Transition of Management Begins at Trumbull Hospitals
WARREN, Ohio – Insight Health System began the transition at two local hospitals Wednesday, assuming management as a nonowner operator of both Trumbull Regional Medical Center in Warren and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland.
Steward Health Care System remains the owner and will continue to play a role in the hospitals’ operations for now. However, in a statement released late Wednesday, Insight indicated it intends to pursue ownership of both hospitals, operating as nonprofits, in the coming months.
The transfer began within hours of a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston on Wednesday, in which Judge Christopher Lopez approved the interim global settlement agreement to place interim managers in 15 Steward-owned hospitals in Ohio, Arizona, southern Florida, Texas and Louisiana.
At this time, the emergency department and other critical service lines at the Trumbull hospital will remain open, according to Insight. However, it was noted some medical services may be temporarily suspended until patient safety can be fully validated. When necessary, that may cause some to be transferred by agreement to nearby Mercy Health St. Joseph Hospital for ongoing treatment.
“At Insight Health System, we recognize the undo stress and unease activities over the last several months have caused members of the Warren community and surrounding areas who have been in limbo wondering how they will get medical care or whether they will still have a job if these facilities close,” said Dr. Jawad Shah, a neurosurgeon and founder of Insight Health System. “While our immediate goal is to keep the doors of Trumbull and Hillside open for patients and staff, we will assess all aspects of those facilities’ operations in the coming weeks to identify sensible pathways to stabilize operations to ensure these organizations can meet the needs of the communities they serve for generations to come.”
This is not the first time Insight Health System, a physician-led organization, has assumed ownership of a distressed hospital and transformed it into a viable, financially stable, patient-centric hospital. Insight currently operates hospitals and health care facilities in Michigan, Iowa, New Jersey and Illinois. In 2021, Insight acquired the 414-bed Mercy Hospital in Chicago, keeping it from foreclosure, reestablishing the emergency department and expanding service lines into behavioral health, maternal health, neurology and a dozen other areas.
The system’s entities include six acute care hospitals – of which three are nonprofit – six surgery centers, 28 clinics, 580 physicians, 10 unions and 4,200 employees serving nearly 100,000 patient days annually.
According to court documents from the interim agreement stemming from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed by Steward on May 6, Insight will serve as the interim manager of the two local hospitals as entities listed as Insight Foundation of Hillside and Insight Foundation of Trumbull.
Steward’s actions as a for-profit hospital group and its subsequent bankruptcy case were the topic of a hearing Thursday morning before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions.
Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre, who was subpoenaed by the committee, declined to appear at the hearing. Two registered nurses from Massachusetts hospitals, including Audra Sprague from the now closed Nashoba Valley Medical Center, did appear. Sprague said when a hospital becomes a for-profit company, there is no incentive to have additional nurses because their hours are not billable, which leads to each nurse handling multiple patients.
The nurses spoke about how Steward left nursing staffs short-handed and short-supplied, leading to nurses and staff purchasing supplies and even meals for patients.
“Patients die,” said Ellen MacInnis, a registered nurse at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston. “But when they become less well or they die because you don’t have the resources, that’s greed.”
MacInnis described how equipment at her hospital continued to break, and when only one elevator remained working, Steward supplied them with sleds so they could pull patients to move them between floors if necessary.
One of the senators on the committee, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., released a report Wednesday claiming how the actions of Steward and the companies it worked with, including Medical Properties Trust, the landlord of the majority of Steward-owned hospitals, has directly led to harm in the communities Steward was supposed to serve. He cited increases in death rates, longer emergency room waits and the loss of at least 1,533 patient beds and 4,431 jobs of health providers, staff and administrators at Steward-owned facilities between 2014 and 2024.
Pictured at top: Trumbull Regional Medical Center in Warren.
Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
