Dealing With Financial Challenges

America’s hospitals are going through a difficult time due to workforce shortages and the lingering effects of the pandemic. Every day, we hear of another healthcare company declaring huge financial losses. Kaiser Permanente posted a $1.3 billion loss in the second quarter of this year.

GBMC is not immune to the forces in the healthcare market. Happily, we have been governed and managed well over the decades, so we have financial resources to help us weather the storm. However, our teams are working together to reduce waste and serve more patients to bring us back to a stronger financial position. 

I know that many of our colleagues are nervous, so it did not surprise me that at a recent GBMC Town Hall, I was asked a question about how we were going to get back in the black. The truth is that we are studying every expense to see if it is really required to deliver better health and better care to those we are serving. Is there a vendor who could provide the same quality of service as a vendor who is charging us more? Is there a manufacturer who could give us the same or better-quality supplies at a lower cost? We should be eliminating this waste every day to make our care more cost-effective and move toward our vision, independent of our immediate financial situation. We are working to hire clinical staff, so we can eliminate the exorbitant costs of premium labor when we use external agency staff. 

As people leave non-clinical positions, we are assessing that position. We are trying as hard as we can to protect people’s jobs. 

On the revenue side, as an example, we are trying to get people to use our joint venture with Advanced Radiology imaging center in Physicians Pavilion East, rather than choosing other imaging sites. 

We are studying further mergers and acquisitions like Gilchrist’s recent joint venture with Luminis Health Care, which is expanding access to important palliative medicine and hospice services to Anne Arundel and Prince George’s County. It will also help Gilchrist recover from challenges caused by the pandemic, such as the increased COVID-19-related mortality rate in frail elders, which resulted in fewer people utilizing end-of-life services. We have no intention of merging with a large hospital company as all hospital companies are dealing with the same need to cut costs as we are. 

So, let me thank all my colleagues for your hard work and your ideas. We will get through this together as we make the GBMC HealthCare system even better and continue to move toward our vision of being the community-based true system of care that is capable of providing every patient, every time the care that we would want for our own loved ones. 

Taking it all in
Last week, I joined other members of GBMC leadership for a walk-through of the Louis and Phyllis Friedman Building. It was great to see how far we have come since our groundbreaking ceremony approximately 13 months ago. 

Here are a couple of photos from our walk last week that show our progress. I would also like to mention that the "topping off"—or placement of the last beam—will take place next month and that the entire exterior of the structure is expected to be enclosed by the end of the calendar year. These steps will then allow us to start working on the interior of the building and ultimately to install the furniture and equipment. 

I want to thank Stacey McGreevy, Executive Vice President of Hospital Operations; and Russ Sadler, Director of Facility Planning, Design, and Construction; for their oversight of the construction and for all their work in getting us to the point of welcoming our first patient in the new space in the Fall of 2023. 

Survey Says… 

Please complete our annual Employee Engagement Survey.  The survey is open through Friday, October 7 and can be accessed by clicking here and entering your employee ID number. You can also complete the survey via the link you received in the email sent to you by Gallup, our survey vendor. The email from Gallup included a link unique to you that doesn’t require you to enter an employee ID. 

The survey is completely CONFIDENTIAL. We use a third-party vendor to ensure confidentiality. The vendor collects the data and provides it to departments as aggregated scores. Your individual responses to the questions will not be shared! If you do, however, choose to include additional comments, these will be shared with your manager, but your name will not be given. 

Please complete the survey so that we can learn what we can do to make the GBMC HealthCare System an even better place to work. Thanks!

Thank you! 

I am pleased to announce that GBMC was recently recognized by the readers of The Daily Record as the Best Hospital in Maryland. I want to thank their readers for voting for us and recognizing the excellence of our staff. 

Happy New Year!
The Jewish community is celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It is a holiday at the “head of the year” that comes at the close of the harvest when those of the Jewish faith focus on repentance. L’Shana Tovah!