After meeting with David Vitter and Mitch Landrieu, governor says, 'I don't think this has to slow anything down'
BATON ROUGE -- After a meeting Monday with Sen. David Vitter, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and others, Gov. Bobby Jindal called for the University Medical Center governing board to consider a business model for a new teaching hospital in New Orleans beyond what state authorities and Louisiana State University System administrators have pushed for the past several years.
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View full sizeGov. Bobby Jindal The governor was careful not to endorse any particular model, but said development of a business plan for a "world-class medical education and research facility" should at least include a look at more closely integrating Tulane University's medical enterprise, which is now anchored at Tulane Medical Center, jointly owned by the university and the for-profit Hospital Corporation of America.
Yet the governor also insisted that such an effort, which would involve commissioning another outside consultant, not upset the existing timeline of approving a business and financing plan by late summer and beginning construction in earnest in the succeeding months.
"I don't think this has to slow anything down," Jindal said.
Even with the size, scope and financing still not finalized, the UMC is projected to open in 2015.
Jindal's sentiments, also expressed in a public letter to UMC board members, came after a private meeting in his Capitol office that included Vitter, Landrieu, state Treasurer John Kennedy, House Speaker Jim Tucker, and four hospital board members: Chairman Bobby Yarborough, Darryl Berger, Boysie Bollinger and David Voelker.
Vitter, Kennedy and Tucker last week asked the governor to abandon the long-standing 424-bed, $1.2 billion proposal that has been the centerpiece of several financial analyses, including a Kaufman Hall & Associates report completed earlier this month for the UMC governing board. An earlier one was done in 2010 by Verite Healthcare Consulting for the Jindal administration.
Jindal's fellow Republicans seized on the Kaufman Hall report, which echoed the Verite forecast of significant state general fund support for a new hospital, as proof that UMC would be overbuilt and a burden taxpayers. They advocated instead that the state buy Tulane Medical Center, which includes a downtown campus and Lakeside Hospital in Metairie, and build a smaller, new hospital either within the old Charity shell or on the UMC footprint in Mid-City, near downtown.
The UMC Corp. was constituted last year, after a long tussle between LSU and Tulane, as a state-affiliated entity whose governing board includes four appointees from Jindal, four from LSU, one from Tulane and two from other schools. The board has management oversight of the hospital -- including determining the size, scope and design of the complex -- with the state responsible for construction.
Vitter characterized Jindal's letter to the board as a victory, though Jindal and Landrieu both said a three-campus model is inherently inefficient. Jindal said his administration's previous, informal conversations about Tulane becoming a more integrated UMC partner would involve closing its downtown hospital and moving its "intellectual capital, its physicians and its patient base" to the new complex. As it stands now, Tulane's primary interest in UMC is placing many of its residency slots there.
Details aside, the senator and the governor agreed on the broader purpose: confirming the UMC board as an independent entity.
"It's the governor making clear that (the board's) mandate isn't to be put into any box by LSU or anyone else," Vitter said.
Jindal added: "There has been a sense that LSU has been aggressively pushing its vision. ... The board shouldn't be limited by anything LSU has done. Their job is not just to kick the tires, but to be an independent body."
Yarborough said after the meeting that he and his colleagues are likely to ask Kaufman Hall and Verite to revisit the hospital with a broad charge to suggest a detailed business plan: bed count; scope of practice; financing; potential partnerships among universities and existing hospitals in the New Orleans market.
The chairman said his aim would be for the study to be completed in time for the board to approve a business plan and present it, as promised, to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget in September. That panel has demanded the final plan before it signs off on a construction and other governance agreements that require legislative approval.
Jindal said the state would pay any new consultants out of the project budget.
The meeting did not include administrators from either university. Tulane President Scott Cowen was mum last week when Vitter, Tucker and Kennedy released their letter, saying the university had not been consulted. LSU administrators have dismissed the idea.
Jindal, Landrieu and Vitter, meanwhile, said the participants in the meeting agreed that any new hospital would involve new construction. Vitter said he saw an overhaul of the old Charity building as a viable option "earlier in the process." But, he said, "practically, it's fair to say that closing out that possibility is where we are."
The high-powered gathering occurred the same day as the House Appropriations Committee approved House Concurrent Resolution 59 that would required the full Legislature to approve any bond sale for the hospital. Rep. Cameron Henry's measure passed 12-11, over the objections of the Jindal administration and LSU.
Jindal said he "will talk to the author" about his concerns that the measure could further delay construction. The proposal still has several steps to clear in the legislative process, giving LSU and the administration ample opportunity to kill it.
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Bill Barrow can be reached at bbarrow@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3452.