Show f b Straws Jack By Jack Wallis In the January issue of Business Week magazine an article entitled The Chain A Survival Formula for Hospitals could apply to our area and should be considered The article explained the working of Intermountain Health Care Inc a 21 hospital chain based in Salt Lake City providing the central direction money management and joint use of equipment equipment equipment equip equip- ment and personnel in a chain operation that owns leases or manages hospitals The Valley View Medical Center in Cedar City was cited as costing taxpayers taxpayers tax tax- payers up to in deficits in 1975 By joining mc the Cedar City hospital eliminated 15 jobs saved by obtaining discounts on supplies and avoided a disastrous jump of to in malpractice insurance rates In 1977 Valley View had cut the deficit to taxpayers down to only mc provides management help technical training access to sophisticated medical expertise and equipment joint purchasing pressures insurance companies for payments and even better bond rating to cut in interest terest payments for building new structures According to the Business Week magazine article mc is the largest example of a new phenomenon in the financially stricken hospital field Of the 31 major chains now in existence representing hospitals almost all began within the past 10 to years and most within the past five live years Health experts see the chain operation as the survival formula for many hospitals that might otherwise close their doors or raise their rates to a level prohibitive to patients insurers and employers In the mc plan a board of local citizens makes most policy decisions for each hospital but mc coordinates and provides the services that are so essential in community hospitals With the increasingly complicated operations necessary for the efficient management of a community hospital it would appear that a county can no longer afford to operate a hospital by itself At one time Uintah County asked several hospital chain operations to give proposals on building a new medical center Each proposal was turned down for Cor one reason or another But Dut because ci of the success of the new system and because of the continued technicalities dealing with federal Medicare and Medicaid malpractice and doctor shortage problems the mc plan or the American Hospital should be investigated It appears that hospital operations are becoming more and more technical and complex The chain approach looks like the right way to go for small as well as large hospitals since even the large Salt Lake hospital has become a part of While we are discussing hospitals may we take this opportunity to pay tribute to those who responded to the emergency call Thursday of last week and donated blo blood d in the time of need Nearly 24 units of blood were administered administered ad ad- ministered to a patient within a very short period of time The willingness of donors to drop everything and come to the hospital to give their blood at a minutes minute's notice is gratifying indeed This is a good example of the community community com com- involvement that helps to make our community such a great place Vernal officials of Tosco Corporation who are managing the Sand Wash Unit oil shale area south of Vernal told us they are having problems with a big bird For the third time now a atO 40 tO plastic fin on a monitoring station tower Instrument instrument instrument in In- strument has had to be replaced Evidently a raptor has taken a liking to the taste or has become so bored with the desolate area that he now has a fascination for climbing up on a new newfound newfound newfound found perch and chewing up the delicate plastic air monitoring instrument in In- strument According to officials it appears that the big bird just pecks the plastic off or chews it up and spits it out Anyway its it's costing Tosco time and money and they want the bird to stop messing around Its It's bad enough to have the EPA pecking around at you Jet alone an unknown raptor that is protected better than some human species The Wildlife Resources people are going to try and entice the raptor away with some new perches Our guess is that the new perches will not look as asgood asgood asgood good to the bird as that yellow plastic fin he has been eating on for the past couple of months After all it is probably no fun just sitting on a perch that is just a perch It is more fun playing around with some ome of the new stuff that is showing up in what has been heretofore a no mans |