Traverse City's hospital will not become part of the healthcare system in Grand Rapids. Munson Healthcare leaders announced Thursday that the board has ended talks of a merger with Spectrum Health. Hospital leaders say the problems small hospitals have, like difficulty borrowing money, are not going away. For now, however, Munson will look for partnerships that don't involve giving up control.
Hospital leaders say there was no one reason Munson has taken a merger with Spectrum off the table. But the hospital clearly lacked community support for the idea. The hospital surveyed community leaders and medical professionals in July and found a large percentage needed more information to form an opinion about the issue. Only about a third seemed to think a merger was a good idea.
Dr. Bob Sprunk, a member of Munson's board of directors, says it wasn't enough.
"Personally I think that taking a step that large for this community at this time was too large" said Sprunk. "That's what we heard loud and clear from the community"
Until May of this year, Munson, under the previous CEO Doug Deck, had touted a merger as a way to strengthen the hospital in difficult times. In particular, small hospitals worry they will not be able to borrow the money they'll need for renovations and expansions in the future. Under the umbrella of a larger hospital system like Spectrum, capital would be easier to access.
Sprunk says it's understandable that people feel they need more information about these problems, because healthcare is complex. He thinks the hospital should work to help people understand the trade-offs hospitals must grapple with in the future.
"I think Americans are going to be learning more about trade-offs in the coming years. We've lived without trade-offs for so long."
For now the trade-off is the Grand Traverse region will keep full local control of Munson Healthcare and forego any financial stability that a big health system offers. But President and CEO Ed Ness says there are other solutions.
"There are other types of affiliations and joint ventures and partnerhsips that are out there, short of a merger, that really need some vetting and some further exploring," says Ness.
Ness also says Munson needs to do a better job of engaging the community. The hospital has been criticized for its handling of the proposed merger, especially under Ness's predecessor. After Ness took over, the hospital announced plans to slow down and be more open about what it was doing.
Mike Jackson is a member of Munson's corporate board who publicly questioned the proposed merger soon after it was announced. Jackson, who worked in public relations for Dow Corning for decades, says the hospital has done a better job getting information out. But he says there are still gaps. For instance, he still hasn't seen the results of the survey done in July.
"I was hoping the results of the survey would have been public," said Jackson.