EPH board schedules special meeting, followed by another executive session

The Estes Park Health Board of Directors will hold a public special meeting at 8 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 21.

Initially, the meeting was to be held in the Bear Lake Conference Room at the medical center and open to the public to attend in person. Today, however, another press release announced that the meeting would only be accessible to the public online. Members of the public must pre-register with the hospital to attend. The board of directors will follow the public meeting with another executive session from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m.

According to a press release issued Tuesday, the meeting will allow EPH employees, physicians, leadership staff, and the public an opportunity to “share their concerns about the anxiety that has recently been created because of commentary by board members and local media” regarding a delay in UCHealth’s acquisition of the health center.

David Snow, one of EPH’s attorneys from Hall Render, will attend and provide a summary of the decision-making process leading to the acquisition agreement.

The EPH press release cited issues raised by “the media” and a published commentary from one of the board members as instigators of employee concern. Those comments call for a delay in the UCHealth acquisition process to allow the Colorado attorney general more time to review contract language and specific board actions that led to the contract being signed by the EPH board of directors.

The Colorado attorney general must approve the transaction before it can be finalized. By state law, the attorney general has at least 60 days from the submission of acquisition documents to decide whether the proposed action meets state guidelines for transferring operations of a nonprofit hospital. Acquisition documents were submitted to the attorney general’s office on June 18, 63 days ago.

Additionally, a required public hearing, a segment of the state’s review of the acquisition, was held in Estes Park on July 31.

In speaking to the audience at the public hearing, Attorney General Phil Weiser said, “The exact standard that I am reviewing is whether or not this transaction results in a material change in the public interest served by the hospital. That could include reducing the availability or the accessibility of health care services in the relevant community.”

After the meeting concluded, a spokesperson for Weiser’s office also forecasted that the attorney general’s review would likely take more than 60 days due to the amount of material about the transaction that had been submitted.

While most of the community members who spoke at the public hearing expressed confidence in UCHealth’s reputation as a medical care provider, several people raised concerns about details of the acquisition, including the requirement that Estes Park guarantee 50 years of property tax payments to UCHealth and the fact that the Park Hospital Board, a publicly elected board, would no longer have any policy control over the hospital’s services.

One of the last people to speak at the hearing asked the attorney general to ensure that the community’s interests were heard and considered in approving the process.

Since the hearing, several viewpoints about the acquisition have been published, including those by board member Tom Leigh, a former EPH emergency room physician, and a commentary by the Estes Valley Voice about the need for government organizations, such as EPH, to do the public’s business publicly in accordance with the State’s sunshine laws.

In a recent commentary submitted by Leigh, he listed several concerns, including a provision that the contract allowed UCHealth the option to “withdraw from the affiliation for any reason,” while there is no similar option for EPH to withdraw from participation. Leigh was elected to serve as a director of Park Hospital District before the agreement was signed, but he was not involved in any negotiation sessions.