LANCASTER : Hospital Urged to Improve Its Image

The Antelope Valley’s largest hospital faces a bleak financial future unless it increases its productivity, restructures its administration, increases some patient charges and improves its image, a new study says.

The $250,000 report by the Hunter Group, commissioned by Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center in Lancaster, also urges the public hospital district to consider transferring authority from a publicly elected governing board to a private, nonprofit administration.

The study suggests prohibiting hospital board members from talking to the news media to help improve the facility’s public image, doing more to attract physicians by such measures as hiring a paid medical director and imposing tighter controls on expenditures.