Posted at 11:54 a.m., Thursday, May 31, 2007
S&P Ratings raises its outlook for Hawaii Pacific Health
Advertiser Staff
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services revised its outlook for Hawaii Pacific Health, saying the state's largest healthcare provider is making progress on efforts to return to a break-even financial performance.The ratings agency raised the outlook to "stable" from "negative" and affirmed its "BBB+" long-term rating on about $207.7 million of bonds. Hawaii Pacific Health operates Kapi'olani Health, Straub Clinic and Hospital and Wilcox Health.
"HPH management has been working to arrest the poor operating performance of fiscal year 2006 and strengthen the balance sheet," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Keith Dickinson in a news release.
"A variety of initiatives are moderating expense growth while focused efforts on improving the results of payer contract negotiations are contributing to a return to the essentially breakeven operating performance of prior years."
The report said Hawaii Pacific Health is maintaining the dominant market position on O'ahu, with 33 percent of patient discharges. This compares to the Queen's Medical Center with 25 percent and Kaiser Foundation Hospital at 14%.
