After nearly a year of uncertainty regarding the future capacity of its Extended Care Facility, the Hilo Medical Center announced Tuesday that the unit will focus its efforts on a smaller patient population.
After nearly a year of uncertainty regarding the future capacity of its Extended Care Facility, the Hilo Medical Center announced Tuesday that the unit will focus its efforts on a smaller patient population.
The East Hawaii Region Board of Hawaii Health Systems Corp., which manages the medical center, adopted the recommendation of HMC administrators to operate a 27-bed facility.
“We think by June or July we’ll be in the upper-20s range (for patients), and that’s where we plan to stay,” HHSC East Hawaii Regional CEO Dan Brinkman said Wednesday. Brinkman said the upper 20s number was a “comfortable” one for the staff and the center.
According to an HMC press release, there were 33 long-term residents at the facility last month, down from 41 in late January and 72 last summer.
The 27-bed decision follows months of downsizing, after the center began placing new long-term care patients at East Hawaii facilities in Honokaa (Hale Ho‘ola) and Pahala (Ka‘u Hospital) as well as at private care providers and the Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home.
The board initiated a review process of changes to long-term care services in December 2015, prompted by concern that the Hilo facility “falls far short of acceptable standards of accommodation and care for the community,” according to a statement released at the time.
There now will be three residents living in each room of the Extended Care Facility, as opposed to four, a measure that meets Medicare minimum square-foot requirements while alleviating overcrowding.
HMC also plans to renovate the building’s restrooms in the coming fiscal year using an estimated $300,000 in savings resulting from the new capacity.
In a statement this week, board chairman Kurt Corbin said the growth of private care facilities combined with the two other East Hawaii centers meant most long-term care needs could be accommodated without the Extended Care Facility.
“The one exception is the delivery of long-term care to vulnerable safety net populations,” he said. “Hilo Medical Center is a safety net hospital, and it will continue to provide exceptional care for patients in need.”
Safety net populations are those that do not have care options outside of the public health network.
“I feel really good about the fact that we will still have a facility for people who can’t go anywhere else,” Brinkman said. “That’s a good thing, and that lines right up with our mission to care for people in our community who need help.”
During the past nine months, 60 patients with dual insurance — Medicaid and another insurance — were transferred to the veterans home or a private facility. Thirteen patients were transferred to Ka‘u Hospital, and 13 to Hale Ho‘ola Hamakua, the newest facility in the system. Eleven were accepted to the Extended Care Facility.
In January, during a legislative informational briefing, state Rep. Richard Onishi, D-Hilo, Keaau, Kurtistown, Volcano, told administrators his constituents were concerned about the burden placed on families when their relatives were relocated to places such as Hale Ho‘ola and Ka‘u Hospital.
At the time, Brinkman said the policy was an important cost-saving measure and that “no one had been forced, pressured and asked to leave our (Hilo) facility.” The policy was in response to an expected budget shortfall of between $6 million and $7 million for the current fiscal year, which ends in June.
The idea the center would phase out services entirely was “a misconception,” Brinkman said Wednesday. “It was kind of hard to convince people of that.”
The decrease in beds also will mean a reduction in staff at the Extended Care Facility, from about 100 employees last summer to a projection of 44 this summer.
More than 20 staffers already started working in different units of the hospital and its clinics.
The retraining process will continue for the remaining affected employees, who will be provided “training and new skills to help them be effective in their roles,” Brinkman said.
Training can last more than several weeks.
“While there is an expense associated with this training, we believe our employees are worth it,” Brinkman said.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.