LGH CHAIR’S ADDRESS AND NEWSLANC COMMENTS

The following is an effort to allow Alexander Henderson III, Chairperson, of Lancaster General Health to express his views in his own words.   ‘[  ], ?, …  and …’  indicate where our information is insufficient to assure accuracy.   Occasionally interspersed are the Watchdog’s comments in UPPER CASE. We regret any errors or omissions below and welcome  corrections or elaborations.

In his Chairman’s Report, Henderson indicated that LGH has a five year strategic plan.  Hundreds of persons from throughout the community participated in the planning.  He would be discussing the following five items and then elaborated on them:

1)      Lancaster General’s charitable mission and purpose

2)      Employee excellence and rewards

3)      Patient health care choices

4)      Community involvement and transparencies

5)      Revenue, expenses and resources to invest in health care futures

Lancaster General’s primary mission is to make sure Lancaster General is here to provide first class medical care to the Lancaster community for the next 50 years just like we’ve been doing for the last century. Lancaster General Hospital serves everyone who comes in our doors whether they have insurance or the ability to pay. Having good health is like living in paradise and many of us don’t realize that until too late. LGH’s efforts are devoting to matters of life and death and for health. I think it’s the  most important job in the world.

…Lancaster General Hospital is a good citizen of Lancaster County. Community benefits program of Lancaster General was one of four national finalists out of hundreds of possible applicants [for service to the community]….

Lancaster General has a Mission Community Benefits Committee headed by the board vice chair.  The committee and the staff continuously evaluate our charitable mission and how we’re performing. And that committee includes community representatives, trustees, heads of non-profit organizations, government leaders, physicians, other health care professionals, business people and others. It’s not just trustees. [The Benefits Committee] is a spectrum of the community.

NOT QUITE.  COMMUNITY REPRESENTATIVES AND HEADS OF NON-PROFITS OFTEN ARE BENEFICIARIES OF LGH LARGESS OR EAGER TO HAVE A PRESTIGIOUS RELATIONSHIPS AND SOME INFLUENCE.   SINCE IT IS LGH THAT SELECTS THEM, THEY ARE LIKELY TO BE CONSIDERED BOTH COOPERATIVE AND COMPLIANT.

That committee sets community benefit guidelines [for the monitors our staff, reports to the board for our responsibilities for free and reduced charge care policies, real estate tax [contributions] and (?) state taxes, our corporate citizenship responsibilities and improving Lancaster County’s health in general. And there is a process and guidelines that we use and follow …

There are far more worthy health related projects than we can possibly fund. And the mission community benefit committee is run like any board level committees. It sets the direction of Lancaster General with help of the Trustees’ positions and representatives.

THE ISSUE ISN’T HOW LGH DIVIDES UP ITS CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION, IT IS HOW VERY LITTLE THEY DO CONTRIBUTE, AN AVERAGE OF ONLY 4% OF THEIR ANNUAL SURPLUS (PROFITS.)  WITHOUT THE 2008 ONE TIME GIFT TO SOUTH EAST HEALTH SERVICE, THE AVERAGE WOULD BE LESS THAN 2%.

Second, employee excellence and rewards. Lancaster General’s most important resource is our human capital which has been carefully developed over many years. The wonderful reports that everyone hears about our nurses, our special staff, our IT people; they don’t come about by accident. It’s not an accident that our people are so good. It’s been worked on both by the people and by the management for many, many years. And yes, we compensate. Lancaster General compensates positions like administrators, nurses, techs and everybody associated with patient care. ..  You mentioned specifically as to executives, as that’s an issue. We have a compensation committee. The compensation committee spends a great deal of time and effort with the use of outside consultants to set our comparative salaries and incentives …].

Specifically as to Tom Beeman- Lancaster General is a billion dollar organization. Lancaster General needs a visionary and fearless leader for the next five years with the highest level contacts to survive this health care [evolution?] and so does every other health care system. .. Tom Beeman remains a board member and he acts now as strategic advisor. I and the CEO have spent hours with Mr. Beeman on Skype talking about what’s happened at the hospital, at the high level, what’s happened in the health care marketplace and health care reform. Mr. Beeman is going to return next year and the compensation is involving a five-year contract which will ensure that. And no, he did not receive $1.2 million for the year that he is spending opening our traumatically brain injured soldiers, sailors and Marines who have come back from Afghanistan and Iraq. His compensation will probably be about half that level and the overall executive compensation will be about the same. ..

MR. HENDERSON IS A SKILLED ATTORNEY, SO HE PARSES HIS WORDS CAREFULLY AND SOMETIMES ARTFULLY.   IT WAS NOT CLEAR THAT HE WAS ACCUSING THE INTELLIGENCER JOURNAL NEW ERA OF INCORECTLY REPORTING THAT LGH INTENDED TO PAY PRESIDENT BEEMAN $1.2 MILLION DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIS NORMAL $1.3 MILLION LGH PAY AND WHAT BEEMAN WOULD RECEIVE FROM THE NAVY.  ALSO NOTE “HIS COMPENSATION WILL PROBABLY BE ABOUT HALF THAT LEVEL” WHICH SUGGESTS TO THE WATCHDOG THAT THE AMOUNT HAS NOT YET BEEN ARRANGED AND IS TO BE RESOLVED AS PART OF HIS FORTHCOMING FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT.  WAS THE $1.2 MILLION REDUCED BY HALF DUE TO PUBLIC UPROAR WITH THE PROMISE TO BEEMAN THAT THE OTHER HALF WOULD BE ADDED TO THE FORTHCOMING FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT?

Now we’ll talk about patient health care choices. As you’ve heard today, Lancaster General’s focus is on the patient. Lancaster residents have many health care choices. Locally there is [Lancaster] Regional, the Heart of Lancaster, there’s Ephrata [Community Hospital]. Regionally there’s Hershey [Medical Center], there’s Penn ?, there’s  [John] Hopkins. In my opinion Lancaster General’s the best choice for a lot of reasons but there are choices. What we don’t have as many choices are insurance companies…  And unfortunately at the moment, reducing our charges doesn’t result in their reducing their insurance premiums to their customers…

HOW WOULD HENDERSON KNOW?  WHY WOULDN’T IT?

For community involvement and transparency. Community services organizations are governed in many different ways. And there is a reason why there’s a diversity …  Lancaster General we talk about moving forward and community structure is meaning setting a direction for this organization. And that community structure involves not just us, the trustees, but community representatives and positions of [committees] in this organization. But in the committee, … it takes a long time to learn about this organization and it takes a long time to learn about the health care system. And it takes a long time to learn about the choices that we have to make every day in order to [understand], and we have a lot of people in this community willing to spend that time and [effort]. And there are other ways of doing and reeling in community involvement, but I’m really very proud of the way that we do it …

HERE WE HAVE THE CRUX OF THE LGH’S MENTALITY TOWARDS THE COMMUNITY:   UNLESS LGH HAS CHOSEN SOMEONE AND PLACED HIM OR HER ON A COMMITTEE, NO PERSON HAS THE KNOWLEDGE OR COMPETENCE TO PROVIDE ADVICE  OR CRITICISM.    LGH HAS NO OTHER OBLIGATIONS FOR TRANSPARENCY AND SHOULD DEAL WITH THE GENERAL PUBLIC AT ARMS LENGTH AND WITH SELF SERVING PROPAGANDA.

Where transparency is really coming and where patients want to see transparency is going [to] come out of as electronic records and actually on our website and a lot of comparative data about our outcomes and our patients and maybe compare with other [health services] and their outcomes and their patients. That’s where we’re moving forward, it’s part of what we’re doing and that transparency, I think, the public will find very, very valuable.

THOUGH VERY HELPFUL FOR MEDICAL PURPOSES, WHAT DOES HAVING ACCESS TO AN INDIVUALS HEALTH RECORDS HAVE TO DO WITH LGH’S CORPORATE LACK OF TRANSPARENCY?  BALDERDASH!

And finally I want to talk about our revenues, our expenses and our resources to invest in health care futures. Our primary financial mission is to be in a position for the means  to participate  …  In the short term that’s going to eliminate many providers … Lancaster General needs to transition to this new world and the government ensures that they are going to help us do that. We’re going to have to find that transformation ourselves… We need to do more than that. The board has been telling me this for some time and I’ve been on the board [something] ten years ago. Lancaster General’s excessive revenues  [then was]  about $10 million a year . Since then that number climbed and continued to climb … We’ve taken this time and this ability to add [surpluses] so we have the ability to  transform this organization for the new world.   …it’s what the community wanted us to do and I think we’re going to succeed.

This is an incredibly exciting time to be involved in the health care system and Lancaster General now has the chance to be at the very forefront of change as it transformations  We’ve got the people, we’ve got the resources and we’ve got the community to do it and I’m very proud of all of it.

IN SHORT, LGH AND ONLY LGH HAVE THE RIGHT AND ABILITIY TO DETERMINE HOW THE PUBLIC’S MONEY IN THE FORM OF VAST SURPLUSES (EARNINGS) IS TO BE SPENT.