By Daniel Hamon
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal describes how Mount Sinai Hospital's commitment to serving the poor in its low-income Chicago community takes priority over its financial well being. "While some large nonprofit hospitals have amassed billions of dollars in reserves, Mount Sinai's days of cash on hand -- a common gauge of a hospital's solvency -- is sometimes measured in hours."
The article highlights some key differences between Mount Sinai and Northwestern Memorial, a Chicago hospital located in a high-income neighborhood. Both institutions are nonprofit hospitals:
- 12% of Mount Sinai's patients are uninsured vs. 2% at Northwestern Memorial
- 60% of Mount Sinai's patients are covered under Medicaid vs. 6% at Northwestern Memorial
- Mount Sinai's profit for 2007 was close to $5 million compared to $139 million for Northwestern Memorial.
Mount Sinai employs former gang members to help convince children to stay away from gangs and has employees whose job is to help community members stop smoking and work with teenage mothers to try to delay second pregnancies. "We can't be part of this community if we're not trying to change people's lives and make it better," says Alan H. Channing, Mount Sinai's chief executive.
Putting charity ahead of profit is not just a recent development at Mount Sinai: "Over the past five years, Mount Sinai has teetered between a small profit and annual losses as high as $15 million."
Beautiful idea, Dan!
Great to read these positive stories!
(the other Dan)
Posted by: Dan Newhall | January 12, 2009 at 05:26 PM