Headlines lately are all pretty doom and gloom when it comes to the health care industry.
Hospitals and clinics across the state and nation are announcing layoffs, service closures, consolidations, private equity bailouts and more changes that ultimately add up to the same thing — longer waits and less access to care for patients and communities.
At St. Charles, however, we are facing the current headwinds with a different mindset. Rather than contracting, we are choosing to grow as our strategy to deal with the difficulties ahead.
Growth rather than contraction may seem counterintuitive, but the reality is that we are different here in Central Oregon. We are geographically isolated from other health care providers, yet we are a region where people are choosing to relocate. Our population continues to grow at an astounding rate. And, when we look at projections for health care needs into the future, we only see a line that continues to go up. In fact, our current estimates predict that meeting community need will require St. Charles to provide two-thirds more care by 2050 than what we have available today.
That’s a lot of growth, and it may prompt you to ask the question that I hear a lot when talking about our current challenges: “Doesn’t Central Oregon need a second hospital system?”
My answer to that is pretty simple. In the current state of health care, it is extremely unlikely that any organization has the resources to come into Central Oregon and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new hospital and recruit all the physicians, nurses, techs and other support staff required to run it. The reality is that no one is likely to swoop in to save us.
St. Charles, on the other hand, has been a community asset for more than 100 years. We are a nonprofit organization, meaning every dollar we make goes directly back into providing the care that you and your families rely on. The people who work for us are your friends, neighbors, fellow parents, coaches and volunteers.
We are Central Oregon.
And, ultimately, we are committed to keeping as much care available locally as possible well into the future. That means choosing to grow into areas of unmet need. You see this now in the construction of our new Cancer Center in Redmond, in the opening of community pharmacies in Madras and Prineville, in our partnership to run the clinic at Mt. Bachelor and in our addition of specialty services including gastroenterology, urology and more.
Along with providing more care, we are stepping up to help support some important economic development work in the region. We are a founding member of the new Regional Business Alliance because we strongly believe one of the best ways to solve some of our funding gaps related to government programs like Medicaid and Medicare is to create sustainable jobs where people can access commercial insurance. We also regularly partner with educational institutions on programs that support workforce development for health care careers in our region. It is common sense but worth repeating that the health of our community is deeply connected to the health of our economy.
These are just a few of the ways that we are focusing on growth for the future at St. Charles in support of a more vibrant, healthy Central Oregon for decades to come.
Sincerely,
Steve
