Grace Cottage Hospital blasts report's 'Ill-conceived ideas'
When the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) released a report on Sept. 18 that listed Grace Cottage Hospital (GCH) as one of four hospitals financially "at-risk" and in need of "major restructuring," it came as a surprise to Chief Executive Officer Olivia Sweetnam.
Sweetnam, who took over the leadership of Grace Cottage on July 1, said she had spoken with Bruce Hamory, a physician and partner with consultancy Oliver Wyman, which prepared a report for the GMCB that included recommendations for the future of the 19-bed hospital.
But Grace Cottage - the smallest hospital in Vermont and one of the smallest in the country - had no inkling of the final recommendations until the release of the report on Sept. 6.
Sweetnam told The Commons that the 19-bed hospital's leadership and staff were not pleased with what they heard.
"It was shocking and frustrating," she said. "These are ideas, and we would say they are ill-conceived ideas."
In Sweetnam's view, much of the data and conclusions in the report "are not well thought out" and are "incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading."