Media Release

For: Immediate Release
Date: Thursday, June 29, 2006
Contact: Bruce Cryan (401) 222-5123

Financial Health of Rhode Island Hospitals is Improving According to Report by HEALTH

Today, the Rhode Island Department of Health (HEALTH) released The Health of RI's Hospitals (2005) detailing the financial performance of Rhode Island's 13 hospitals. The Report also compares the state's hospitals to those in the Northeast and to others across the country.

Compared to other hospitals in 2004, the net worth of hospitals in Rhode Island grew at a faster pace, but the hospitals were less profitable. Rhode Island hospitals had better collections of their accounts receivable, but their liquidity was weaker. Rhode Island hospitals had similar financial leverage as other hospitals, and their capacity to increase their borrowings was greater. In 2005, of the 8 financial measures examined, 4 improved, 3 measures held constant, and 1 worsened.

In addition to benchmarking the overall hospital financial performance, the Report also ranked the individual facilities in the state using a composite score of the 8 measures over 3 years. Based on this methodology, the top performing hospitals were Newport (1st), Miriam (2nd), and Bradley (3rd), respectively.

"Rhode Island's hospitals are a $2.6 billion dollar industry with an annual payroll of $1.5 billion, and their financial health, particularly among the community hospitals, remains an issue as we look at the changing health care environment in our state," said David R. Gifford, MD, MPH, Director of Health. "Community hospitals are critical to Rhode Island's healthcare system and are an economic driver in the state. Therefore, we need to look at how community hospitals fit into the broader health care system." he added.

This and other Reports on different aspects of hospital performance are available on HEALTH's website. For more information, contact Bruce Cryan at 222-5123.