During the weekend, the Greeley Tribune published a package of staff-written news articles and guest editorials that focused on health care in Greeley and Weld County. I was asked to write a guest editorial that looked at the future of Poudre Valley Health System’s involvement there.
Simply put, the future is exciting and full of additional healthcare benefits and options for the people we serve.
PVHS will continue to provide high-quality care that is easily accessible for Greeley and Weld County residents. Our commitment to high quality and easy access is also the same for the other people we serve in the large region that PVHS covers in northern Colorado, Wyoming and southwestern Nebraska.
I have to say, though, that it is critically important to look at the recent past and what’s happening now in the Greeley medical scene to be aware of what may happen in the future.
Because my guest editorial had the usual 600-word limit for guest editorials in the Tribune, I was unable to delve into the historical perspective that I believe is critical. In my editorial I asked readers to come to my blog to learn more of the details about all that is happening in Weld County.
During the last 10 or 12 years, I have received phone calls from dozens of physicians who practice in different medical specialties in Greeley. They all had a similar concern, a major one.
They believed they were being disenfranchised by the Greeley medical establishment—specifically by Banner Health, which manages North Colorado Medical Center and has corporate headquarters in Phoenix—and this, they told me, resulted in their careers, their lives and their families being turned upside down. Many physicians revealed to me that they felt like they were being driven out of the community.
For several years I referred these physicians back to Greeley medical leaders hoping they would promote a solution.
During this same period, Poudre Valley Health System focused on finding collaborative ways to work with local physicians in Fort Collins and Loveland to provide high-quality patient care in our region.
Our collaborative efforts resulted in Poudre Valley Hospital, Fort Collins, being named in 2000 as the first Magnet Hospital for Nursing Excellence between Los Angeles and Minnesota. Today PVH is one of only 17 hospitals to have received the designation three times in a row. Our Medical Center of the Rockies, which opened in 2007 in Loveland, received the designation nearly the moment the hospital was eligible.
Additionally, during this time PVHS started the first American College of Surgeons-verified level II trauma center in northern Colorado; began the first robotic surgery program in our region; and developed the region’s busiest heart program.
PVHS also became the first recipient and remains the only two-time recipient of the Colorado’s highest quality award, the Peak Performance Award presented by the Colorado Performance Excellence Program. In mid-January, PVHS became the only Colorado-owned and -operated health system to be selected as one of the nation’s top 15 health systems.
The most notable honor was when the President of the United States announced that Poudre Valley Health System was selected to receive the nation’s highest quality award, the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. PVHS is one of only 15 healthcare organizations ever to receive that honor.
While PVHS was distinguishing itself locally, regionally and nationally, the issue of physician disenfranchisement in Greeley continued.
Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. I encourage you to find any physician who has practiced in Greeley for more than a decade and ask if my assessment is accurate. I believe the chances are excellent that you’ll receive an answer similar to what I wrote above.
A few years ago the physicians with the Greeley Medical Clinic, the largest and oldest multi-specialty medical group in northern Colorado, realized they faced irresolvable issues with Banner Health. They began an exhaustive and objective search for a partner which they believe would work with them to put their patients first.
So that’s how GMC and PVHS linked up. We had fruitful talks and discovered mutual hopes and dreams and goals for high quality care for Greeley and Weld County residents.
In a comparatively short period of time, it became clear that the visions of GMC and PVHS were identical: Patients must come first and the care they receive must be extremely high quality … and the best way to achieve this is to maintain local control over healthcare decisions.
After many in-depth discussions and planning sessions, GMC physicians and PVHS leaders agreed to an affiliation.
This decision led to PVHS expanding its world-class care to Greeley and Weld County. In partnership with the outstanding physicians and staff of GMC in Greeley, we have continued to expand by developing new services, opening medical facilities in Windsor, bringing the Aspen Club and Healthy Kids Club into Greeley, and employing 1,100 Greeley and Weld County residents.
While PVHS has continued to offer more healthcare services to Greeley and Weld County, some vocal and very uninformed pundits have suggested that PVHS began serving the city and county solely to “steal away” or “cherry-pick” patients from Greeley.
Some pundits have said this even as we grow and expand services in Greeley.
Our most recent addition—a full service emergency room and one-day surgery center—will be completed in west Greeley by the fall of this year. We are excited that this project will enhance care and accessibility, and create even more healthcare options for Greeley residents without their having to travel very far from their homes.
The new medical facility is an example of the exact reason why GMC chose to affiliate with PVHS. Their decision was not about market share or budgets or filling patient beds. Instead, it had everything to do with GMC physicians wanting to be decision-making members of an organization that works closely with physicians to accomplish mutual goals for providing high-quality care for their patients.
During these last two successful years since the GMC-PVHS affiliation was formed, the same ill-informed pundits have continued to criticize PVHS by incorrectly portraying us an outsider bent on stealing away patients.
Such an accusation does a great disservice to 79 years of service to Greeley and Weld Country by the Greeley Medical Clinic. If GMC is not Greeley-born and -bred…who is, then?
The process that resulted in GMC stepping away from Banner Health seems to have played itself out all over again last spring, this time with an even more abrupt change.
This occurred when the long-experienced and very distinguished emergency physician group in Greeley was suddenly and surprisingly dismissed from practicing at North Colorado Medical Center. The service these highly skilled physicians provided was nationally ranked and medically respected.
So, once again, a significant number of physicians felt disenfranchised from work and life in Greeley. I heard from many of them.
To continue living in or near Greeley and to remain true to their commitment to serve local patients, many of these physicians elected to join Emergency Physicians of the Rockies, an independent physician group in Northern Colorado. These highly qualified physicians will staff the emergency services part of our center under construction in west Greeley, once again providing the same outstanding emergency services that have distinguished them for years. And they will provide this service while continuing to live and work and raise their children in Greeley…just as GMC physicians have done for generations.
Because the medical leadership of Greeley’s air ambulance was also imbedded in this group of emergency physicians, we elected to ask them to continue providing their outstanding service by creating our own helicopter program. For many years PVHS used the air ambulance service at NCMC because it provided a high quality and trusted service. Our service will now continue with those same medical leaders who have lived and worked in the Greeley community.
PVHS has moved ahead on the air ambulance program because we see a great need and opportunity for regionalized services. Our program, which will start this spring, will feature a helicopter specially designed to safely transfer patients out of such high-altitude areas as Rocky Mountain National Park.
Collaboration with regional providers is the type of relationship that we have always tried to develop and foster. Last year I approached NCMC leaders with the hope that we could also find a way to work together and avoid duplication on the many medical services needed in Greeley, Weld County and the rest of northern Colorado.
Unfortunately, I was told that they were unwilling to meet if the local Greeley physicians were involved. Of course, that type of attitude appears to me to be a driver behind what has happened to physicians in Greeley. Just so you know, we—PVHS—will always work first with physicians in trying to create healthcare solutions in the region.
To return to the focus of the Tribune’s news package … What is the future of health care in Greeley and Weld County?
The answer:
PVHS is there now…and GMC has been there for longer than most of us have been alive. We will continue to work closely with local physicians who have cared for generations of Weld County and Greeley patients. Care will be provided in Greeley and, for Windsor-area patients, in Windsor.
We will provide high quality care. We will make sure patients come first.
We will be there today, tomorrow and far beyond.
Rulon
