Note: this letter to the editor was published in the October 11, 2021 edition of the Toledo Blade.
An important part of the impressive financial turnaround of the University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio Hospital, is University of Toledo President Dr. Greg Postel’s decision not to sell or lease the facility.
Instead, he and other senior administrators confidently placed a big bet that the hospital could make money with new investments in staff, technology and marketing, and with the outpouring of community support, notably the Save UTMC Coalition.
And so far his wager is paying off with the recent announcement the hospital finished the fiscal year with a $4 million surplus.
Credit the quick boost in revenues and in performance to frontline employees who worked to improve billing processes to make sure the hospital was getting paid for all the care it was providing, to find operating room and outpatient clinic efficiencies, to renegotiate contracts with medical insurers, and to improve patient volumes necessary for educational opportunities for medical students and resident physicians.
Universities like UT that operate health-professions colleges and teaching hospitals have a major responsibility for advancing community health and wellness, an obligation best fulfilled when there is a high degree of medical school-hospital connectedness and tight organizational integration.
That synergy would have been fractured had a sale or lease of the facility occurred.
UTMC has had its ups and downs, and it will have to remain nimble and not get complacent for its achievement to stand the test of time.
But it’s now clear that what the founders of MCO like Paul Block, Jr., and Dr. Frank Rawling dreamed of early 1960s—an academic health science center with a vibrant teaching hospital — northwest Ohioans now rely on as a necessity for their health and longevity.
And for now, that portends a bright future for the hospital.
JIM WINKLER
Gainesville, Fla.
Editor’s note: The writer worked in several communication positions at MCO and UT for more than 30 years and is one of four editors of the book, “A Community of Scholars: Recollections of the Early Years of the Medical College of Ohio.”