2020 Year in Review: Great River Health sees a hopeful end to a tumultuous year
The Hawk Eye
WEST BURLINGTON Great River Health started 2020 positioned to reduce by $10 million the $26 million operating loss it had accrued over the past several years, but a virus lurking in China s Wuhan Province would rattle the Southeast Iowa health system onto another course entirely.
Great River Health had launched it s Project Synergy cost-saving initiative after the 2018 merger of Great River Medical Center and Fort Madison Community Hospital in an effort to make up for money lost in part from Iowa s privatization of Medicaid.
Through that initiative, Matt Wenzel, president and CEO of Great River Health, had anticipated ending the fiscal year with a loss of between $10 to $16 million, the end goal being to eventually reach an operating margin of between 3% and 4%, as opposed to the negative 8%, or $26 million loss, that Wenzel had announced in 2019.