To our readers: This editorial contains a link to the draft agreement to form a strategic alliance between Valley Medical Center and UW Medicine. Typically, such contracts are discussed in an executive session, but commissioners opted to debate it in open session to help make the process transparent. The board decided not to post the draft to the medical center’s web site out of deference to the UW Medicine trustees, who have yet to consider the document. However, once the draft was presented at a public meeting, it became public.
Commissioners in Public Hospital District 1 – Valley Medical Center – are about to make the most important decision facing Valley since the district opened Renton Hospital in 1940s.
Now is the time when the commissioners’ acumen for oversight should be on full display. That’s what they were hired to do by the voters in the district.
Demonstrate through your questions and your active engagement that you have carefully read the draft agreement for a strategic alliance between Valley Medical and UW Medicine so that we, your bosses, know you’ve done your homework and given this careful thought. Stick to what’s important – continued excellent health care in southeast King County.
And try to answer the questions raised by the public.
Only a handful of really probing questions were asked Monday night as the commissioners’ chief negotiator, attorney George Beal, walked them through the sections in the agreement. Beal and hospital administrators had primed the question pump by providing them with more than 200 questions they could ask.
Commissioner Anthony Hemstad, as expected because of his public statements about the alliance, was fairly aggressive in his questioning. So was Don Jacobson. That’s the tact to take, if the questioning remains on task.
Commissioner Aaron Heide left early to tend to a patient.
While commissioners may feel comfortable in their understanding of the agreement’s details, that understanding is only part of what they need to accomplish before voting on the agreement. There are long-term implications for the hospital, its patients and the hospital district that are just as important, if not more so than individual details.
Beal wisely counseled that in any negotiation, you win some and you lose some. You compromise. The commissioners’ job is to decide whether the positives – and there are many – outweigh the negatives – and there are some – in deciding whether to approve the strategic alliance.
We hope that commissioners will spend part of tonight or Wednesday or Thursday if necessary carefully analyzing whether the agreement strikes the right balance for the good of patients at Valley Medical.
Part of that balancing act is to air concerns about what happens if this long-term agreement, up to 45 years, simply doesn’t pan out financially or fails to deliver on enhanced medical services. Valley Medical could become so integrated with UW Medicine that it no longer has all the necessary business operations to go it alone. Of course, there are guidelines in the agreement about how to end the relationship.
No one can predict the future nor anticipate every possible pothole. But at least raise issues that seem far off now, think about them and leave behind for future commissioners through thoughtful discussion some guidance about how to exit with grace.
District resident and Renton businessman Jim Sullivan warned against “what-iffing” the agreement to death.
That’s true. Still, the commissioners should enter this agreement with confidence, knowing they’ve fully vetted the proposal. In turn, they will instill confidence in the public that the strategic alliance is the right move.
And leave those red herrings at home.
