Consultants are scheduled to reveal the results of a months-long study of OCH Regional Medical Center next week, and the report is expected to recommend whether supervisors should keep the publicly owned medical facility or explore outside partnerships, a lease or an outright sale of the hospital.
Late last week, both supervisors and consultant Ted Woodrell said they had not seen the Tennessee-based firm Stroudwater’s results, as both the board and public will learn of its results Monday.
District 2 Supervisor Orlando Trainer said the board could first go over the study’s results at its regularly scheduled 9 a.m. meeting in the courthouse, but supervisors are expected to go behind closed doors to hear the report.
The board is expected to recess from its morning meeting and go back into public session at 1 p.m., when Stroudwater will present its findings to the public.
Limited copies of the report will be on-hand at the end of the meeting, but officials are also expected to post a digital version to the county’s website later in the day.
“We’re looking forward to getting the information, having people digest it and moving forward,” Trainer said. “This information is going to be very important and critical, and things will be what they are. I don’t know what recommendation is right now, but I know it will all be good information for the citizens of this county, regardless of what their stance is with the hospital.”
Supervisors hired Stroudwater in August to conduct the report, which will focus on addressing facility in-patient needs, reviewing the market for services, listing the hospital’s strengths relative to competition and analyzing OCH’s options for service mixture and pricing.
A recommendation to sell or lease the facility would also bring with it a report on how much revenue could be generated from such transactions.
Woodrell, whom the board hired to help select a firm to study the hospital, said Stroudwater reviewed a large collection of hospital financials and interviewed stakeholders, both internal and external.
“To my knowledge, the hospital’s administration and staff cooperated throughout the entire process and provided all the required data in a timely basis,” he said. “There were no issues with any of the process, or at least none were brought to my attention.”
Ahead of Monday’s meeting, a group of OCH physicians published a resolution asking supervisors to stop the analysis — the first step mandated by law before a governing body can move toward a hospital transaction — claiming a sale or lease could be detrimental to health care services.
Although it is unknown if the report will suggest a transaction at this time, Trainer said it was pointless to speculate about job loss since the county could mandate a purchasing company maintain staffing levels.
“One thing that people don’t have to worry about: People think we’ll lose hospital services [if a transaction occurs], but that won’t happen because of this market’s activities and needs. We’ll always have a facility here, whether it’s county owned or not,” he said. “The hospital hires and fires all the time right now, and nobody’s job is set in stone because they have the privilege of conducting their own business. People shouldn’t jump the gun and worry about things prematurely.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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