Vista Grande's fate being negotiated by SHS, MCHD

Vista Grande's fate being negotiated by SHS, MCHD

Oct. 19, 2000

By Jim Mimiaga
Journal Staff Writer

In the past, when local health-care politics was often discussed in heated, accusatory debates, the common joke went that "secret meetings" were being held in the basement of Southwest Memorial Hospital. The building has no basement.

Lately though, both governing boards of Southwest Memorial seem to have found common ground on issues affecting the Montezuma County Hospital District.

Yet that new-found cooperation between the MCHD board and its operating company, Southwest Health System, has not led to more open sessions, especially regarding recent talks on the future of the Vista Grande nursing home.

Ongoing discussions over the last two months concerning Vista Grande have taken place in executive sessions, which are not open to the public or press. A section of the Colorado Open Meetings Law allows meetings to be closed to the public during contract negotiations, or when there is potential litigation against a government entity. No decisions can be voted on during the closed sessions.

Vista Grande, which is adjacent to the hospital, is managed under a lease with the district by Continuum, LLC., a nursing-home management company based in Greeley. Claiming they could not run the 78-bed facility profitably, the 1994 district board voted to lease management of the publicly-owned facility to Continuum, a private for-profit company, in exchange for a set monthly payment.

In 1996 the district board also leased its control of hospital operations (including the Vista Grande lease) to SHS for 50 years, arguing the private, non-profit corporation had more business flexibility than a public board.

Continuum pays "rent" of $160,000 per year to Southwest Memorial under the current contract for managing Vista Grande, which is adjacent to the hospital. After management costs, the company collects the rest as profit. (How much, if any, is not known.)

The lease is almost up, but carefully crafted language in it gives the district only two choices before it expires: either negotiate a long-term lease with Continuum at the current facility, or designate a site on the Southwest campus where Continuum would construct, on land leased from the district, a new nursing home that Continuum would then operate indefinitely.

Earlier this summer, the district board chose the latter option, with a location tentatively set for an open field on the northwest side of Southwest Memorial. Specifics of the ground lease being negotiated between Continuum, the district and SHS involve lease length, Continuum performance, quality-care requirements and a new rent amount for leasing taxpayer lands. A draft is expected within a month, at which point it will be sent to Continuum officials for their input.

Presumably, the document will be made public once the draft is released, according to MCHD chairperson Susan Keck. A final draft would then also require executive-session negotiations.

Deadline for a new contract is March 2001.

SHS is planning on expanding non-clinical departments into the old Vista Grande building if a new one is built.

"That is what we are hoping for," said CEO Bob Peterson. "We’re growing, and space for our technology needs has run out."

According to the plan, the lower floor of Southwest will house all critical medical and outpatient-care equipment and services, including radiology, surgery, emergency, laboratories and cardiology. Medical records, administration, business and possibly physician clinics will move to what is now Vista Grande because those departments do not need the elaborate remodeling that medical stations require.

Extensive remodeling is not preferred for Vista Grande because it contains isolated sections of asbestos along the roof beams. .

Peterson said the expansion will allow Southwest to better accommodate the rapid growth of short-term outpatient care.

"When I arrived here in June 1999 less than 50 percent of our business was outpatient; today it is 60 percent and it is still going up," Peterson said.

The possibilities outlined above are contingent on successful negotiations between hospital management and Continuum. Keck said the spate of executive sessions is not meant to be deceitful or unscrupulous.

Rather. she explained, without them the district’s positions on contract negotiations could be compromised if revealed to the other side through open sessions.

The MCHD board, which has had a high turnover in recent months, is seeking yet another new member. Keith Domerese announced his resignation this month from the board because he is moving to Sterling. Applications are being accepted.

In the last year there have been three resignations and one death on the board. Three were filled by appointment as stipulated in the special district’s statutes.

Commented board hopeful Remegio Candelaria: "More than two-thirds of the board is now non-elected. I think it needs more diversity of opinions."