“We Are Not Going Anywhere!”
On September 18 the final recommendations from Oliver Wyman, the management consulting firm hired by the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) to examine Vermont’s healthcare system, were made public. Public comments showing statewide disapproval of the recommendations have been posted to social media and the GMCB website, as well as being sent to newspapers statewide. For North Country Hospital it was recommended that the emergency department be converted to an urgent care, non-physician model; that all OBGYN as well as labor and delivery services be transferred to St. Johnsbury; that certain surgeries be discontinued; and that all inpatient beds be converted to mental health, geriatric psychiatry, or memory care, among other recommendations.
North Country Hospital (NCH) CEO, Tom Frank, expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the assessment, saying that there were significant inaccuracies in the data that consultant Dr. Bruce Hamory used, which led to negative conclusions in the final recommendations about the hospital’s financial viability. That data was taken from what Frank said was NCH’s worst year due to a failed Electronic Medical Record system.
“Right from the beginning, I made it clear that there were a lot of inaccuracies in his analysis, which he acknowledged to change,” said Frank.
Frank explained that he sent multiple emails letting Hamory know that the company had not changed the numbers and had received responses back advising that the numbers would be changed. Frank said this inaccurate data is what was used to formulate what ultimately became Oliver Wyman’s official recommendations.