Lincoln County Healthcare has agreed to postpone the closure of the emergency department at St. Andrew’s Hospital until Oct. 1, 2013, according to Jim Donovan.
The move follows a Dec. 3 meeting between Lincoln County Healthcare officials and members of the St. Andrews Task Force.
Donovan, president of Lincoln County Healthcare, St. Andrew’s Hospital, and Miles Memorial Hospital, spoke about the issue Dec. 4 and 5.
“It’s about their need to plan properly for ambulance service,” Donovan said. “It wasn’t intentional, but the town’s fiscal year is a June 30 fiscal year end, so when we announced our change it was going to be effective in April; they already had a budget in place that accommodated the time period through the end of June.
“So, they had a quarter of a fiscal year where the change would be effective, but they weren’t able to change their budget,” Donovan said.
The delay pushes the emergency department closure into the next fiscal year, so the town can then budget appropriately for the change, Donovan said.
“The major reason our board made the decision to change the date, is because [the St. Andrews Task Force] asked us to … and we thought they had some good reasons,” Donovan said.
In addition to the budgeting concern, the Task Force wants “time to finish their engagement” with consulting firm iVantage and share the results with Lincoln County Healthcare, Donovan said.
Though the door hasn’t slammed fully shut, the closure of the emergency department at St. Andrews is “not really up for discussion as this point,” Donovan said. “That has to be considered a very, very likely scenario.”
“What the Task Force asked us to do is to keep an open mind about the information iVantage may produce, and we will do that,” he said.
“It comes down to the volume of patients that we see being so small that there are better ways to take care of those patients after hours,” Donovan said.
Once the emergency department closes, an urgent care center will operate in its place, Donovan said. The urgent care center will operate with a 12-hour day in the summer months and either a 10- or 8-hour day in “non-summer months,” he said.
“We feel that level of service, that kind of service, will more effectively meet the needs of the Boothbay region than what we’re doing now, both from a quality standpoint and a cost standpoint,” Donovan said. “An urgent care center is less expensive and prices will be considerably less” than a 24/7 emergency department, he said.
“Back in August we had offered to the Task Force and have given them all the data used in our decision-making process including reports and PowerPoint presentations from our consultants,” including five or six years worth of audited financial data, Donovan said. “We’ve tried to be very transparent, starting back in August.”
Task Force members were “energized” after the Dec. 3 meeting with Lincoln County Healthcare, said Stuart Smith, a member of the St. Andrew’s Task Force and a member of the Edgecomb Board of Selectmen, in a phone conversation on that date.
“We’re going to finish up our study through iVantage… and that’ll be part of our talking points when we meet with Lincoln County Healthcare,” Smith said. “Even with the six month extension, it still doesn’t give us a lot of time.”
iVantage is “looking at the viability of a hospital in the region. They’re looking at a lot of different data points and seeing if it’s viable, and if it is viable, how can it be viable,” Smith said on Dec. 5.
Should a hospital not be found viable, iVantage will provide some alternative options to suit the healthcare needs of the region, he said.
“LCHC and MaineHealth agreeing to extend the change in mission from April to October and to work with the Task Force intimately in the changes to healthcare in this region is a significant and positive event,” Smith wrote in an email on Dec 4.
“It signals willingness to help our communities to digest the issues and serve our constituents with the best possible outcome in a difficult time. I hope the efforts can continue moving forward,” he said.
