Saturday, August 11, 2007

Newport Hospital & Proposed Merger

**More Update - Andrew Martin's "Newport This Week" with info on the hospital response (joyous, I might add)

**Update - I corrected the article thanks to Jim McCaid of Hard Deadlines. Evidently the heat & humidity affected my reading ability. Thanks, Jim!

"The two hospital groups in Rhode Island, Lifespan and Care New England, have agreed once again to merge, proposing to create a seven-hospital conglomerate that would control two-thirds of hospital services in the state and establish an academic medical center at Rhode Island Hospital." Newport Hospital would be part of this.

The Providence Phoenix has another take on this (archived feature article). What it does see happening is little proof of cost savings & HUGE salaries going to CEO'S & other administration. This system is supposed to streamline testing & results to member hospitials.

"Rhode Island's top health-care execs, whose compensation has soared in recent years, are among the prime beneficiaries of the hospital consolidation trend of the '90s."

Thanks to Projo Medical writer Felice J. Freyer f& Prov. Phoenix Steven Stycos for much of the source info.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Eileen...
Maybe I'm reading the ProJo wrong, but they seem to say Newport is in:

"The new group would encompass the Lifespan hospitals — Rhode Island Hospital, the state’s biggest, and Miriam Hospital, both in Providence; Bradley Hospital, a children’s psychiatric hospital in East Providence, and Newport Hospital..."

In addition, I got a letter from Newport CEO Arthur Sampson today which says, in part, "We anticipate a bright future for Newport Hospital as a result of this merger, which allows our hospital to be part of a comprehensive and high-quality health care system."

If there's something else going on that I'm missing, I would share your concern.

Cheers.
-john

Anonymous said...

Duh, just seeing if you were paying attention.

Thanks for the correction!

I plead heatstroke.