SRHS Fears Unintended Consequences from Amended Open Meetings Act

Singing River Health System (S.R.H.S.) has voiced its strong concerns regarding recent changes to the Open Meetings Act legislation currently under consideration in Jackson that now targets only Jackson County and S.R.H.S.

“This is an ill-conceived amendment with potentially devastating consequences that is a far cry from the original intent of Senator Wiggins’ Open Meetings bill,” said Kevin Holland, Chief Executive Officer of S.R.H.S., who warns that the impact of the bill’s passage in its current form could make S.R.H.S.’s current financial challenges that much worse for the community based, safety net health system.

Under the current amended terms of proposed Senate Bill 2407, no hospitals in the state except S.R.H.S. would be required to conduct open meetings and publicly disclose information that is currently protected by statute.

“Health care is a highly complex industry, and our competitors would love to use these disclosures against us to “cherry pick” S.R.H.S.’ most successful services, possibly handicapping our ability to provide a broad range of critically needed healthcare services to our community,” said Holland. “Given the substantial financial losses we are aggressively working to overcome, this bill singling out our organization would only make matters worse.”

“If the Open Meetings legislation applies to ALL public hospitals in the state, we are ready to make the necessary changes to comply with the law, and we have not opposed the spirit of the original legislation,” said Mike Heidelberg, Chairman of the Board for S.R.H.S. “In its current form targeting only our health system, however, we can find no realistic way to support the bill if we’re to succeed going forward. The potential for unintended consequences for Jackson County and S.R.H.S. as a result of this targeted legislation is extraordinarily high.”