Brian Gragnolati, who has helped Atlantic Health System to unprecedented levels of recognition in quality of care while positioning the system to future success through timely expansion measures, has announced his intention to retire, the system's Board of Trustees said Tuesday. To ensure a seamless leadership transition, Gragnolati will continue in his current role until the board finds his successor – a process that will begin in the coming weeks. When a successor is found, Gragnolati will transition to a role as a special advisor to the board. Gragnolati will be a tough act to follow. The leader of the health system’s mission-driven success and strategic expansion since 2015, he has helped Atlantic earn numerous accolades, including having its flagship hospital, Morristown Medical Center, be named the No. 1 hospital in the state on numerous occasions by U.S. News & World Report.
The Steward crisis has left many Massachusetts residents with the belief that when a hospital enters bankruptcy, it is never to emerge again. Heywood Healthcare – the nonprofit community hospital and health care system comprised of the community hospital in Gardner, a critical access hospital in Athol, and a medical group – is proof that this doesn’t have to be the case. Hospitals can enter bankruptcy financially overwhelmed and emerge in better condition.
Mission Health has permanently closed Asheville Specialty Hospital, the only long-term acute care hospital in western North Carolina, less than two months after suspending its services following Tropical Storm Helene. The 34-bed Asheville Specialty included a comprehensive stroke center, dialysis services, physical and speech therapy, and traumatic brain injury rehabilitation, among other services, according to Mission's website. The next closest long-term acute facility, or LTACH, is in Greenville, South Carolina, a little more than 60 miles away. The facility was one of three services that Mission Health temporarily shut down after Helene crippled western North Carolina and left Asheville, and Mission Hospital, without water. CarePartners and Solace hospice care also closed and more than 250 employees had to take temporary positions as patients were ported out to facilities in the region and out of state.
Negotiations between Steward Health and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania continue in the sale of Sharon Regional Medical Center. According to a court filing made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Steward Health is requesting funding of $3 million per month from the Commonwealth by Monday, Dec. 2 or they will begin the hospital closure process. However, a filing later Monday extended that deadline to Wednesday, Dec. 4. The Commonwealth committed to pay Sharon Hospital $1.5 million per month for three months ($4.5 million) in September to maintain operations including payroll, rent, supplies and accrued expenses. Steward Health threatened to close the hospital if it did not receive this funding.
Gov. Maura Healey and Brown University Health CEO John Fernandez in November unfurled the banner outside St. Anne's Hospital. The old sign reading "Steward Family Hospital" was covered by a spiffy new BrownHealth logo. The ceremony marked the $175 million handoff of St. Anne's and Morton Hospital in nearby Taunton to Rhode Island's largest health care system. It was also a good-riddance celebration of Steward Health Care's ignominious departure from Massachusetts that capped the Healey administration's campaign to put six of the bankrupt company's acute care hospitals in the hands of new operators. And maybe most important, it heralded the arrival of a potentially powerful new player to the state's hospital sector, one that is financially stable at a time when others are struggling, and one that brings the culture of high-level academic medicine to a part of the state away from Boston's world-famous medical hub. To the 1,600 employees at St. Anne's and 1,150 at Morton, Fernandez promised to "focus on GSD — get stuff done."
Executives at the overextended hospital chain have treated their in-house malpractice insurer, TRACO, like a piggy bank, pulling cash from it at will, and severely depleting the assets meant to cover claims of medical harm. Indeed, Steward was so eager to spend TRACO's money that it moved the insurer from the Cayman Islands — a traditionally permissive locale for foreign investors — to Panama, where certain key regulations were even more lax. Auditors had been pushing Steward to shore up TRACO's balance sheet. But executives had other plans for the insurer's assets and believed Panama would allow them more freedom to spend, according to three Steward insiders and internal company emails.