Ballots are about to go out to decide the future of Memorial Health System, but the city-owned hospital’s interim CEO and interim board aren’t sitting around waiting for a decision.

In recent weeks, they’ve launched a flurry of high-profile projects at Memorial: a new, $35 million electronic medical records system, a $2.2 million surgical robot, a deal to provide hospital services to the United States Olympic Training Center and the hospital’s first advertising campaign in four years.

In recent years, Memorial’s leadership has been focused on, and often embroiled in, the contentious debate over the hospital’s ownership and governance. The first half of 2012 saw City Council endorse a bid to lease Memorial to University of Colorado Health; the departure of CEO Dr. Larry McEvoy, who had advocated for making the hospital an independent nonprofit; and the departure of Memorial’s board of directors, who were removed by the council after a fight over the propriety of McEvoy’s severance package.

In April, Mike Scialdone, who had been Memorial’s chief financial officer, was named interim CEO. And in May, a seven-member caretaker board was appointed to guide the hospital through the transition. With a special election set for Aug. 28 to decide whether to lease the system to University of Colorado Health, and new management in October if the plan is approved, the interim leadership might have been expected to lay low.

But Marcy Morrison, chairwoman of Memorial’s board, said Memorial needed to begin taking positive steps after the turmoil of recent years and that the five-month gap from May to October was too long to wait.

“Do we just sit back and do nothing until the university comes in?” Morrison asked. “The university, frankly, they have to get their feet on the ground. They’re working furiously, but I think you have an opportunity here (at Memorial): You have a good executive team, you have a good team of employees.”

Morrison said she expects voters will approve the University of Colorado Health lease, but that continuing to invest in the hospital is just common sense in either case.

“If (the vote fails) — and I know that’s not going to happen —the point is, you still have a hospital that you want to be in absolutely tip-top shape,” Morrison said. “For the university, I think it’s a big plus for them. They’re going to be leasing a facility that is really going to be moving so well.”

Likewise, spending $2.2 million on a da Vinci Si surgical robot sends an important message to physicians and patients, Morrison said.

“It was a way of saying, ‘We’re not going to fall behind, we’re not going to be second best, we’re going to be right up there,” she said.

For the public, the most visible new initiative from Memorial is a $120,000 advertising campaign that started last month and will run through October, built around the message, “Your care. Our passion.” The campaign is a way to let the community know that Memorial is still focused on patient care, Scialdone said.

“We’re not trying to sell our services, we’re trying to tell our story,” he said. “I think we have a lot of associates here that have worked very, very hard in very difficult circumstances, very challenging circumstances, and their commitment to patient care never wavered. I thought it was important to get their story out there.”

The biggest ticket item may be the least visible for ordinary patients: the $35 million new electronic medical records system. Scialdone said Memorial is using Epic, the same company that provides the records systems for University of Colorado Hospital and Poudre Valley Health System, the two partners forming University of Colorado Health, and Children’s Hospital Colorado, which plans to run the Memorial Hospital for Children.

Memorial needed to change or upgrade its records system to meet federal standards, Scialdone said. Memorial might have held off on the purchase if had been leaning toward a different provider, he said, but once the decision was made to go with Epic, it made sense to get moving on the complex project.

“If there was another option on the table, I think we would have held off,” he said. “Given the direction the organization and the community seemed focused on (with the lease), it further cemented in our minds that it was the right decision.”

Scialdone said the moves all support Memorial’s mission to provide high-quality health care. The preceding three years of discussion over ownership made it difficult to focus on that goal, he said.

“I can’t speak for, from a leadership perspective, where Larry was at with all that,” Scialdone said of Mc-Evoy. “I can just say that there were a lot of things going on that really caused kind of a distraction. Obviously, there was tension between the hospital leadership and City Council and other key stakeholders such as physicians. We’ve got a great opportunity to turn a page and reposition ourselves.”

Dr. David Greenberg, a cardiologist with Pikes Peak Cardiology who sits on the Memorial Health System Foundation board, said the changes and the promise of University coming in are making a difference.

“Memorial has been in a position of weakness over the past three years,” Greenberg said. “I think the fact that we’re going to start to go out an advertise and compete for patients that were lost over the course of the past three years, I think is important.”

The turmoil of the ownership struggle caused some doctors to look elsewhere, Greenberg said, and take their patients with them.

“The business of, ‘Who’s going to run the hospital? Who’s going to own us?’ has been a nightmare for the hospital over the past three years,” Greenberg said. “I think that we have wonderful care that we can offer our patients and we need to be able to advertise that and show the community we can get back to where we were five years ago.”

In a statement, University of Colorado Health said it supports Memorial’s investments.

“Business at Memorial Health System can’t stop during the lease negotiation period,” the statement said. “While these are MHS decisions, UC Health has been consulted as leaders plan for the future and make investments like these that will improve care for patients and help MHS succeed.”

Across town at Penrose-St. Francis Health Services, which has three da Vinci robots and an advertising campaign, you might not expect CEO Margaret Sabin to welcome more aggressive competition. But, she said, it’s high time Memorial moved past its ownership distractions.

“They’ve had a couple years of declining market share and they need to be aggressive,” Sabin said. “Our general reaction is that we’re pleased to see Memorial kind of getting their vigor back and getting back in the game.”

Sabin said she worried that Memorial’s struggles pushed some patients to consider going to Denver for care, something she said would be bad for both Colorado Springs hospitals. And, while Penrose and Memorial compete, they have also collaborated on several community health initiatives. Those efforts have lagged recently, but Sabin said she hopes to restart them. She’s also planning to meet with University of Colorado Health CEO Bruce Schroffel soon.

Still, Sabin said, she’s not backing down from her goal of increasing Penrose’s market share to 50 percent — it has been rising for several years and Penrose now has 43 percent of the market, up from 38 percent in 2011.

“I want us to be two strong health systems,” she said.—Contact Andrew Wineke: 636-0275 Twitter @awinekeFacebook Andrew Wineke-Gazette

Hassan Campbell assembles surgical attachments on Memorial Health System’s da Vinci Si surgical robot recently. Photo by MARK REIS, THE GAZETTE

MARK REIS