Jim Nathan, President of Lee Memorial Health System

By Jim Nathan, President of Lee Memorial Health System

Jim Nathan, President of Lee Memorial Health System

With this announcement from Lehigh Regional, we will need time to evaluate and better understand the implications for our region.  Clearly all national efforts are focused on reducing the costs of health care by trying to focus more on outpatient care and finding ways to reduce hospitalization. Additionally, we are unable to make an informed response to HMA’s intention to move their hospital out of the Lehigh Acres community because we are not familiar with the specifics of their proposal including the location of a new facility. It will be important to hear their plans for why this move is necessary, as the reduction in hospital beds could have a negative impact on the health of the Lehigh Acres community. We will be closely following this to make sure that quality health care services continue to be available in Lehigh Acres. We will also try to assess that new services are not unnecessarily duplicated in other areas of the county since unnecessary duplication drives up the overall cost of healthcare.