BJC chief wants to negotiate lease

The chief executive of BJC Health Care says he’s disappointed that two Boone Hospital Center trustees are pushing to terminate BJC’s lease agreement, and he disputes their contention that his company was unwilling to negotiate the terms.

“I’ve been here seven years, and I feel like BJC is part of Boone Hospital Center and Boone Hospital Center is part of BJC,” Lipstein said. “We don’t want a divorce. Two of the five trustees want a divorce.”
Lipstein said BJC wants to negotiate with the facility’s board of trustees over the lease now in place and would like to make a deal both sides can accept.

“We are willing to sit down with them and work out a mutually agreeable solution on whatever aspects of the lease concern them,” Lipstein said. “We have been willing to negotiate since trustees Dr. Robert McDavid and Fred Parry made the motion to terminate the lease.”

In September McDavid and Parry made and seconded a motion to terminate the lease, saying the terms are unfair and the money now given to BJC could be better spent.

Attorneys representing BJC and Boone Hospital Center will meet Nov. 22 in St. Louis to discuss the lease terms. The Boone Hospital Board of Trustees, which meets Nov. 27, must decide by the end of the year whether to terminate the lease, which would then expire at the end of 2008.

Lipstein said he has received negative reactions from BHC employees since talk of ending the lease began: “Many of them feel that trustees Dr. McDavid and Mr. Parry have undervalued the worth of Boone Hospital Center and BJC employees. These two trustees are putting a barrier between BJC and Boone Hospital Center.”

Lipstein, who joined St. Louis-based BJC in October 1999 after being CEO of the University of Chicago Hospitals, said, “My personal reaction is disappointment.”

Lipstein said the mission and goals of BJC in how it operates Boone Hospital Center are simple: “The public wants us to take very good care of our patients. They want us to operate Boone Hospital Center in a financially responsible way.” He said this aspect included the ability of BJC to offer competitive salaries to attract top health care professionals to the hospital.

“They want us to make sure the hospital is positioned for the long term,” he said. “They want to make sure we fulfill our social mission. That is to take care of people regardless of their ability to pay.”

Lipstein said that if BJC retains the lease, it will build an expansion providing 128 more beds and will continue to upgrade equipment.

“It’s important to size the facilities to the revenue stream,” he said. “We want the community to be able to afford the facility.”