Hospital Board News Briefs

BY GINA KEATING | EDITOR

Olney Hamilton Hospital Administrator Michael Huff said the hospital is close to selecting an architectural firm to help hospital administrators decide whether the replace the aging hospital with a new facility or remodel it. Mr. Huff told the hospital board of directors that he soon would choose a firm to evaluate the existing hospital and create a proposal to turn the inpatient-focused facility toward outpatient care. The hospital also is considering ways to finance the project and will service any debt it issues with the estimated $2 million in tax revenue spun off by a new wind farm and a coming hydrogen plant located in the hospital’s tax district. “If it was only the wind farm it would spin off $1.2 million and that would be enough for debt service,” Mr. Huff told the board. Construction on the hydrogen plant near Graham has not begun this summer, as scheduled, he said.

Olney Hamilton Hospital saw its operating revenue rise by 42 percent over last fiscal year, as patients who stayed away from the hospital because of COVID began returning, Administrator Michael Huff told the board of directors at their monthly meeting on Aug. 26. The hospital which has operated profitably for the past decade as other rural hospitals have closed, will end Fiscal Year 2022 with a profit of $1.5 million, Mr. Huff said. The board discussed the hospital’s finances as OHH prepares to start a new fiscal year on March 1. “The cost of doing business is escalating every day but we’re hanging in there,” Mr. Huff told the board of directors.

Mr. Huff said year-to-date operating expenses also rose by 12 to 14 percent. “A good portion of that is salaries,” he said. “The bottom line for operations of the hospital is that I couldn’t be pleased more because I thought we would be struggling, waiting for tax revenue [from the hospital district] to come in.”