Letter from Gordon Alexander

September 3, 2004

Dear Fairview-University Medical Center Employees,

Fairview-University Medical Center’s Riverside campus is not closing in 10 years.  I say that as clearly as I can.  I tell you that because I know many saw the headline in today’s newspaper.

Here’s what I do know:

Fairview-University and Fairview system leaders have been working with our partners at the University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota Physicians to plan for a future to continue to provide the best care possible for our patients. The Fairview-University plan is part of a 20-year development plan creating a long-term platform for success for the medical center and university medical school programs.

Our facilities, both on the University and Riverside campus, will not adequately serve our patients in the future.

The planning group reviewed many options and selected one for further study that seems to have the best possibility of allowing all of us, including our partners at the university, to be an excellent, innovative health care provider. That option calls for eventual consolidation of hospital services at one site on the university campus. It must go through many levels of review – including feedback from employees – and approval before it becomes real.

Both the Riverside and University campuses are critical parts of Fairview-University. We continue to invest in both campuses to serve our patient needs into the near future (just a few examples on the Riverside campus are the remodeling of all the operating rooms, a new adolescent mental health unit, a new acute rehabilitation unit; on the University campus, new cardiovascular and radiology facilities). 

Whatever the ultimate plan – and that will be the plan that best serves people’s health care needs – there will be no sudden change, and you will be told about it long before it happens.

I am committed to our patients and to you, our employees, who serve our patients every day regardless of your job.  Inherent in my commitment is leading us into the future with a plan that best serves our patients.

I am also committed to open communication with you. That is vital.  Please share your feelings or ideas with me, by e-mail at galexan1@fairview.org or phone on our comment line at 612-672-6995.  Please share this communication with those who do not have easy e-mail access. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Gordon L. Alexander, Jr.,  M.D.
President