HJBR Mar/Apr 2023

DIALOGUE 14 MAR / APR 2023 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE if those facilities weren’t here. For us, all those facilities gave us an inpatient footprint in areas that we were not yet in, allowing us to expand and lever- age our investments across a broader foot- print and making it more affordable. When things are more affordable, you have the margin needed to continue to reinvest in those facilities. That’s what we’ve done. We think we’ve done it successfully. We’ve done it in a way where the community trusts us. I think that’s why we saw a 95% “yes” vote on the East Jefferson transaction. We had to go to a public vote to acquire that facil- ity, and I think it was the high- est approval vote that Jeff Par- ish has ever seen. That’s what we’re doing for the community and the employees that work for us and the physicians that pro- vide the great care. Editor In the Baton Rouge market, FMOL ran into a few bumps along the road get- ting OLOL Children’s Hospi- tal started, with mismanage- ment of the foundation money for that facility. The new OLOL Children’s Hospital was touted as not only a convenience for Baton Rouge area families and patients, but a life-sav- ing necessity for children, not to be emergency mede- vacked to Children’s Hospital in New Orleans. I think many were surprised when FMOL turned over OLOL Children’s operation to LCMC Health. How did that come about, and who approached who? Feirn: The discussions have happened over time and I will say that we and FMOL, who operates Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital, are in a management partnership there. Both institutions are like-minded in that, “Let’s make Louisiana better,” and what better way to do that than first for chil- dren? Let’s stand in the gap for kids. We, at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, with our LSU partnership, with our Tulane part- nership, our centers of excellence, and the quaternary level of care that we provide, it makes sense for us to partner with Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge. We’re not creating duplicative, very costly services when the state of Louisiana, in terms of its child population, just isn’t large enough. Let’s work together. That’s how that came about. I give John Nickens, who’s our CEO at Children’s Hospital, as well as Rich- ard Vath, CEO of FMOL, and their board and our board a lot of credit in saying, “Hey, this partnership’s about caring for kids andmak- ing Louisiana better.” To the extent we compete a little bit on the adult side, we can set that aside for children and work together to make child healthcare better. Editor Do you know if children are still being medevacked from Baton Rouge to New Orleans for emergency treatment? Feirn There are certain levels of care in the sickest of the sick children, whether it’s a very complicated heart surgery or a trans- plant. Children’s Hospital in New Orleans gets transports from all over the state. That’s what I mean by the centers of excellence — that quaternary, highest level of care. If you try to duplicate it across the state, there aren’t enough patients across the state. Those types of services make sense to con- centrate, so you can recruit top faculty into Louisiana from other well-known children’s hospitals from across the country. That’s what we’ve done. When you look at Children’s Hospital of NewOrleans, we have LSU and Tulane Pediatrics there. They are now ranked in U.S. News &World Report . They’re the only ranked children’s hospital in the region from Newsweek . We continue to do great things there, and we’ll do great things with our part- ners at OLOL. Editor How do you feel the partnership is working with your management of Chil- dren’s Hospital in Baton Rouge? Feirn We’re fairly new into it, but it’s working great. I believe they most recently had their highest inpatient census they’ve ever had. Our management teams are working really well with their management teams. At the end of the day, it’s the privilege of taking care of children across the state and doing it in a way that shows excellence. That’s the simplest way to say it — that it’s working exceptionally well, and it’s serving the state of Louisiana extremely well in care for children. Editor Earlier this year, LCMC Health part- nered with Tulane University to acquire HCA’s Tulane Medical Center, Lakeside Hospital, and Lakeview Regional Medi- cal Center. The $150 million deal was accompanied by a $220 million initial capital investment into the hospitals over