TOPSHAM

By the end of this week, 185 Parkview Adventist Medical Center employees will have migrated to Mid Coast Hospital. The migration comes as part of a proposed plan that sees Mid Coast acquiring Parkview, which announced it was filing for Chapter 11 relief on June 16.

Meanwhile, the two hospitals are looking at consolidating their walk-in clinics.

The two hospitals’ shared vision for the future of local health care is subject to court approval, as is the acquisition plan for which a court hearing will take place today.

The top administrators for Parkview and Mid Coast spoke Tuesday in Topsham about the ongoing realignment of the two Brunswick hospitals, future plans and the impact on the local health-care system.

Some jobs that migrated to Mid Coast may likely return to Parkview. However, emergency and inpatient services have moved to Mid Coast Hospital.

Parkview President Randee Reynolds said physician practices will continue and increase at Parkview. Patients continue to be seen daily in the walk-in clinic. Radiology and laboratory services, speech, occupational and physical therapy will continue. The surgery center will remain and Parkview will be the cancer treatment hub for both campuses. Other Parkview programs, such as the Lifestyle Choices program and community care teams, will continue.

“We’re really going to focus on community health and wellness probably more than we ever have before,” said Reynolds. “The campus is going to be much more patientfriendly.”

Asked what will happen with Mid Coast’s walk-in clinic at Brunswick Station, which saw 13,500 people last year, Lois Skillings, president and CEO of Mid Coast Health Services, said: “It is unlikely that we will be able to continue two walk-in clinics a mile and a half apart.”

Work is ongoing to see where that service can be provided.

“One thing is for certain — the Parkview campus will be vibrant,” she said. “It will be a hub of primary care, ambulatory care and will continue the faith-based ministry of the Seventh day Adventist Church at that campus.”

After Tuesday’s public discussion, Reynolds said Parkview patients understand it wasn’t sustainable to have two hospitals in a market the size of Brunswick.

Skillings added that Brunswick is the smallest community in New England, and perhaps the North Atlantic, that had been supporting two acute care hospitals.

Skillings noted the challenges inherent when hospitals are made to be run like businesses.

“We exist to deliver a service of care to our community,” Skillings said. “Once you have that mindset change, it really frees you to be more mission-focused about how can we improve the health of our community.”

The financing is important and will work better by joining forces, she said, adding, “we will actually lose money in this new world.”

However, the new “payment reform” models under experimentation will actually pay health systems for positive patient outcomes, she said.

“No matter how you slice it, we’re doing a better job already at keeping people healthier and keeping them out of the hospital,” Skillings said. “That’s why we need to realign, come together and not duplicate the waste — and 30 percent of health-care costs is waste.”

During the community discussion, Skillings said that the nation’s health-care system is broken, “in that it costs too much and it’s not good enough for the outcomes that we’re receiving, so when we compare ourselves with the rest of the world, the United States ranks 38th in overall health outcomes.”

Yet, the U.S. is No. 1 when it comes to health-care cost — twice as much per capita as any other industrialized nation, Skillings said.

“A transformation is taking place to redesign how health care is financed and how care is being delivered, and our community is responding to this. One big response is Mid Coast and Parkview working together,” Skillings said.

Today, the health-care system is designed around sickness and oriented toward treatment that is probably the best in the world, but as such, “we have totally ballooned the costs in this country,” Skillings said. “What we’re working toward in health care today is what’s called the Triple Aim to improve health care,” which requires three areas of focus simultaneously: Better health for citizens; better health care; and also lower healthcare costs.

Since 1959, Parkview “has been a leader in our state at promoting health and wellness in our community,” Skillings said, with preventative and wellness programs like Lifestyle Choices. She said duplication of services is driving up costs and acute care services need to be regionalized in a population that will support them.

Hospitals are important and needed, she said, “but we need to flip the health-care system so that the pyramid starts at the base of primary care, community health and employee health and work site wellness. These three things are what will really drive a culture of health in our community and help our citizens become healthier.”

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