EDITORIAL: Kootenai Health chooses … wisely

For all the right reasons, the region’s dynamic medical center is switching from health district to a nonprofit business model.

As Kootenai Health has explained, benefits of the shift dramatically outweigh any disadvantages. The growing medical empire’s best chance not just of survival but of building upon the excellence instilled by the leadership of CEO Jon Ness was to go this route. The world is rapidly changing, and nowhere is that seen more clearly than in the medical arena.

Kootenai Health’s decision makers have absorbed some political pot shots from people who are upset about one particular aspect of the nonprofit model: composition of the board. As current board members term out or leave early, the remaining board members will appoint their replacements.

Sacrificing low-interest and low-turnout hospital board elections is a small price to pay for keeping Kootenai Health healthy. In fact, the very least important qualification of a prospective board member is political affiliation.

Vetting board candidates based on their commitment to the best possible medical outcomes for patients, their ability to understand and adhere to their role as a board member, their willingness to learn on the (unpaid) job, their public service records including previous experience on boards and the breadth and depth of their commitment to the community far outweigh identifying which political foxhole they might inhabit.

In short, qualifications should trump affiliations every time.

If you disagree, look at the harm politically powered board members can unleash, particularly in nonpartisan positions. Exhibit A is imploding spectacularly just a couple miles southwest of Kootenai Health’s main campus.

At North Idaho College, an unqualified board majority has hired an unqualified attorney. Together they’re excoriating another qualified president while denying that their inept and destructive leadership poses an existential threat to the school.

Now, why would Kootenai Health want to expose its thousands of employees and tens of thousands of patients to that kind of risk?

Even if changing the rules of governance isn’t one of the main reasons Kootenai Health is becoming a nonprofit organization, we believe that in the long run, it could prove the most important of all.