absent closure of some non-essential facilities…”
The Reinhardt Commission’s report was concluded in January and did not analyze the real effects of the closing of
Pascack
Valley
Hospital on the health of the overall market. However, the Englewood-Valley study found that many of the problems summarized in the Reinhardt report were actually “self-corrected by the failure of PVH, while remaining providers have grown healthier from a financial perspective.”
But those who have put energy and time into promoting the return of a full service hospital to the
Pascack
Valley are not taking this fight lying down. Westwood Mayor John Birkner stated in a phone interview, “I am shocked that two fine facilities [Valley and Englewood] would really put profit before patient care,” paraphrasing Englewood Hospital President and CEO Douglas Duchak’s statement to The Record that HUMC was putting “profits before patients,” by reopening a hospital at the site. “I am shocked and dismayed by that,” said Birkner.
Birkner also questioned the validity of the Englewood-Valley report. “They paid somebody to write the report,” he said. “They have a report that is going to tell them what they want to hear so they can present it to the public as factual.” Furthermore, Birkner asserted, “I don’t think somebody in Washington, D.C. [Lewin Group]… understands the unique problems that the
Pascack
Valley has faced and the hardships that now face our senior population.”
He pointed out that petitions, both online and paper circulated throughout Pascack Valley and Northern Valley towns, have generated a great deal of support for the granting of HUMC North’s Certificate of Need – a total of about 7,000 signatures so far. “That’s demonstrative of the sentiment of our residents,” said Birkner. “We’ve had an overwhelming showing of support, and they [residents] have demonstrated clearly that there is a need for a facility here.”
Birkner also responded to references made by Valley and
Englewood to the Reinhardt report by asking, “How many hospitals have closed down since that report came out?” Birkner questions whether the findings of the Reinhardt report are relevant to the current situation with HUMC North. “700 beds were lost since that report came out. HUMC is only looking to put 128 beds back.”
HUMC’s President and CEO, John Ferguson, said that the decrease in beds since the issuing of the Reinhardt report has actually led to a deficit of beds in the region. According to
Ferguson , in reality, area hospitals have remarkably high occupancy rates. “We [HUMC] have the highest occupancy in the state – 92 percent. Valley has the second highest at 91 percent. Englewood is at 70-something,” said
Ferguson in phone interview. “They are extremely high. And what’s happening is that patients are being diverted all over the place. What I am saying is, there aren’t enough beds.”
While he acknowledges the influence that an impartial study like the Reinhardt report might have on people’s opinions of the necessity of a new hospital at the
Pascack
Valley site,
Ferguson , like Birkner, questions the accuracy and relevance of the findings of the Englewood-Valley report. Although he admitted, “We haven’t seen the report [because] they haven’t released it,” he suggested that the findings, as summarized on the Englewood-Valley cosponsored Web site, are merely a way for the other two hospitals to challenge a business competitor. “It reminds me of the tobacco industry when they issue reports that say tobacco doesn’t cause cancer,” he said.
Michael Pietrowicz,
Englewood
Hospital ’s vice president for planning and program development, takes exception to the suggestion that the Lewin analysis is biased in some way. “The report looked at facts,” he said in a phone interview. “It looked at the number of patients being served, looked at drive times and any issues or interruptions in care. It looked at what the financial health of our institutions was prior to the closure and after. A lot of it was hard data.” In fact, said Pietrowicz, the main reason
Englewood and Valley commissioned the study was that “The state report was for state-wide issues. We wanted that report to be specific to
Bergen
County .”
The most important thing, said Pietrowicz, is that both commissioned studies concluded the following: “Hospitals [in Bergen County] need to close to make others in that area stronger, not just financially stronger, but to… hire staff and expand services, so that they can improve the quality of care.” And indeed, after the closing of PVH, said Pietrowicz,
Englewood
Hospital did grow: “We hired 250 staff, welcomed 110 new doctors from the
Pascack
Valley area and saw an increase in volume because of what happened. We increased our capacity to eliminate diverts. We were prepared to handle the community need.” Also, he pointed out, the current occupancy of
Englewood
Hospital is actually about “50 percent occupancy based on our licensed beds.”
But regardless of Englewood and Valley’s emphatic assertion to the contrary, the way
Ferguson sees it, the opening of HUMC North can only benefit the community. He pointed out that due to HUMC’s partnership with Legacy Hospital Group, the private equity firm that has invested $80 million in the project, “The hospital will not start out with any debt,” he said. “We’re not asking for any state money. We’re not asking for any county money. We’re not asking for any federal money. We’re not asking for any city money… We’re talking about adding jobs. This is a really like a no-brainer.”
Ferguson asked, “Like any other business, what’s so bad about a little competition?” In his opinion, competition could actually mean better quality of service and lower costs for patients. “This is about what the people need, what the people want,” he said.
Pietrowicz also believes that
Englewood and Valley have the best interests of the community at heart, something that in his opinion a for-profit company like Legacy cannot promise. “People need to kind of look at this Trojan Horse and understand that profits are the motive here,” he said of the partnership between HUMC and Legacy.
“We understand the health needs of the community,” said Pietrowicz. “We – I can speak for
Englewood and Valley – support a satellite Emergency Room.” But, he reiterated, “The issue, supported in numerous studies, is that there was over-capacity in the state system, which brought all hospitals down.”
Englewood and Valley’s petition can be found at http://www.keepourhospitalshealthy.org/. The online petition in support of the reopening of HUMC North is located at http://www.petitiononline.com/HUMCPVH/petition.html.
Karen F. Mrnarevic's e-mail address is Mrnarevic@northjersey.com.
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