Hospital Board Backs Merger

BALLARD

A possible merger between Ballard Community Hospital and Swedish Hospital Medical Center moved closer to reality last week, when the Ballard board of directors voted 16-1 to endorse the merger.

Swedish's board will vote next month on the plan. If Swedish also endorses the merger, both hospitals will begin a two- to five-month period of scrutinizing each other's operations. They must also get federal and state approval to combine.

The hospitals have been talking about a merger for more than two years. Last week's vote came after a committee of Ballard and Swedish directors produced a report detailing how a merger might be accomplished. No layoffs are expected as a result of the merger, which the hospitals say would cut costs by making both operations more efficient.

Doug Bruce, Ballard chief executive, said the committee recommended combining the two hospitals into one organization. The other option was maintaining separate medical staffs and boards, operating as two subsidiaries of a parent company.

Under the committee's recommendation, Bruce would report to Swedish Hospital's executive director, Dr. Brian Goodell, as head of the Ballard campus of a combined hospital.

After Bruce informed Ballard's staff about how the merger was progressing last week, one nurse, who asked not to be identified, said many employees are worried that Ballard will be gobbled up by the larger Swedish Hospital. Ballard, with 163 beds, is roughly one-quarter the size of Swedish, which has about 580 beds.

And Diane Sosne, president of District 1199NW of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees-SEIU, said she hopes the strong sense of community at Ballard is retained through the merger. Sosne's union represents about 200 nurses at Ballard.

Bruce said the committee recommended that an expanded board of directors be created to run the two hospitals. It would consist of the existing 12 Swedish board members and five from the Ballard board. Also, he said, a medical-executive committee would be established with six current Ballard medical staff members joining 17 Swedish medical staff members.

But Bruce acknowledged a merger would involve more than simply melding boards of directors and medicine. "We have different employee cultures at the hospitals," he said. "For example, our physicians are used to meeting en masse quarterly. But at Swedish, where there is a much bigger staff, physicians get together by department."

Bruce said the combination of the two hospitals is a good fit.

Changing economics in the health-care industry necessitate that hospitals do all they can to cut costs, and a combined Ballard-Swedish hospital will allow the hospitals to make some departments more efficient by spreading fixed costs over more patients.

Swedish officials were not available for comment.