Image, retention challenge hospital

More than half of county residents seek health care outside of county, report says

The report, conducted by Dimensions Healthcare — which currently manages the financially strapped group of hospitals in Laurel, Cheverly and Bowie — was presented Friday to the committee charged with finding a purchaser for the system. The report was intended to identify and outline the financial, personnel and logistical issues that the new owner must be equipped to address.

"We're experiencing problems with medical staff aging, retiring or choosing to leave the field," said Dunlop Ecker, president and CEO of Dimensions. "It's becoming a major concern. If we don't have a lot of physicians, we're going to have a lot of sick people."

Ecker told the Hospital Authority, a seven-member group appointed in May to seek out and review bids on the hospital system, that 41 percent of the physicians in the county-owned hospital system are over the age of 50. He said the buyer must be able to provide capital for an influx of younger doctors.

The authority has until January to find a buyer for the hospital system, which currently loses approximately $12 million a year due to a large number of uninsured patients.

"This is a real issue, and we need to find a sustainable source of funding," Ecker said.

Ecker suggested academic partnerships and outsourcing as ways to offset the cost of medical staff.

In his presentation, Ecker said that 53 percent of county residents travel to other jurisdictions for health care.

According to Dimensions' report, 17 percent of Prince George's residents go to Montgomery County, 29 percent go to Washington, D.C., and 7 percent go elsewhere in Maryland for medical treatment.

"With an infusion of capital, we can compete with these other facilities," he said.

The members of the authority's financial and business matters subcommittee, Thomas Himler and Karen Johnson-Shaheed, have yet to identify how much funding the new owner must be able to provide.

"We're looking at it from a business model," Himler said. "We're going to have another work group meeting to get a little more information. It's a lot of information to get a hold of."

Within the next week, authority members Donald Wilson and Joseph Wright are expected to release a list of 20 additional attributes they feel the new owner must possess.

State Sen. Ulysses Currie, who attended the meeting, said he is confident in the authority's ability to turn the hospital system into a revenue generator.

"I'm just tremendously impressed with what I see and feel," said Currie (D-Dist. 25) of Forestville. "I see this hospital system as the No. 1 economic engine in Prince George's County. I believe this hospital can carry Prince George's County economically. I see a team that can bring us through to the other side."

E-mail Jonah Schuman at jschuman@gazette.net.