To the North Shore Hospital Board:
Regarding the hospital/care center renovation bids higher than anticipated.
Here’s a simple solution to the financial dilemma that you are facing: reduce the number of hospital rooms/beds to eight. Look at your recent data for the average inpatient census (four or less?) and tell us how 16 beds are needed. An average census of 12 (or more) could justify 16 beds, but who is predicting that?
Where are these “new patients” coming from? A bit of a stretch isn’t it?
Telemedicine is not going to significantly reduce the number of transfers to Duluth for patients that need more specialized services (and a longer inpatient stay). Sorry to break the news, but there will not be an intensive care unit or surgery at North Shore Hospital. Both are too costly, as we saw with the obstetric services debate. The average number of days patients stay in a hospital is decreasing.
Medicare and insurance companies are squeezing hospitals to decrease the length of days an inpatient is allowed to stay. Cook County will have to double or triple in population to produce a significant increase in the (local) hospital inpatient population. Which, by the way does not always correlate with the influx of population during the summer months.
Fewer beds, less to build, less to heat, less to cool, less initial cost. A simple, realistic solution.
Paul Dahl, RN
Gunflint Trail
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