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Michael Costa, CEO of Gifford Health Care in Randolph, speaks during a press conference at the Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin on Oct. 31, 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\nMichael Costa, CEO of Gifford Health Care in Randolph, speaks during a press conference at the Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin on Oct. 31, 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n
When Michael Costa came aboard as CEO of Randolph\u2019s Gifford Hospital in 2024, he couldn\u2019t help but notice that the hospital\u2019s inpatient beds were relatively empty. Meanwhile, Dartmouth Hitchcock\u2019s and UVM Medical Center\u2019s beds seemed to be overflowing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we started with a conversation with Dartmouth to say, we\u2019re not part of your network but how do we help?\u201d Costa told a joint gathering of legislators from both the House and Senate\u2019s health care committees on Friday.<\/p>\n
Since then, he said that his hospital has managed to coordinate with Dartmouth Health and UVM Health, both large academic medical networks, to guide patients to care in the right place. It\u2019s meant that Gifford has been able to double its inpatient numbers, Costa said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, the academic medical centers like UVM and Dartmouth, they can take care of some really amazing things, but there are simple things that we can take care of. That\u2019s a win for them, a win for us, and most importantly a win for patients who want to get care close to home,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That philosophy of broader, cross-hospital collaboration has driven Gifford\u2019s crusade toward cost saving<\/a>, and it\u2019s one that the rest of the state\u2019s hospitals are hoping to embody as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n CEOs from a handful of Vermont hospitals joined Costa Friday to give lawmakers a pulse check on where the hospital transformation work that Act 167 set in motion<\/a> in 2022 now stands.<\/p>\n A common throughline: more interest in sharing resources and doctors across Vermont\u2019s hospitals.\u00a0<\/p>\n At UVM Health for instance, CEO and President Steve Leffler said the network is exploring how it can have fractional specialists to share with other Vermont hospitals who may not need \u2014\u00a0or be able to afford\u2014 a full-time cardiologist, for instance, but want to be able to provide care in their community. Equipment, too, is something that the UVM hospitals can share with smaller community hospitals.<\/p>\n Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital is no stranger to collaboration like this, its CEO Sean Tester told legislators. They already share a pharmacy director with nearby North Country Hospital. The two NEK hospitals also collaborate on HR policies and procedures to keep either hospital from \u201cre-inventing the wheel,\u201d Tester said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Costa, from Gifford, also outlined a promising procedural cost-saving mechanism through a collaborative of other small Northeast hospitals. Together, those hospitals share business insurance, have a health insurance pool for their employees and do group purchasing together. It gives the hospital a lot of the benefits of being part of a big organization, without losing what he likes about its independence, Costa said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI coach a lot of baseball,\u201d Costa added in closing remarks to lawmakers. \u201cYou can win hitting a lot of home runs. It\u2019s easier to hit singles and not make errors. We\u2019ve been trying to do these little common sense things, and they\u2019ve allowed us to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Olivia Gieger<\/p>\n In the know<\/p>\n \u201cRight now we just have to put our heads down and go,\u201d Jill Mazza Olson, the Medicaid systems director for the Vermont Agency of Human Services, told members of the Joint Fiscal Committee in a whirlwind rundown of where things stand with the $195 million of federal funds made available to Vermont through the Rural Health Transformation Fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s like building an airplane in midflight, Olson said as she walked lawmakers through the laundry list of projects<\/a> the proposed budget entails: things like mobile units for dental care, expanding EMTs\u2019 ability to treat people in their homes, or more mental health urgent cares. She noted it\u2019s a document that will frequently evolve as the agency receives more guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency administering the funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Olson said that the agency has an internal deadline of trying to identify sub-grantees in the state by Aug. 1. It\u2019s a tall order on a tight timeline. Sleep? \u201cIt\u2019s not really a thing for us right now,\u201d Olson said to some laughs.<\/p>\n \u2014 Olivia Gieger<\/p>\n On the move<\/p>\n The Senate passed a resolution on Friday saying that the chamber, \u201cbased on initial and substantial evidence, unequivocally condemns the extrajudicial killings of Ren\u00e9e Good and Alex Pretti as grave violations of human dignity, civil liberties, and the constitutional protections owed to all persons.\u201d The measure, S.R.21<\/a> \u2014 which was advanced on a 24-5 roll call vote before getting final approval on a voice vote \u2014 also urged Vermont\u2019s congressional delegation to oppose any new federal funding for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement unless the Trump administration commits to \u201cdemonstrable, enforceable reform\u201d of the agency\u2019s procedures.<\/p>\n All of the \u201cnay\u201d votes<\/a> came from within the chamber\u2019s 13-member Republican caucus. Several of those senators said they took issue with the use of the phrase \u201cextrajudicial killing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAny misuse of force should be addressed through established legal and judicial processes. However, this resolution reaches conclusions and assigns responsibilities before these processes are completed,\u201d said Sen. Steve Heffernan, R-Addison.<\/p>\n The Vermont House passed a resolution last month that backed<\/a> a previous statement by Gov. Phil Scott calling for a \u201cpause\u201d of federal immigration enforcement operations after Pretti\u2019s killing at the hands of federal agents.<\/p>\n \u2014 Shaun Robinson<\/p>\n Notable numeral<\/p>\n More than 33,000 school employees and their dependents receive health insurance through the Vermont Education Health Initiative, which provides benefit plans to public school workers and their families, as well as some private school employees and some retired school workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The top 1% of claimants \u2014 344 people \u2014 account for 25% of VEHI\u2019s total spending, or about $286,000 per person per year, according to data presented by VEHI<\/a> to the Senate Finance Committee Friday.<\/p>\n While VEHI reported that its \u201ccost stratification trends\u201d are stable, the number of high-cost members \u2014\u00a0those with more than $100,000 in total cost \u2014 has risen significantly. In 2021, there were 355 such members. In 2024, there were 580.<\/p>\n Those 580 members \u2014 1.7% of the total pool \u2014 accounted for $121.6 million in costs, a third of the pool\u2019s total costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2014 Ethan Weinstein<\/p>\n \u2018Who in the world?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n President Donald Trump posted a video, that he has since deleted, on his social media platform Truth Social depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as apes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s racist. I mean, it\u2019s really raising questions about his competence,\u201d said U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., in the Statehouse Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWho in the world, as the leader of a country, any country, of the United States of America, would post a video that is so racist?\u201d Welch said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2014 Charlotte Oliver<\/p>\n Department of corrections<\/p>\n