Dr. John House, who owns and operates the Health First Clinic, is a former hospital commission chair and former hospital director. He recently sent the following letter to the hospital commission providing more detail about what his management could provide:
Greetings!
I realize that the commission is involved in working through the state audit, so I won’t take too much of your time.
Earlier this week, as I was having a phone meeting with the Arkansas Department of Health about Eureka Springs Hospital, I was encouraged by their eagerness to preserve high quality healthcare in our area.
I thought it might be helpful to you as a commission for me to point out just a few of the advantages of contracting with me and my company to operate the hospital.
As a Eureka Springs-based private company, we can be much more nimble with decision making than a government commission or board that is restricted by FOIA and other regulations.
If the commission opts to work with my company, we will be ready to restore the area’s best medical care to ESH on day one.
To that end, I’ve already begun putting together a top-notch medical and administrative team with hundreds of years of combined medical experience.
As a faculty member of UAMS rural residency program, I’ve begun discussions with UAMS Medical School to add ESH to the program to train doctors should my company assume management. They were unable to do this before since they require a family doctor to be onsite to administer the program.
I’ve also spoken with Dr. Jeff Bell who has assured me that he will start performing endoscopy at ESH again as soon as my team can provide adequate staffing.
I’ve also heard from additional doctors in the community who have expressed their firm support and encouragement in my efforts to help restore confidence in the hospital’s ability to provide good care.
Lastly, I cannot emphasize enough that my reason for making this proposal and going to so much effort before there is even a glimmer of hope that it will come to fruition, is because, like you, I care deeply about this community and the medical services that are available. ESH is an essential part of the care that I and many other medical providers in our area give to our patients and we all need it to be viable now and for years into the future. I and my team are more than able to meet this task head on and I hope that you will give my proposal serious consideration.
Thank you for your time!
John House, MD