LRGHealthcare officials respond to misleading media reports

An article in yesterday's Union Leader written by staff reporter Paula Tracy had LRGHealthcare officials scrambling to set the record straight with a number of media outlets.

"We've been on the phone with the Union Leader, AP (Associated Press) and New Hampshire Public Radio to make sure they get the correct information," LRGHealthcare Director of Development and Community Affairs Christopher Boothby confirmed yesterday afternoon. "AP has already assured us they'll be correcting the story."

Headlined "Hospital Deficits Persist," Tracy's article led with "Hospitals in Laconia and Franklin lost $5.7 million in 2004, despite instituting a number of cost-saving measures."

The veteran reporter continued with comments from Mike Hill, president of the New Hampshire Hospital Association, "who said he is confident LRGHealthcare will be able to work in the long term to be sustainable 'but they are certainly going through a tough time.'"

Though Tracy wrote that "at the annual meeting of LRGHealthcare, .... chief financial officer Henry Lipman said the year's financial outcome was disappointing, given the belief that cost-saving measures were to reduce the losses by more than $1 million," Tracy did not attend that meeting, and it wasn't clear where she or how she divined that quote.

Had the report been limited to Tracy's article in the Union Leader, hospital officials would not have been as concerned. But the situation became more complicated when the Associated Press picked up the story from the state's largest newspaper, rewrote it and sent it out on the wire.

From there, New Hampshire Public Radio gleaned the information it used in its news report, and soon to follow was WMUR-TV. Soon, every news outlet in the state was reporting on what appeared to be a potentially looming disaster at LRGHealthcare.

"They just got it wrong," said Lipman, who confirmed that he had not provided the information to Tracy.

In fact, though the two hospitals did report a combined operating loss of $5.8 million for the year ending September 30, 2004, when offset by non-operating income of $2.35 million, the net loss totaled only $3.42 million.

And contrary to Tracy's claim that the hospitals' cost-cutting efforts have not had the desired impact, LRGHealthcare has been operating in the black for three consecutive quarters.

"It looks as though we're going to be in the black in January as well," Lipman said yesterday, promising to share the final audited figures once they are available.

By late afternoon Lipman and Boothby had managed to confer with a number of the media outlets, and shortly after 3 p.m. Associated Press had rewritten the earlier story, leading with nine paragraphs explaining the financial results and the success of turnaround efforts.

Yet it wasn't just the mistaken reporting of the hospitals' financial condition that had Lipman and Boothby concerned.

"Tracy made it seem as though we just shut down the Wellness Center," Boothby said, "ignoring the fact that we're still involved in helping to support the program."

Additionally, the reporter referred to LRGHealthcare having severed its financial ties with the Adult Day Care Program, without any reference to the hospitals' involvement and support in saving the program by working with Easter Seals, NH, which has taken over its operation.

Boothby and Lipman both concede that the two hospitals operated by LRGHealthcare — Lakes Region General and Franklin Regional — continue to face financial challenges. "But we want people to know that we're continuing to make the adjustments needed to preserve our ability to serve the community," Lipman said. "We've met with considerable success over the past year, and we anticipate more improvement in the coming months."