Delta Health Systems CEO Iris Stacker demonstrated the healthcare organization’s trend toward sustainability during her presentation to the Washington County Board of Supervisors on Monday. Although the hospital is still clawing its way back to profitability, it appears to be headed in the right direction given the plight of other hospitals in the region at present.
“As you know years 2021 and 2022, there were significant losses. Thank goodness, this year is not as bad as we thought it would be,” she said. “We thought we were going to be losing around $17 million and it looks like it’s going to be a little over a million.”
The hospital’s budget deficit has decreased from $23 million in 2022 to 16 million in 2023 and is projected at $1.5 for fiscal year 2024. Stacker outlined several measures in the hospital’s strategic plan that have help the organization arrive at such welcomed news.
These include bringing contract service in house where feasible and looking at avenues such as grants and congressional appropriations for capital expenditures.
Even though the hospital will see a 5 to 8 percent increase in pharmaceutical costs and 2 percent increase in supplies, there is a projected 4 to 5 percent increase in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement.
“We are waiting to hear back from the state on a sustainability grant,” Stacker said. “Hopefully we will see that and a possible congressional ask in year 24 but we’re banking on it and basing our projected budget on grants. That would be counting your chickens before they hatch.”
District 1 Supervisor Lee Gordon responded to the report by saying,”That’s great! And I like the fact that you gave us a projected budget without grants in it. These are real numbers. And if you happen to get a few grants, you’ll end up with a budget in the positive.”
One of the areas of emphasis for fiscal year 2024 is patient volume. According to Stacker, at the time of her presentation about a third of hospital beds (66) were occupied. Increasing patient volume must also be tempered with acquiring staff to care for them.
Nursing shortages have led Delta Health Systems to petition retired nurses, engage pending graduates from all local nursing schools and correspondence in a number of other ways to get them to consider work for the hospital.
