Healthcare is one industry that is never constant and is always changing. Hospitals and entire healthcare systems must adapt to maintain relevancy and be sustainable in the communities they serve, especially in the wake of a crisis where many rural hospitals are shutting their doors.

Our communities, especially our Bradford community, have experienced changes that were necessary to continue to provide quality care to our region in this dynamic healthcare environment.

We, the members of the board of Upper Allegheny Health System, are aware of current challenges our community is facing with reduced local services and access at BRMC. The transformation plan to create centers of excellence at each campus resulted in services to shift between facilities. Because Olean General Hospital already had a modern outpatient surgery center, it made sense that OGH should become our surgical center of excellence. Bradford Regional Medical Center already had a skilled nursing facility with diagnostic rehabilitation medicine, it made sense for BRMC to become our long-stay nursing care center of excellence.

The timing, follow through, and education of the new plan was not ideal, and we understand the negative response from our Bradford community. We are entirely committed to improving the situation by reinforcing our leadership team, who are taking integral steps to improve our hospital campuses and the entire healthcare system.

Our new administrative team with Dr. Jill Owens as president is putting forward a heroic effort to improve the quality and service offerings at all locations across the system. At BRMC alone, we’ve seen tremendous strides with improvements including the fourth floor of the Pavilion reopening and nearing capacity. The new Occupational Health Center was refurbished and named in honor of local and beloved physician, Anita Herbert, MD.

The BRMC and OGH emergency rooms are functioning well and are almost back to pre-COVID volumes. Payor negotiations, with the help from Kaleida Health, has substantially increased the reimbursement rates for service offerings at all facilities. BRMC continues to offer many services at the Bradford campus including behavioral health, cardiology, imaging and radiology, lab, cancer care, cardiac and pulmonary rehab, Meals on Wheels, the sleep center, and a network of primary care and specialty providers.

Still one of the leading employers in the area, BRMC has a workforce of over 370 providing these essential services.

Though the transformation plan was not perfect, today, we can say that we have a regional healthcare system that is much stronger, and much more capable than most other rural hospitals because of it. We are successfully recruiting young doctors, nurses, technicians, and support personnel that live and work in our communities. We have made it possible for residents in our service area to receive sophisticated treatments close to home, and we have retained access to better and faster emergency care than in many other rural places.

The healthcare system is evolving rapidly to a new model that emphasizes outpatient, home care and tele-health. Having one regional healthcare system that shares resources and services across several facilities is the best way to provide healthcare to the people of McKean and Cattaraugus counties and beyond. While it is important to understand our past and not repeat mistakes, it is equally important to understand what challenges we are anticipating over the next several years and be prepared to face them head on.

With our community’s support, we can save not only our hospital but the entire healthcare system for our region.

Also, we would like to clear up confusion around a $9 million gift from the Bradford Hospital Foundation to Bradford Regional Medical Center, which transpired between 2005 and 2017. These are the same funds that have been reported as “missing” from the Bradford Hospital Foundation 990 information return as has been suggested in op-ed columns in The Bradford Era.

The transfers, which accumulated over the entire period, were properly recorded on the 990 return in 2017 as a reduction of equity in the Bradford Hospital Foundation. All — 100% — of that money was invested into the Bradford Regional Medical Center facility, with the majority being utilized to construct the tower that hosts many of our practice suites.

We want to reiterate that none of that money was misappropriated or utilized for the Olean campus. Our hospital system continues to utilize the facilities in Bradford that were constructed with that $9 million grant, and we are grateful to the Bradford Hospital Foundation for their continuing support for our campus in Bradford.

(Dr. Muhammed Javed, incoming chairman of the Upper Allegheny Health System Board of Directors, wrote this column on behalf of the board.)