“Leadership is not about being in charge, it is about taking care of those in your charge.” Simon Sinek
Over the past several months, I have spoken with many people in Estes Park who have serious and legitimate questions about the current state of affairs at Estes Park Health.
Since direct conversation with the hospital senior leadership team and the Park Hospital District Board of Directors is difficult if not impossible for community stakeholders, I ask these questions publicly in advance of the next EPH board meeting on Jan. 29 as a courtesy in the hopes that, in the interest of transparency, the board will provide the community with a written response before the meeting on both their website and in all of the local news publications.
Hospital culture
The first set of questions has to do with the current hospital culture, in light of multiple concerns raised by members of the community during public comment at board meetings, on local social media platforms, and in the press describing a toxic work environment and general dissatisfaction of both the hospital and medical staff:
1. Do you believe that the culture of an organization is an important determinant of the success of the organization?
2. If yes, what has been done in the last four months to address concerns about what has been described by many current and former employees as a persistently toxic and unhealthy work environment at EPH?
3. Several months ago, Pat Samples, the chief nursing officer, spoke of a plan to work towards a Collaborative Just Culture Program ® qualitication at the hospital. Please explain what this is, why it is important, and what progress has been made?
4. Do you believe that staff satisfaction surveys are an important aspect of hospital management? If so, how should the surveys information be used?
5. For at least the last six months, there has been a call by multiple stakeholders for hospital staff and medical staff satisfaction surveys. It is fair to say that virtually no one in this community believes the administration’s excuses for not doing these—specifically that it would be too expensive to do, and that addressing concerns would be too expensive and time consuming for the hospital administrative staff. Why has the hospital administration, with the support of the hospital’s board of directors, continued to refuse to do what seems to be a necessary and common-sense assessment?
6. A stable workforce at the hospital is important for patient safety and financial success. Many current and former employees believe that staff turnover at the hospital has been extraordinary and far in excess of the national average for similar hospitals. Do you have data that would refute that? If not, and even if so, what specific plans have been made to minimize staff turnover?
7. Three primary care physicians have left EPH in the last six months or so. Why do you think that is? Are you concerned about it? Has EP Health conducted formal and independent exit interviews with these physicians? What is being done to address the attrition?
Senior leadership team
The next set of questions has to do with the behavior of the senior leadership team:
1. In light of pervasive and longstanding concerns about the financial and managerial performance of the senior leadership team, what steps has the board taken to investigate and improve their performance? Is there a performance improvement plan in place, and if so, what progress has been made?
2. What do you believe is the appropriate use of non-disclosure agreements in the case of employees leaving their positions at the hospital?
3. In the last five years, how many people have signed NDAs and received severance pay? How much has the hospital paid out in severance pay in situations where employees signed NDAs after leaving the hospital?
4. What are the reasons for this inordinate use of NDAs? Does the hospital administration have something to hide?
5. As a show of good faith, are the board of directors and the administration willing to release former employees from their NDAs so that they can provide feedback to the community about current issues that should be addressed?
6. It is a law in Colorado that Community Needs Assessment be done every three years by hospitals. While there is apparently a narrow legal loophole that does not compel critical access hospitals to do so, do you agree that performing a needs assessment is important? If so, why has one not been done in nearly five years, and when do you plan to do one?
Legal issues
With regard to legal issues surrounding the hospital,
1. Are there any current or likely legal actions against the hospital?
2. Are you aware of any current or recent (within the last five years) situations where current or former employees have consulted attorneys with regards to their employment situation?
Communication with the elected members of the board of directors
It is difficult if not impossible for community stakeholders to communicate with the elected members of the EPH board of directors, and apparently this is purposeful. As far as can be discerned, there is no way for constituents to contact board members directly.
1. As members of an elected board, do you believe you have a responsibility to be available to and responsive to constituents’ concerns in an open and transparent manner?
2. Because transparency by elected officials is important, the elected trustees of the Town of Estes Park have publicly available email addresses. All emails sent to them and all responses sent by them from their official email addresses are publicly available for anyone to read on the Town’s website. Will the board of directors commit to publishing EPH board members’ official email addresses on the EPH website so that community members can communicate with all board members simultaneously so that difficult issues cannot be hidden from other board members?
3. Will you commit to a period of questions and answers by community members at each board of directors’ monthly meeting, for as long as necessary?
UCHealth affiliation
With regard to the UCH affiliation,
1. There is significant doubt among some community stakeholders that UCHealth will find it advisable to affiliate with EPH given the many and deep problems with the toxic culture and other performance issues surrounding the current hospital administration. If the affiliation is scuttled for some reason, what is the backup plan?
2. If the affiliation does go through, will UCHealth commit to improving the services we currently have and restoring home health, hospice, and some of the other discontinued services?
Financial viability of EPH
Despite the drastic reduction in services and cost-cutting at EPH, the hospital continues to run significant operating losses every year and under the current leadership, it is not financially viable for much longer.
1. What has been the cost of contract physicians, especially compared with the cost of salaried physicians?
2. What has been the cost of other contract labor for nurses, therapists, CRNAs, and other clinical positions?
3. How much of a decline has there been in clinic visits?
4. What is the average daily bed occupancy at EPH?
5. From an economy of scale perspective, what is the minimum average daily bed occupancy the hospital must have to keep its doors open and stay viable?
6. Is the federally funded 340B Drug Pricing Program up and running, and how much money has it saved? Are we cooperating with our local pharmacies?
6. How many operating room cases has the hospital had in 2024 compared with two, three, four, and five years ago (2023 to 2019)?
7. What is the reason for the decrease in utilization of the operating room at EPH?
8. What plans do you have to increase revenue substantially from the operating room and infusion center?
Quality of care
There is deep concern that the quality of care at the hospital has declined.
1. Are there plans to assign a Chief Medical Officer to work with a Chief Nursing Officer to create appropriate policies and manage novel or ambiguous situations in the most effective and safe manner?
These are just some of the current issues for which the stakeholders of the Park Hospital District deserve answers.
It is imperative that the EPH board of directors and administration answer these questions publicly and prior to the next meeting on Jan. 29. In the interest of transparency, this should be done in writing in the three local news publications and posted on EP Health’s website. Questions by members of the community that remain after the board’s published answers can then be asked and answered at the regular board meeting.
This community deserves exemplary health care. The EPH board of directors is responsible for ensuring that. The community also deserves transparency from their elected representatives about an institution that has been funded by property taxes. EP Health is not a private business, and the public deserves answers to questions about how EP Health is being managed.
When David Batey last ran for this hospital board, he wrote, in a prepared statement that was published in the Estes Park Trail Gazette, “I feel I am as well prepared as possible to continue to work with my fellow Board members and the Estes Park Health Leadership Team to accomplish our mission: To safely navigate through our current and future challenges to ensure Estes Park Health continues to be a vibrant, sustainable organization that can effectively take care of the healthcare needs of our Estes Valley Community and visitors, now and into the future.”
It appears to me that the existence of the above is an indication that this board of directors and the current administration have failed in the above stated mission.
I encourage all concerned members of this community to show up at the next board of directors meeting on Jan. 29 to get answers to the above questions and to decide for yourself if EPH is performing at a level that we all deserve.
Hi Dr. Leigh,
Thank you again for being bold and taking up this fight on our behalf (we would all be fired and, as you know, many have already).
Clearly the board does not care at all, particularly David Batey (cough cough Merrick Garland*), about the employees at the hospital or the greater community. Its been 4 years of nonstop providers, upper level managers, staff, and now our patients flatly saying Vern and Pat are both bad at their jobs and even worse leaders. I think its time that you expand your circle of naysayers (ridiculous because its everyone in Estes Park*). Please start talking to EPH’s vendors and see if you can get some on record. They absolutely hate us. Hand to the Bible, I have had calls where it starts by them politely saying we havent paid our balance for x months and then asking when is Vern going to be fired. They rightfully complain nonstop about how he doesnt answer their emails, skips meetings, were always behind in payments, and that he refuses to make any decisions at all which puts them in a bind trying to allocate their inventory to both be profitable yet have stock for the Colorado community as they live here and actually care about its citizens. Its not an exaggeration to say that everybody remotely close to Vern thinks he is the most unqualified person they have ever worked with in healthcare.
It is absolutely astounding that he still holds this job. Next time we hire, doctors please don’t select the nicest exec (thats why he won), select the one who has credentials at a larger hospital (for the love of God stop hiring rural execs – get a tired/close to retirement major city executive… theyve been held accountable. Rural execs are simply not – IE Vern) and can articulate a plan using dollar amounts, patient inflow data, and believes in transparency. Vern’s word salads every meeting and community meeting are pathetically shallow and pass zero data whatsoever. Ask him a hard question and he punts to Pat or the says its coming next month. For goodness sake, every meeting we had publicly after 2 years of Covid, he would say, We don’t know how to protect against the disease,” – this would literally melt every single person in the meeting and he had no idea that everyone in the room was pissed and embarrassed. Simply astounding.
And to the townsfolk reading this… Yes, the employees have asked for him to be fired monthly for 4 years. Yes, that includes providers. We all deserve better.
Dr. Leigh has once again shared the truth with us. We are fortunate to have someone like him—an insider who is willing to reveal what’s really going on since he isn’t restricted by an NDA. He raises important questions, but it’s unfortunate we won’t be getting any answers from this board. Mark my words: they are doing everything they can to keep us from knowing the truth about what’s happening at EPH.
The only way to bring change to this board is by electing new members. There will be two seats up for election in May, and we should encourage Dr. Tom Leigh to run. If we can get him and another competent person elected, we could finally begin the process of real change. In the end, it’s up to the voters. The Park School District set a great example of creating change just a couple of years ago. If necessary, we can even recall the remaining EPH board members who aren’t up for election if they refuse to do their jobs. For now, those interested in running should file the paperwork by next month to get on the ballot.
One of the questions Dr. Leigh asked was about transparency—specifically, making it easier to contact EPH board members and allowing the public to review official emails on the EPH website. That information used to be available before Vern’s arrival on the scene. But when the public started asking too many questions, they removed the contact details and email review system. This shows that it is their intent to avoid being transparent or accessible.