First, I want to personally thank all of you who came to the 4/30 Board Meeting. Your presence, your comments, and your encouraging words of support made a huge difference. On May 28th the Board will finally have to address our request to study the issue. You must come to the 5/28 Board of Directors’ meeting. The Board needs to hear your opinions.

At the risk of being redundant, the question before the Board on 5/28 is not what form of governance to choose. We are asking the Board to do the following:

• Form a task force made up of Tri-City stakeholders including nurses, hospital employees, physicians, Board members, and the community.
• Direct the task force to study the advantages and disadvantages of the various models of hospital governance, including the current model, and report their findings and recommendations back to the Board and public within 60 days.

For some, that 60 days may seem too short and for others too long, but with a tight agenda, an aggressive meeting schedule, a committed group of stakeholders, and proper financial support, it can be done. This “self-evaluation” is a healthy process, and critical for Tri-City’s future. We face an enormous risk if the Board chooses to forego this opportunity to take a hard, self-critical look at how Tri-City is governed. .The North Coastal community deserves an honest assessment of the healthcare system they rely on for themselves and their families. We need informed decisions and action, not talk and posturing, and we need to move now, not at some “future date”.

Keep in mind that this endeavor we are proposing will be a long-term process with the 5/28 Board meeting being just one in a series of crucial dates. It has taken Tri-City years to sink to this point, and it will require time, work and commitment from all the stakeholders to extract ourselves from this dysfunctional condition. Since the 12/18/2008 announcement of the Board’s forensic investigation, the Medical Staff has had its representatives privately meet with two interim CEO’s and twice with the Board of Directors in attempts to quietly move this process along to a resolution that would restore the public’s confidence in the District and its hospital. The Board’s requests for more response time were quietly granted by the Medical Staff, but promises to wrap it up were not kept.

Finally, after the Medical Staff’s quiet Boardroom diplomacy had failed, we were compelled to bring our request to the public forum of an open Board meeting. In the weeks preceding the Board meeting, representatives of the Medical Staff have held a series of outreach meetings with elected officials, community members, business organizations, nurses and hospital employees.

The response from almost every sector has been extremely encouraging, as borne out by the standing-room only crowd that attended the April 30 Board meeting and the many comments in support of our request. We are very appreciative of Board member Schallock for his motion in support of our request. Unfortunately, the issue was tabled and will be taken up again on May 28. Please don’t miss this important meeting.

We all know that TCMC faces many challenges: bond refinancing, a pending JC survey, loss of an effective administrative team, and patient volume disruptions. But the Medical Staff has every confidence that together we can overcome these challenges as long as the stakeholders can communicate and cooperate collaboratively with each other, with our patients, and with the community. The Medical Staff recognizes its role in each of these challenges and we will continue to make ourselves available to work with the administration, the Board, and the community to preserve the future of Tri-City Hospital.

I hope to see you at the May 28 Board Meeting.