Stormont Vail assumes control of struggling Geary Co. hospital & clinics

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - Geary Community Hospital and related rural health clinics are under new management.

Stormont Vail Health announced Friday that the Topeka based healthcare system is under contract to “pave the way to stabilize the provision of health services in Geary County.” The agreement was approved Friday morning by the Geary Co. Commission, and previously by the Geary Community Hospital Board of Trustees.

“This is a positive step for our team at Geary Community Hospital and the area we serve,” said Margaret Grismer, Interim CEO at Geary community Hospital. “We look forward to working closely with Stormont Vail as we begin transitioning and integrating with their healthcare system to provide the very best of care to our patients,” Grismer continued.”

According to a release, discussions between Stormont Vail and Geary Community Hospital began earlier this year when a community transition task force was searching for a way to stabilize the financially struggling health care system. Officials say The Geary Community Hospital and rural clinics were facing certain closure without intervention.

“Providing health care services close to home is important to the health and wellbeing of Kansans,” said Rob Kenagy, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Stormont Vail Health. “We are committed to stabilizing and then improving access to timely, high quality care in the region.

Under the current agreement, Stormont Vail will manage the Geary Community Hospital and rural clinics through the end of 2022. During that time, Stormont Vail says it will stabilize hospital and clinic operations, install an electronic medical record system, and introduce Stormont Vail culture and processes.

If conditions are met, the Stormont Vail Health system would begin its operations at the beginning of 2023, following the closure of Geary community Hospital operations. One of the conditions includes Geary Co. funding $20 million in deferred maintenance and repairs at the facility.

Stormont Vail also plans to invest in the Geary Co. locations, including $7.5 million through the end of the year, and another $20 million from 2023 to 2027.

Specifically, those investments include:

System Service Support

Retaining and supporting the workforce at Geary Community Hospital is extremely important during the management period. There has already been work in this regard, including:

- Stormont Vail working with Medical Staff leaders of GCH to provide the foundation for next steps;

- Creation of plans to provide interim leadership to the nursing administration, surgical services and ambulatory clinic teams. This will ensure a smooth contract period and transition to new operations;

- Extending operational support from Stormont Vail system services in finance, revenue cycle, human resources, clinical quality and facility management.

Information Technology Infrastructure

- Stormont Vail will bring the Epic medical record solution to the new Stormont operations. Interoperability and efficient health data management remains a defining characteristic of successful health systems and Epic serves that purpose for the Stormont health system.

- This installation will improve documentation, streamline billing and coding processes and improve the workflows required to deliver health care services in Geary County.

- Epic will be installed as the single medical record system across all health care operations, facilitating the coordination of patient care between Stormont Vail providers in Junction City, Topeka and across the system. Installation of Epic requires updates to critical technology infrastructure.

- This upgrade will connect Stormont’s Geary County operations into the Stormont Vail system with cybersecurity, maintenance and management infrastructure already successfully implemented at Stormont’s main campus.

This IT work will be completed during the management period with anticipated go-live when Stormont Vail begins its independent operations in Geary County. The investment in this period is anticipated to be approximately $3 million in equipment and licenses for the electronic health record system.

Acute Care Operations

Stabilizing the acute care operations at GCH during the management phase is part of Stormont Vail’s plan. This will be accomplished by:

- Extending the Stormont Vail Hospitalists and Emergency Department physicians to GCH to begin the process of standardizing and stabilizing the Emergency Department to Inpatient Admission workflows. These highly-trained physicians understand the requirements to operate a highly reliable acute care operation. This should enable more patients to remain in Junction City when hospital admission is required.

- Access by acutely ill patients for timely consults from medical specialists will be facilitated by the telemedicine infrastructure at Stormont Vail. This allows for specialists to consult with hospitalists, as needed. Initially, Stormont Vail Cardiology and Neurology specialists will provide consults, expanding later to additional specialties.

Procedural Services

Stormont Vail’s surgical teams are prepared to close the gap in care after the departure of a GCH surgeon. This will include:

- The Stormont Vail General Surgery service line has started transitioning the bariatric surgery patients that required immediate care.

- Stormont Vail teams have a clinical practice schedule planned and are readying to operate on patients in the Geary County facility.

- The investment in surgical services will be significant, with nearly $1 million of equipment needed in the first year. - Stormont Vail’s Manhattan gastroenterology providers have applied for privileges to perform the procedural services at GCH. Stabilizing and growing procedural volumes at GCH is extremely important to the viability and future success of operations in Geary County.

- Stormont Vail anticipates working closely with physicians in the region to assist with acute surgical and procedural services at GCH.

Rural Health Clinic

Stormont Vail operates a robust and expansive primary care network in eastern Kansas. Stormont Vail will bring the GCH primary care practices into the management structure of Stormont Vail’s current primary care footprint. This will provide significant support, including:

- Remote Nurse Triage call center, medication refill call center, centralized scheduling and medical leadership support services. Support allows practices to provide high value care for patients.

- This primary care network has access to specialists within the Stormont Vail system through Epic referrals.

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