CMH Board of Trustees Makes Historic Recommendation, Asset Purchase of Hospital

At its regular meeting Wednesday, Dec. 16, the CMH Board of Trustees made the recommendation to move forward with an asset purchase (acquisition) of CMH Regional Health System.

The board recommendation will be taken to the Clinton County Board of Commissioners for their review and consideration on the morning of Monday, Dec. 21. Since CMH is a county entity, the recommendation must be acted on by the commissioners as they are the ultimate decision-making authority. 

The commissioners will be hosting a public informational meeting on Monday, Dec. 21, at 7 p.m. at the Murphy Theatre. Over the past several months, CMH and the commissioners have worked to make their decision-making process as transparent as possible, and agreed on the need for a public informational meeting.

The asset purchase recommendation will require a public competitive bidding process, which ultimately may result in the sale of the county hospital. The Board and the County will have the ability to reject any and all bids. The CMH Board of Trustees recommendation is based on more than a year's worth of detailed research and analysis on its own as well as by the CMH medical staff, management and non-management employees and community leaders.

As part of CMH's request for proposal process, CMH involved not only administration and the board of trustees, but physicians, community leaders, CMH employees and members of the community. Those individuals are made up of five teams: Ad Hoc Affiliation Committee, Operations Team, Medical Staff Advisory Group, Employee Advisory Group and the Community Advisory Group.

"The board is eager to move forward with this recommendation and we feel confident this is the best solution to keep a hospital in Clinton County." says Bob Wagenseller, chairman of the CMH Board of Trustees. "Patients and community members should anticipate stabilization of current services as well as growth in our physician base and service lines as a result of this process.

 "The two for profit corporations we have talked with so far feel the area of Clinton County is a viable market to keep a full service, state of the art hospital."

Prior to the December 16 recommendation, CMH made every effort to provide community outreach and education of the affiliation options through informational presentations to community groups and clubs.