The latest in the HCA - Inova ad wars: assumptions and misleadings
This week brought in 2 new ads in local newspapers from Inova Loudoun Hospital apparently really trying to tighten up the thumbscrews on Loudoun’s Board over HCA’s re-application for the Broadlands Regional Medical Center (BRMC). I’m going to address these in reverse order of appearance just for the sake of simplicity.
In this Sunday’s Washington Post Inova has an ad that asks, “Is HCA Misleading County Government Officials?” Interesting question, given the analysis of Inova’s previous ads. Today’s ad points the accusing finger at HCA over 2 statements in their 2008 re-application for building the BRMC. In that application, HCA makes these claims:
- HCA/Broadlands will “introduce a cardiac catheterization laboratory - the first in Loudoun County.”
- HCA/Broadlands will “be the first hospital in Loudoun County to employ emergency personnel specifically trained and retained to serve the needs of pediatric emergency patients.”
The Inova ad pounces on them and stresses that Inova offers both of these services, the first since February 2006 and the second since May 2006. It then proceeds to show how BRMC won’t offer any new services to Loudoun (aside from a specialized psychiatric unit).
As I’ve repeated said, the critical issue in needing a new hospital is whether the population density in a given area warrants it and can support it. What is Inova driving at with this ad? That no new hospital is allowed to open unless it provides “X” number of new services? Nonsense. Same with the repeated frantic “it’s only 5 miles from us!” mantra. We’ve already seen that other hospitals are every bit that close to each other. And 5 more miles in rush hour traffic with a loved one in the back of an ambulance ain’t trivial.
But what about the “misleading” part? When HCA announced that they would suspend their lawsuit against the County and go through the re-application process, HCA’s Mark Foust said publicly that this would be “essentially an identical application” to the first one. You know, the first one that was filed clear back in 2005. That’d be before Inova suddenly started offering the 2 services they claim HCA is “misleading” people about. This is clearly not an effort to mislead, it was an effort to get the application in front of the Board as quickly as possible. That it contained some outdated verbiage is hardly surprising. The application process is a lengthy one and the preparation of that application takes a huge amount of time and effort. Standing there with a completed application in hand, it’s not hard to imagine that HCA simply re-filed it with the application date in 2008. Hardly a smoking a gun to be running a full-page ad on.
The other ad appeared earlier this week, the one I saw showing up in the Loudoun Independent. Another in the Inova “HCA Myths” series, this one talks about patients leaving Loudoun for their health care needs. To suggest - as this ad does - that such a concept is a myth is dead wrong right from the start. They know that, of course, since they go right ahead reference the phenomenon further in the ad. The real thing to keep your eye upon in their assertions is the utter lack of proof they offer. Have a look at some:
- A hospital in Broadlands would be unlikely to attract many patients now receiving care outside of Loudoun County.
- The service area for a Broadlands hospital would be virtually identical to Inova Loudoun Hospital’s service area.
- Having two hospitals near each other at Lansdowne and Broadlands, consequently, could mirror the wester Fairfax experience of neither building sizable volume or levels of service and the area continuing to have high levels of out-migration for care.
“[U]nlikely…”? “[V]irtually indentical…”? “[C]ould mirror…”? Well, based on this, I’d say “yes, but they could anyway,” “actually, BRMC’s would be 5 miles to the south, remember?”, and “sure, but it might also not.” Again, pretty weak stuff. For an ad campaign that supposedly focuses on “location, location, location” they sure don’t address the notion of whether the said location is supported by a population density. The State Commission has already said that it does and they said that 5 years ago. If it did then, the population growth today only makes that more true.
I’m a resident of northern Virginia, near Washington, DC. By profession, I’m a network engineer for a very, very large company in the IT field. I work with several federal agencies in my job. Politically, I lean conservative on most issues dealing with matters of law, finance, national security, and personal responsibility. I’m more moderate in the social arena but don’t confuse that with the so-called “liberal” stance. You’ll get the picture.
This kind of advertising from a so-called non profit is shocking, not to mention misleading. Further, i find it really interesting that the FTC and the Commonwealth’s Attorney General are worried about Inova being monopolistic in their take over bid for PWC hospital. Just build them all i say!