FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FEBRUARY 20, 2006

LRA APPROVES BRIDGE FUNDING FOR LSU HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER IN N.O.

            Lake Charles, LA – Dr. Larry Hollier, Chancellor of LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, announced today that the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Recovery Authority approved the recommendation of its Public Health and Healthcare Committee to provide $50 million in bridge funding to LSUHSC in New Orleans. The funding is from a federal social services block grant awarded to the state for hurricane relief.

            Facing a deficit of about $115 million, Dr. Hollier, along with the deans of LSUHSC’s  six health professions schools, the vice chancellors and administrative staff, launched a turnaround effort aimed at slashing expenditures while re-establishing revenue streams shut off by the flooding following Katrina. Cutting expenses to the bone, which involved furloughing hundreds of staff and faculty, reduced expenses by about $63 million. With nothing else to cut and still remain viable, the Health Sciences Center was still short about $50 million.

            “The Health Sciences Center was dealing with a severe cash flow problem,” said Dr. Hollier. “We are grateful to Governor Kathleen Blanco, Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc, Bill Black, of the Division of Administration, the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget, LRA Executive Director Andy Kopplin and the LRA Board of Directors, Dr. Mary Ella Sanders, Chair of the Public Health and Healthcare Committee, as well as Dr. Joseph Savoie, Commissioner of Higher Education, for finding a way to provide this critical support. This emergent allocation will get us through the end of the fiscal year, and it did not come a moment too soon.”

            Accrediting agencies for the Health Sciences Center’s schools and residency programs came for previously unscheduled site visits at the end of the year. While the teams were in awe of measures taken under Dr. Hollier’s leadership to resume educational and training programs, they told him one of the conditions of continued accreditation is financial viability and that he would have to report back to them if that condition could not be met.

            Dr. Hollier’s turnaround effort is multifaceted. To recapture payment for the care provided by residents and faculty in teaching hospitals, LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans continues to work with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to allow for the reassignment of residents to new teaching hospitals with approval for reimbursement. The previous contracts were with closed hospitals, and it typically takes some time to have new hospitals approved as teaching hospitals and initiate contracts. The intent was to have reimbursement follow the residents and faculty.

            At the same time, Dr. Hollier worked with the LSU System’s Health Care Services Division to develop an interim Level I Trauma Center at Elmwood Hospital and to begin the repair of University Hospital in New Orleans for interim use until a new university hospital can be built. The LSU Healthcare Network is continuing its efforts to bring new clinical locations up as well.     

            As the primary source of Louisiana’s physicians, dentists, nurses, and allied health professionals, LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans educates not just those who provide care in the public hospital system, but those in private practice as well.

            “We are moving from response to recovery,” concluded Dr. Hollier. “As we continue to bring all of our schools back home, we still have a way to go, but with support like we got today, we have already come so far.”

For more information, contact Leslie Capo, Director of Information Services at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, at (504) 452-9166.

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