6. Financials | 2022

Our Greatest Asset and Our Financial Journey

It is true that an organization’s greatest asset are its employees. Their abilities, knowledge, empathy, and dedication cannot be underestimated or replaced. Recruitment and retention of staff is crucial to the financial health of the organization. Like most industries, workforce challenges in healthcare have been significant since the start of the pandemic. We will continue to invest in our staff and we are truly and deeply grateful for their commitment to serve the community.

NMC remains committed to improving financial sustainability. Fiscal Year 2022 (FY’22) resulted in a 4.32% operating loss. This year’s operating loss was driven by the increased cost of having contracted temporary staff providing direct patient care in our hospital. We pay a premium for contracted temporary staff, however, we could not have provided the necessary care to our community without these individuals. It was essential to supplement our workforce to continue providing safe, quality care.

We continue to carefully assess all that we do to ensure it is a match for a community hospital and meets community needs. When needed, we are engaging partners to take on services which they are better positioned than the hospital to provide due to expertise, regulation, or reimbursement. In FY’22, our pediatric practices transitioned from being hospital owned to being in private practice, now under the name of Maple Monarch Pediatrics.

Also in FY’22, our primary care practices transitioned from being hospital owned to being part of Northern Tier Center for Health (NOTCH). These transitions preserved access for the community to these essential services and allows NMC to invest in other services that the community needs. For example, NMC is partnering with Dartmouth Hitchcock on Tele-Neurology services to keep stroke care local, reducing the number of patient transfers to tertiary care facilities.

NMC also continues to invest in equipment and infrastructure and has begun modernization of the Emergency Department. The space had not been meaningfully renovated in over 30 years and the project brings much needed improvements to address issues with patient safety, privacy, workflow, and care of patients with infectious conditions. We anticipate the project to be complete by October of 2023. The organization has been saving and planning for this project for many years and are excited to see it completed after several years of pandemic related delays.

Lastly, NMC’s Fiscal Year 2023 (FY’23) budget was approved by the Green Mountain Care Board. The FY’23 budget results in a positive modest 1% operating margin and is a meaningful step in the right direction on our financial improvement journey.