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Tallahassee City Comminssion special meeting in progress. (Shayla Jones\/The FAMUAN)<\/p>\nTallahassee City Comminssion special meeting in progress. (Shayla Jones\/The FAMUAN)<\/p>\n
The Tallahassee City Commission met with the leadership of Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and Florida State University\u00a0to discuss partnership plans on Oct. 1, seeking to strengthen an ongoing partnership that has existed for almost 20 years. \u00a0<\/p>\n
TMH Chief Executive Officer Mark O\u2019Bryant defined what this partnership means for the hospital. \u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re focused on is the outcome,\u201d he said. \u201cThe outcome we\u2019re trying to achieve is a better platform of health care, one that allows us to bring a higher level of programs into the community.\u201d\u202f\u202f<\/p>\n
FSU President Richard McCullough believes everyone should have access to quality health care, which hits close to home for him.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNot everyone has access to [specialized] doctors at that same level,\u201d he said. \u201cAs someone who grew up poor, if I had a toothache, I had to just put some AmBisome on it or whatever until it needed to be pulled because my parents really couldn\u2019t afford to take me to get health care. That\u2019s the way I grew up.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Dean Watson, the chief integration officer over physicians at TMH, laid out the proposed agreement between TMH and FSU.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city would transfer the TMH hospital campus,\u201d he said. \u201cFSU then, in turn, would lease the campus back at TMH under a new lease that would be for 40 years, and the amount would be consistent, [with] the dollar per year as the current lease that TMH enjoys with the city. TMH will continue as a licensed independent operator, continuing to serve patients just as it always has. The hospital will be rebranded as FSU Health, and governance will be structured through a 17-member board with directors that are nominated by both TMH and FSU.\u201d \u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Watson emphasizes that the partnership will maintain the community as its priority.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth organizations are pleased to be a part of so many students\u2019 and families\u2019 lives,\u201d he said. \u201cThat spirit of connection is reflected in this agreement. Ongoing commitment to caring for all patients, including those with and without insurance \u2026 Our partnership with FAMU, Tallahassee State College, and others will continue. It will grow by opening new doors for students and strengthening the health workforce.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Community members like Lee Hinkle expressed their desire for TMH to have more voting chairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u202f\u202f\u201cTMH is our community hospital,\u201d she said. \u201cIt must remain locally steered. As drafted, the new board gives TMH\u202fa nine-to-eight majority on paper, balanced, in practice, too thin. A hospital serving hundreds of thousands shouldn\u2019t hinge on a single absence or a sudden shift.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the meeting was over, community member Joe Kalicki still had unresolved concerns.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI do have broad concerns about the lack of specificity that we\u2019ve seen so far,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are too many unanswered questions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city commission decided 3-2 for the staff to initiate a memorandum of understanding with a payment component, continuing the process of the proposed partnership.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tallahassee City Comminssion special meeting in progress. (Shayla Jones\/The FAMUAN) The Tallahassee City Commission met with the leadership…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-13077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}