I looked this project up, and found two websites for the new medical center, dubbed the Middle Park Medical Center. The Middle Park Medical Center website offers this little nugget in a question and answer:
Q: Aren't two ER's too many for Granby?
A: St. Anthony's Granby Medical Center has an Emergency Department nearby the future Middle Park Medical Center. The Middle Park Medical Center will have an Urgent Care Center which is being built to Emergency Department standards.
How many ways are there to answer a question with a non-answer? It's urgent care built to emergency room standards, so technically, yes, its an ER... Uhhh, maybe I'm missing something here? Answer: no.
It also looks as though Kremmling Memorial made an attempt to partake in social networking by creating a blog dedicated to the Middle Park Medical Center. Hey, as long as you have a blog, a Facebook page and a YouTube channel with your company name, you'll win. Excuse me while a chuckle for a few seconds.
I looked through the blog a bit, and came upon a page dedicated to trying to convince citizens of Kremmling that they won't lose their hospital to this new center with an 'urgent care' ER. Have you checked the demographics of Grand County lately? Of course they plan to close the hospital. All you have to do is go back to the MPMC website for their admission:
Q: What will happen to the hospital in Kremmling?
A: The hospital in Kremmling will remain in Kremmling. In 2006 several acres of land where purchased in order to one day build the replacement hospital just outside of Kremmling across the highway from the airport. A potential use of the current hospital might be a nursing home.(Kremmling Website)
Translation: In 2006, we bought some land to one day maybe build a replacement hospital 'just' outside Kremmling across the highway from the (Granby) airport. Once the new medical center, dubbed Middle Park Medical Center is built, we'll turn the hospital into a nursing home. Answer: It will be turned into a nursing home.
Thanks for at least telling the truth, even if it did take a bit of reading between the lines to see it.
By now, you should know how I feel about online polls, but they actually refer to a poll in the Sky Hi news:
"Although a recent poll from Sky Hi Daily News shows that the vast majority of responders believe the proposed Middle Park Medical Center Project by Kremmling Memorial Hospital is needed and a good idea."(MPMC Blog)
Let me guess, the 'vast majority of responders' were one person clearing the cache on their computer and voting to get the desired result? I've watched it happen on the SkyHi website as well as my own.
The best part of the whole blog though? Their justification for using Neenan. Under a headline that reads, "Why Neenan," we get this:
"Further confidence in Neenan came from their experience in the county with the school projects they had been involved with."(MPMC Blog)
I am still looking into this, but I'm pretty sure that the school projects had millions of dollars of cost overruns. This is exactly the kind of company I'd want on my project! Go Neenan!
Do you have information that could help me connect the dots? Please e-mail or leave an anonymous tip!
A: St. Anthony's Granby Medical Center has an Emergency Department nearby the future Middle Park Medical Center. The Middle Park Medical Center will have an Urgent Care Center which is being built to Emergency Department standards.
How many ways are there to answer a question with a non-answer? It's urgent care built to emergency room standards, so technically, yes, its an ER... Uhhh, maybe I'm missing something here? Answer: no.
It also looks as though Kremmling Memorial made an attempt to partake in social networking by creating a blog dedicated to the Middle Park Medical Center. Hey, as long as you have a blog, a Facebook page and a YouTube channel with your company name, you'll win. Excuse me while a chuckle for a few seconds.
I looked through the blog a bit, and came upon a page dedicated to trying to convince citizens of Kremmling that they won't lose their hospital to this new center with an 'urgent care' ER. Have you checked the demographics of Grand County lately? Of course they plan to close the hospital. All you have to do is go back to the MPMC website for their admission:
Q: What will happen to the hospital in Kremmling?
A: The hospital in Kremmling will remain in Kremmling. In 2006 several acres of land where purchased in order to one day build the replacement hospital just outside of Kremmling across the highway from the airport. A potential use of the current hospital might be a nursing home.(Kremmling Website)
Translation: In 2006, we bought some land to one day maybe build a replacement hospital 'just' outside Kremmling across the highway from the (Granby) airport. Once the new medical center, dubbed Middle Park Medical Center is built, we'll turn the hospital into a nursing home. Answer: It will be turned into a nursing home.
Thanks for at least telling the truth, even if it did take a bit of reading between the lines to see it.
By now, you should know how I feel about online polls, but they actually refer to a poll in the Sky Hi news:
"Although a recent poll from Sky Hi Daily News shows that the vast majority of responders believe the proposed Middle Park Medical Center Project by Kremmling Memorial Hospital is needed and a good idea."(MPMC Blog)
Let me guess, the 'vast majority of responders' were one person clearing the cache on their computer and voting to get the desired result? I've watched it happen on the SkyHi website as well as my own.
The best part of the whole blog though? Their justification for using Neenan. Under a headline that reads, "Why Neenan," we get this:
"Further confidence in Neenan came from their experience in the county with the school projects they had been involved with."(MPMC Blog)
I am still looking into this, but I'm pretty sure that the school projects had millions of dollars of cost overruns. This is exactly the kind of company I'd want on my project! Go Neenan!
Do you have information that could help me connect the dots? Please e-mail or leave an anonymous tip!
Reggie,
ReplyDeleteWe always appreciate it when we get our name out there and people are talking about our project in Granby, regardless of whether it be through traditional print media, radio, or blogs such as yours. You raise some very valid questions and I would love to be able to try to answer some of them for you.
The first, are two ERs to much for one town the size of Granby? Interestingly enough we are actually looking at four ERs for the whole county if you count Kremmling Hospital's and the one up at Winter Park (Seven Mile currently run by Denver Health). I would agree with you that two in the town of Granby is overkill and both Centura and KMHD would be duplicating services. Fortunately we are currently in discussions with Centura Health on how to best structure healthcare so as not to duplicate services. How this will all shake out should be determined within the next couple months. We ultimately want to bring more services to the county and provide it in a cost effective manner so it is both sustainable and high quality.
Second, you ask what will happen to the Kremmling Hospital? Our strategy for expanding services to the Eastern side of the county was to provide sustainability to the whole county. We know that healthcare is changing and if we don't change with it we will be out of business. We believe that operations on the Eastern side of the county will help the organization improve our financial position, which would allow us to build a new facility in Kremmling. The building that we are operating out of in Kremmling is 40 years old (parts older than 60 years)and we can't continue to provide state of the art care out of a building that old.
As you know it is extremely difficult in this day and age to secure financing sufficient to build a new hospital. The business plan we took to the bond market really required that our first phase of expansion and capital replacement take place where there was a more sizeable population. Unfortunately there just aren't enough people in Kremmling to entice investors to purchase 20 million in bonds to fund such a building in Kremmling today. We believe though that as our financial position improves we will be able to go back out to the bond markets and secure new debt for a new facility (ER, Radiology, Lab, Clinic, etc) here in Kremmling.
Also, since the hospital is organized as a Special District we have to continue to operate a hospital in Kremmling as that is what our Service Plan as a Special District requires if we want to continue providing healthcare services in Grand County. Additionally, our license with the federal government and the State require that we have ER, radiology, lab, and patient beds. Unless we attempt major changes (including a complete corporate restructuring with voter approval) healthcare will continue to be provided at Kremmling Hospital for years to come.
If you have any additional questions you can feel free to contact me at your convenience at 970-724-3130. Thanks for all of your interest and your commitment to facilitate discussion on this topic, we appreciate it.
Best regards,
Cole White, CFO
Kremmling Memorial Hospital
I usually like your posts, but this one seems a bit premature. There is an airport in Kremmling, noone is trying to dupe anyone. Kremmling Memorial hospital already has a clinic in Granby- called Timberline. The new "hospital" in Granby will be a surgery center and an ER. We don't really have an ER in Granby...We really need something more than a stop before Denver- which is all Granby Med is... it's a place you stop before they send you to Denver- even for the smallest of things. If we need an ER we drive right past Granby Med all the way to Kremmling- it's not bad, but Granby is in the center of the county... it's the hub. This new "hospital" will not keep people more than 23 hours, the one in Kremmling will remain an actual hospital. I'm just disappointed they didn't go one step further and make this new place an actual hospital that delivers babies.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous... I'm going to respond to Mr. White in a separate post, but I want to address a couple of your points first.
ReplyDeleteMr. White, in his post above, essentially admitted to the factors I outlined in my original post. The current Kremmling hospital is pretty much only sustainable because of being taxpayer-funded. The demographics of the county do support a Granby-based hospital, but the special district of the Kremmling hospital will not allow for it.
I'm going to dive into the math more thoroughly, but I think you'll see that Mr. White should have taken his own advice before moving forward with this project:
"Unless we attempt major changes (including a complete corporate restructuring with voter approval) healthcare will continue to be provided at Kremmling Hospital for years to come."
This will prove, I believe, to have been a major mistake for the KMHD. If you look at the operating requirements of the new facility, they dwarf the current Kremmling plant. In fact, Kremmling was just awarded a $60,000 dollar grant to improve its pediatric facility. Why would they need a grant if they have the money?
You can't make a square peg fit into a round hole without damaging both pieces. This is one of those instances.