Collaboration between AICS, Medical Center on the rise

The Wrangell Medical Center (WMC) board of directors discussed collaboration at the Feb. 19 board meeting.

Specifically, board members and medical center

officials discussed the growing number of shared services between Alaska Island Community Services (AICS) and the hospital. While medical collaboration has long been a component of overlapping clinical services at both healthcare institutions – AICS and the WMC share a social worker, for example – recent personnel shifts have led to a growing administrative collaboration. The two institutions now share the services of a single CFO, Dana Strong, as well as joint information technology operations. And with the recent addition of WMC Board of Directors President Terri Henson to the AICS board, the two now share a critical leadership component.

Some board members, like Judy Allen, said they have received questions about the level of collaboration between the WMC and AICS.

“Could you address – because I’ve had a couple different people question me about this – confidentiality issues,” arising from the shared positions, Allen said.

CEOs for each organization will place their organizations’ interests first, but will still look for opportunities for cooperation, WMC CEO Marla Sanger told the board.

“There are some things that are shared,” she said. “In other words, (Strong) has financial information for both organizations, and a lot of it is public anyway. Patient information hasn’t been an issue. We do have a person, the social worker, who knows patient information on both sides, but she must sign a confidentiality agreement in both organizations.”

The key to interconnection between the two bodies is a balance, Sanger said.

“How do you structure this so that both organizations’ best interests are protected, while at the same time you don’t make it so burdensome and onerous that you can’t really do a good job of working together?” she said.

Strong, Walker, and Sanger held a joint session with a PeaceHealth consultant Feb. 17 to discuss potential avenues of cooperation.

“It’s a work in process, but we’re very cognizant of the importance of making sure that we’re doing it properly, to the best of our ability,” she said.

Response to the new relationship has been mostly positive, Sanger said.

Board secretary Barb Conine said she’d also received some questions.

“When there was concern about (Strong) being in both places, I told them to look at it as: this is the guy who does your taxes,” she said. “You’re gonna go into his office, he’s gonna do your taxes. He’s not gonna tell the next person in line what he did for you, nor is he going to tell you what he did for the guy before you.”

Henson, Sanger, and AICS CEO Mark Walker attended the Rural Health Care Leadership Conference in Arizona together in early February, where the growing levels of collaboration received external affirmation, Sanger said.

“There were several topics that talked about integration and collaboration and things that are really important to both of our organizations,” she said. “There was a particular session called ‘From Competition To Collaboration.’”

The session discussed the example of a growing collaboration between a critical access hospital (a la the WMC) and what is known as a federal qualified health center (like AICS), Sanger told the board.

“As we were sitting there listening to the speakers who have been on this journey for two years, I was looking at their handout and I was saying ‘We’ve already done that. We’ve already done that,” she said.

Officials with both

organizations plan to continue to increase administrative

collaboration going forward, Sanger said.

Concern about patients led to the ongoing discussion about collaboration, Walker said.

Hosptial and AICS officials “began talking about ways that we can improve the delivery of healthcare for the residents of Wrangell and find ways to make the delivery system more sustainable,” he said.

Walker said he could not foresee a situation where a

person serving on one board would make a decision for one organization at the expense of the other.

The board also briefly discussed a lingering condition of an out-of-court settlement with former WMC CEO Noel Selle-Rea relating to the destruction of electronic equipment. Review of information on the equipment prior to its destruction hadn’t yet been completed, hospital officials said.

Apart from a unanimous voice vote on consent items, the board took no formal action.