SHARON, PA. – Pennsylvania’s health secretary said the new owners of Sharon Regional Medical Center have to fix issues affecting safety before the facility can reopen.
There are other issues at the hospital too, but those may be addressed after it reopens, Dr. Debra Bogen said during a state Senate Appropriations Committee budget hearing Thursday.
State Sen. Michele Brooks of Greenville, R-50th, questioned Bogen about distressed hospitals and hospitals that are closing.
“As we all know that this is plaguing Pennsylvania as well as the entire country,” Brooks said.
In her role, Bogen is in a position to provide some regulatory relief to hospitals, the state senator said. Sharon is within Brooks’ district, and she’s the chair of the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
“If the department inspects a hospital and finds deficiencies, it allows the hospital to stay open while they’re fixed,” Brooks said at the hearing. “But if a closed hospital with the same deficiencies seeks to reopen, the department requires that all deficiencies be fully repaired first.”
She questioned why closed hospitals aren’t afforded similar flexibility and allowed to reopen provisionally while they make corrections.
Bogen said the department shares concerns about hospital closures and their impact on communities. The department oversees the regulatory work of hospitals and ensures patient safety, she said.
“That’s our No. 1 role,” Bogen added.
And exceptions are granted when possible, she said.
“Regarding closures and then reopenings, again this is a minimum standard that our regulations set that we are required to enforce,” the health secretary said.
During the department’s review process with Sharon Regional, reviewers put issues into two different categories: one for those that must be addressed before the hospital reopens and another for those that can be delayed and addressed after reopening.
“It’s not that they have to fix every issue right this moment – they have to fix the ones that are related to safety and the onus is on them to do that,” Bogen said. “And we have done as much flexibility as we can to ensure that when this hospital does reopen, it’s reopening with safety in mind, as is our requirement under the law.”
Brooks said everyone in the general assembly wants hospitals to be safe and to reopen safely, but there’s a balance between patients who aren’t receiving care, those who have to go to Ohio for care or those who wait hours in an emergency room for emergency care.
She said she appreciates that the department is trying to get through the plans of correction.
“Whether it’s working through evenings or weekends or President’s Day, I think everyone realizes the importance of getting these hospitals back open,” Brooks said.
Bogen said department staffers have been working nights and weekends and are always available.
“But again, we are not in a position to negotiate patient safety,” she said.
Sharon Regional, formerly part of Steward Health Care System, closed in early January as part of that company’s bankruptcy proceeding. Tenor Health Foundation Sharon LLC finalized a deal to buy the shuttered facility less than a week after it closed. It was expected to reopen last week but remains closed.
Tenor Health Partners’ CEO told Mahoning Valley news stations last week that the facility doesn’t have a license yet and that state health department inspections were underway.
Friday, the Tenor Health Foundation sent a news release reporting that SRMC’s outpatient behavioral health services reopened Feb. 18.
“This marks the first step in the full restoration of the hospital’s comprehensive care programs, serving approximately 200,000 residents in Northwest Pennsylvania and neighboring Ohio communities,” the news release said.
T.J. Hudock, senior director of behavioral health services, emphasized the significance of this milestone.
“Sharon Regional has a long and successful history of providing high-quality
behavioral health care in Mercer County and throughout Western Pennsylvania,” he said in the news release. “The reopening of the Intensive Behavioral Health Services and Partial Hospitalization programs will allow 75 children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other mental health conditions to immediately resume
treatment.”
Hudock also noted that Sharon Regional’s Behavioral Health Services Department continues to offer psychiatric medication management services at its outpatient office, located at 2375 Garden Way, in Hermitage.
The release also said that as the foundation has been working on its reopening plan, “we have made progress in our medical imaging department by acquiring a digital detector.
Jessica Schultz, radiology director for Sharon Regional said, “This equipment will be able to answer critical diagnostic questions for our emergency and intensivist physicians within six seconds of image acquisition at the patient bedside, promoting the quickest response to our patients’ needs.”
She’s quoted in the news release saying she’s “happy with the progress Sharon
Regional is making and that Sharon Regional is ready to start providing care to its patients.”
Once Tenor Health Foundation completes the necessary licensing requirements, Sharon Regional Medical Center will resume its full spectrum of behavioral health services, including inpatient psychiatric care for children and adults, at its main hospital campus in Sharon.
Radha Savitala, founder of Tenor Health Foundation, reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to the hospital’s full reopening.
“We are working closely with the Pennsylvania Department of Health to restore all hospital services and programs,” she said in the release. “This includes ensuring the availability of essential medical services such as emergency care, inpatient admissions, specialist consultations, anesthesiology, laboratory services, radiology, and the necessary pharmaceuticals and patient care supplies.”