On Thursday, May 24 the newly minted Hospital Strategic Futures task force met for the first time.  The League of Women Voters blog has a good summary.

What are we doing?  the Council passed a motion outlining the scope of the discussion in which

The Task force will study the respective contributions of the Hospital and the City to the public health and economic development of the community, and consider models of future collaboration between the Hospital and the City which:

• ensure that the residents of Northfield continue to have access to a high quality, affordable health care delivery system;
• make investments that improve community health, fitness, and wellness; and,
• Promote effect local governance and direction of the health care delivery system

When I blogged about this earlier, I made some suggestions which can fit under those bullet points.  For the initial meeting, however, we simply tried to get organized and acquainted.  The Council members of the task force – Ivan Imm, Patrick Ganey and myself – agreed that we needed more background on the hospital finances and operations to be able to discuss matters on a par with our hospital board colleagues Brett Reese, Jim Schlichting, and Charlie Austin.  The 3 Councilmembers are going to do our homework with hospital staff and then we’ll meet again on June 18, 7 pm with the Hospital Board members.  I am the chair of the group; I see my role as chair as keeping meetings on track and on task with the task force working to define agendas and questions as we go along.

How can you find out what we’re doing?  Meetings will be open to the public and meeting notes will be available on the City website.  Reports from the task force members to their respective bodies will also be given; I’ll try to ensure these reports (and any other supporting material we may rely upon) are on the website, too.