NCMC board: Keep talking to Banner

GREELEY — The board of directors for North Colorado Medical Center Inc. voted 8 to 2 in favor of continuing negotiations with Phoenix-based Banner Health Systems at a board meeting Tuesday.

Thomas Selders and Julianne Haefeli cast the only dissenting votes in what amounts to the board’s commitment to work things out with Banner and officially reject other options.

“Our first goal is to successfully complete negotiations quickly,´ said board president Don Cummins in a prepared statement. “Everyone, including the hospital staff and administration, will appreciate putting this issue to bed and moving forward.”

Once an agreement is solidified, NCMC and Banner are expected to proceed with a $130 million expansion plan dubbed the Second Century Project. “The board and local administrators all agree that significant improvements to the NCMC facility are necessary,” Cummins said.

Banner has managed the Greeley hospital since 1995 and has owned McKee Medical Center in Loveland since 1976.

In October 2001, Banner and NCMC were prepared to enter a 21-year contract that renegotiated financial arrangements and eliminated a mutual one-year escape clause. But conflicts of interest were revealed between then board members, Banner and NCMC officials. Two months later, in December, the board voted to halt negotiations.

A consultant was hired to research other options, including a regional collaboration with Fort Collins-based Poudre Valley Health System. But after many months — during which PVHS announced its own plans for a $200 million new hospital to be built in Loveland — the board voted on Tuesday to commit to Banner.

While Selders and Haefeli were the only board members to vote against the step forward with Banner, several others expressed doubts before voting to proceed. ” … I feel we are painted into a corner to the point we cannot practically look at other options,” board treasurer Don Mueller said.

Mueller said that, under the existing contract, NCMC would not see the returns necessary to meet the needs dictated by population growth and increasing costs of health-care technology.

“The current arrangement does not provide for such returns after the expenditure of funds anticipated under the Second Century Project, which requires an expenditure of over $100 million,” Mueller said.

Dr. Chris Michael said that while Banner’s financial performance at NCMC has not lived up to his expectations, he believes Banner can provide the stable financial basis necessary to meet the health-care needs of the rapidly growing community. “I’m sitting right on the edge,” he said, before voting to go with Banner.

PVHS’s plans to build a new hospital at Interstate 25 and U.S. Highway 34 — just a few miles from Banner-owned McKee Medical Center in Loveland — has been perceived as a trump card in the ongoing competition between the two regional health systems.

Several of NCMC’s board members who voted for Banner addressed the competition issue.

“I’m not a supporter of a regional hospital if it’s on I-25,´ said Ken Shultz. “We have the best doctors in the state. … I don’t want to see them on the corner of I-25 and route 34 (sic). I want to see them here. …”

Al Dominguez said that PVHS’s unwillingness to work with Banner led to his decision. “They gave us an ultimatum,” he said. “I don’t fold to ultimatums.”

Details of the renewed contract between NCMC and Banner are expected to be determined in the next several weeks.

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