Careful with your conspiracy theories, Brentin. “Old Charity” was on the cusp of losings its accreditation nearly every year, and that was BEFORE the storm. Sometimes hospitals become obsolete and simply impossible to retrofit. The 70+ year old Charity is an example of that. Nearly everyone, including the Louisiana State Department of Health and Hospitals, realized that.
There are also important factors and calculations that you omitted. First, because it served only indigent populations, old Charity was an enormous financial drain. The Adams Management plan sought to created a business model that built a hospital that still served the same size indigent population, but was also of sufficient scale as to serve enough patients with third-party payors (Medicare and private insurance) that the hospital could finally become financially self-sustainable. This way it didn’t have to go hat-in-hand to the state Legislature every year.
Second, Louisiana is in dire need of an academic medical center that can properly train a next generation of doctors. Two medical schools, Tulane and LSU, are both located in downtown New Orleans, but with Old Charity, there simply weren’t enough beds to train all the students. As part of their rounds, med school students had to be sent far afield to get opportunities.
Finally, because of it’s lack of an academic medical center, Louisiana severly lagged neighboring states in the quality of health care. For cutting edge treatment and top-notch care, patients would often travel all the way to MD Anderson in Texas or UAB in Birmingham. Disregarding all the other factors, for New Orleans and Louisiana to offer top-flight care, a new academic medical center must be built. This was recognized long before Katrina.
Ted in New Orleans
Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 1:32pm
Careful with your conspiracy theories, Brentin. “Old Charity” was on the cusp of losings its accreditation nearly every year, and that was BEFORE the storm. Sometimes hospitals become obsolete and simply impossible to retrofit. The 70+ year old Charity is an example of that. Nearly everyone, including the Louisiana State Department of Health and Hospitals, realized that.
There are also important factors and calculations that you omitted. First, because it served only indigent populations, old Charity was an enormous financial drain. The Adams Management plan sought to created a business model that built a hospital that still served the same size indigent population, but was also of sufficient scale as to serve enough patients with third-party payors (Medicare and private insurance) that the hospital could finally become financially self-sustainable. This way it didn’t have to go hat-in-hand to the state Legislature every year.
Second, Louisiana is in dire need of an academic medical center that can properly train a next generation of doctors. Two medical schools, Tulane and LSU, are both located in downtown New Orleans, but with Old Charity, there simply weren’t enough beds to train all the students. As part of their rounds, med school students had to be sent far afield to get opportunities.
Finally, because of it’s lack of an academic medical center, Louisiana severly lagged neighboring states in the quality of health care. For cutting edge treatment and top-notch care, patients would often travel all the way to MD Anderson in Texas or UAB in Birmingham. Disregarding all the other factors, for New Orleans and Louisiana to offer top-flight care, a new academic medical center must be built. This was recognized long before Katrina.