Tyrone Hospital officials have announced they will close the hospital\u2019s obstetrics service and also discontinue a relationship with Quorum Health Resources (QHR) for management services.
\nJudith Norris, president of the hospital\u2019s board of directors said the decision to close the obstetrics service was a financial decision and an outcome of the hospital\u2019s recent strategic planning.
\nTyrone Hospital\u2019s obstetrics service will be closed effective at midnight on August 15, 2006. Obstetrics patients of Tyrone Hospital are advised to contact their obstetricians for instructions regarding their delivery.
\n\u201cThis was a very difficult decision to make and it is just as difficult to deliver this news,\u201d said Norris. \u201cHistorically, it has been very challenging financially for small rural hospitals to offer obstetrics services. The financial hurdles associated with the operation of an obstetrics unit have now put Tyrone Hospital among other small hospitals that can no longer offer this service.\u201d
\nWalter Van Dyke, CEO at Tyrone Hospital said the hospital has operated at a loss for the past several years and is working diligently to reverse that trend.
\nHe said, \u201cLike many small hospitals we have had to make some hard decisions regarding services that we realistically can provide.\u201d
\nVan Dyke said staff from the hospital\u2019s obstetrics unit will have opportunities to work in other areas of the hospital.
\nSome of the factors affecting Tyrone and other small rural hospitals\u2019 ability to support an obstetrics service include reimbursement issues, an aging population and declining births in rural communities, little to no projected population growth in many rural areas, and ongoing recruitment issues associated with a shortage of the professionals needed for obstetrics.
\n\u201cOur small hospital does not have the volume of births to make obstetrics feasible given all these financial challenges,\u201d said Van Dyke.
\nNorris said the move to discontinue the hospital\u2019s relationship with QHR is a direction the board of directors think will better serve the community now and in the future. Resources that would have been directed to management contract fees can now be redirected to hospital operations.
\nIn its relationship with QHR, the hospital\u2019s Chief Executive Officer and\/or the Chief Financial Officer have been QHR employees. Walter Van Dyke and George Berger will be retained in their current positions as CEO and CFO respectively and both will become employees of Tyrone Hospital and report solely to the Tyrone Hospital Board of Directors. The QHR contract will conclude June 30, 2006.
\n\u201cWe will access consultants in the marketplace as needed for services once rendered by QHR,\u201d said Norris. \u201cTyrone Hospital will continue to network with other hospitals through the critical access hospital program, as a member of the Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania (HAP), and through its ongoing working relationship with local and regional healthcare providers.\u201d
\nNorris said hospital leaders will continually evaluate strategic actions that may be taken to support the long term success of Tyrone Hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyrone Hospital officials have announced they will close the hospital\u2019s obstetrics service and also discontinue a relationship with Quorum Health Resources (QHR) for management services. Judith Norris, president of the hospital\u2019s board of directors said the decision to close the obstetrics service was a financial decision and an outcome of the hospital\u2019s recent strategic planning. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}