North Pine Area Hospital District's board has approved a three-year lease agreement with Duluth, Minn.-based Essentia Health for Essentia Health-Sandstone (Minn.), according to a Duluth News Tribune report.
The terms of the lease give the hospital district voting membership in Essentia's Pine Medical Center Board, which currently operates the hospital; an opt-out provision for the district if, at 18 months, certain benchmarks are not met; and a requirement for the construction of a new hospital in Sandstone to begin by Sept. 1, 2014, according to the report.
Essentia's original lease with North Pine Area Hospital District, which it signed in 1997, was due to expire at the end of this month and has been in question since last fall, when board members said they would cancel it. That led Essentia to fire the hospital's top two local administrators and announce it would exercise a clause in the lease to buy the hospital. The two entities have been moving toward a solution since talks began in May.
According to the report, the lease will not be official until it is signed later this week.
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The terms of the lease give the hospital district voting membership in Essentia's Pine Medical Center Board, which currently operates the hospital; an opt-out provision for the district if, at 18 months, certain benchmarks are not met; and a requirement for the construction of a new hospital in Sandstone to begin by Sept. 1, 2014, according to the report.
Essentia's original lease with North Pine Area Hospital District, which it signed in 1997, was due to expire at the end of this month and has been in question since last fall, when board members said they would cancel it. That led Essentia to fire the hospital's top two local administrators and announce it would exercise a clause in the lease to buy the hospital. The two entities have been moving toward a solution since talks began in May.
According to the report, the lease will not be official until it is signed later this week.
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