At the Greene County Medical Center board of trustees meeting this morning, board members discussed the future of OB/GYN services after the May 9 departure of Dr. David Jaskey, OB/GYN provider for the past 6 years.
The board took over 90 minutes reviewing financial reports and OB/GYN trending market data and discussed the importance of providing quality care that is accessible and cost effective to all of those served at the medical center. Ultimately they determined two things: 1) the medical center would dissolve their OB service line and cease providing OB care both within the Advanced Women’s Care clinic and the medical center, and 2) the medical center will move forward with developing a women’s health clinic offering GYN services with current Advanced Women’s Care provider Valerie Martin, ARNP, CNM, MSN.
The board directed the leadership team to make the necessary transitions over the next three months.
In his message to staff, CEO Carl Behne noted, “This decision was made with a tremendous amount of financial data and research done into the feasibility of continuing with a service line that has netted average yearly losses of $300,000 or more. There was also a complete review of future market share potential, which showed that, on average, we were capturing less than 25% of Greene County births with extremely limited possibility of gaining the 85% or more it would take to have a net yearly loss of under $100,000.”
Behne also assured staff that “over the next three months, leadership will do its best to minimize the impact on patients and staff. We will also be working diligently to determine how we can best utilize the suites in the OB area of our expansion.” It was noted that this space was originally designed to be shared with emergency or acute care areas as needed. The space was built with the understanding that at some point, it might have to be reconfigured. Behne noted ‘this time has simply come sooner than ever anticipated.”
Martin spoke on behalf of developing women’s health care, including most gynecological services, for all women. She also noted many patients have already made the decision to either establish or continue care with her at the medical center. Additionally, Martin noted many GYN surgeries can still be performed at the medical center by general surgeon Dr. Marc Miller.
During the morning board meeting, chairperson Jim Schleisman stated, “I pushed for hiring an OB/GYN at the medical center, but I have to say, it hasn’t been very successful. I hate to see this go away, but we have to keep in mind, even as we provide health care services to our patients, we are also a business and sometimes we have to make tough decisions like this.”
The medical center will spend the next few months reviewing necessary changes that need to be made to rebrand and market the GYN services that will be provided by Martin, as well as determine the best utilization of the current OB space in the new expansion.