Hospital report deserves a critical look 

Waterbury Roundtable

When I was a high school math teacher my students were regularly tested on their skills and problem-solving ability. The tests did a decent job of measuring what they were designed to measure and provided useful feedback. 



This was good, as basic mathematical literacy is vital in our modern world. Mathematical reasoning and skills, however, are relatively easy to assess compared to most of the other aspects of learning that we expect our schools to provide. Some are so hard to measure that we don’t even try. Of course, that doesn't mean that those qualities don't matter. Indeed, they can be critically important. When we focus just on what we can easily test, it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. In many schools across the country art, music, PE, and recess were cut. It was a disaster.

I fear we may be doing something similar with rural hospitals. The Green Mountain Care Board recently received a report that analyzed the costs of hospital care in Vermont. This study recommends a number of changes to the services offered by four small, community hospitals.

Some of these recommendations are quite drastic. Gifford Medical Center, located in my town of Randolph, is one of those hospitals. Some of the proposed changes to its operations would have large, negative effects that would ripple out far beyond the institution. It is not enough to measure a hospital simply by how efficient and cost-effective it is in delivering care. There are many individual patient, local community, and regional benefits that would be lost with the elimination of the services suggested.

When we do examine these relatively easy-to-calculate financial measures, however, we should make sure we get it right.

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