Public Health committee to discuss cost sharing with hospital

The Public Health Building and Finance Committee will approach the hospital with a list of ideas for a future building. Public Health is looking for a home, and the hospital is one option it?s considering. The suggestions the committee will pose to the hospital are about ways of paying for the building and about who will manage it once it?s built.

Terry Philips is a member of the committee and proposed four solutions to the problem, which the committee heard Tuesday morning. One proposal is to have public health pay for the capital improvements for its own space, but to recoup those costs from the hospital if public health is forced out of that space.

Committee member Wendy Miller said public health could be ?regionalized,? meaning that it consolidates with another county, and if this happens the public health office may move out of Washington. That is one scenario in which public health would be forced out of its building.

Another proposal was to have the hospital pay for the improvements and then have public health rent the space. A third possibility is for the county to purchase the space at the hospital and reserve it for public health. He also suggested that public health could be tucked under the hospital?s dominion and turn the public health employees into hospital employees. Committee member Peggy Wood said that is already done in some counties such as Henry and Davis counties.

The committee agreed to make Steve Olson the new chairman of the committee, although it won?t be official until the next meeting. Olson and another committee member will take these suggestions to Hospital CEO Don Patterson to see if he or the hospital board is interested in any of the four arrangements. Patterson announced that he will retire at the end of June. Olson will find out if Patterson is interested in these ideas or if Patterson would prefer to have the committee negotiate with the next hospital CEO.

Olson said that if public health pays for the improvements, it should demand a lease longer than 10 years. Miller said that if public health is gone after 10 years, the hospital should help pay for the improvements.

Miller said if the hospital is interested in overseeing public health, she would do further investigation into how that arrangement works in other counties and what its advantages and disadvantages are.

The other option for public health is to use one of the buildings at Orchard Hill. Committee Chairman Jim Miksch said that what gives public health leverage in its negotiations with the hospital is that it has alternatives.

Miksch said the state government would probably rather deal with a few county public health departments than 99 entities. He said he wouldn?t be surprised if, in the future, the state requires public health departments to be regionalized over multiple counties to qualify for grants.

?We?ve seen regionalization in the Department of Human Services,? said Miksch. ?We lost our office here and it?s gone to Fairfield.?