| I am writing this in response to the 11/05/2005 letter by Mr. Tim Ryan, President of TRC Inc in which Mr. Ryan accuses me of being hypocritical. Mr. Ryan points out that, in my position as the President of Kitsap County Medical Society, I have expressed concern over the long term community impact of KPS being purchased by Group Health in an article in the October issue of KPBJ. In a real estate briefing in that same issue of KPBJ, Mr. Ryan notes that I was a named partner of Medical Partners LLC which has hired BN Builders of Seattle to construct a 28,000 square-foot medical office building and surgery center in Silverdale. Understandably, Mr. Ryan wonders why a doctor who professes to care about the welfare of the Kitsap community would chose to spend his construction dollars on a Seattle firm.
My partners and I interviewed four contractors for the project and all except BN Builders were Kitsap contractors. We considered BN Builders even though they are not local because of their excellent track record in building medical and biotech facilities. I am sorry that Medical Partners LLC did not award the contract to Tim Ryan Construction (TRC) even though we all felt TRC was imminently qualified for the job. The fact of the matter is that BN Builders offered us the most competitive bid and the shortest projected construction time. While my partners and I would all prefer to use a local contractor, we felt that BN Builders was a better fit for our budget and our intended goal of creating a first-class medical office building and surgery center.
I would like to reassure Mr. Ryan that I am extremely conscious of the impact of my construction dollars on the local economy. Let me remind Mr. Ryan that TRC built out my current office space in Silverdale in 2002. Moreover, my wife and I obtained bids exclusively from Kitsap contractors (TRC included) for a recent addition to our home. We selected Toilsome Construction of Bainbridge Island because of its excellence in service. Finally, it is important to note that even though Medical Partners LLC chose BN Builders as the general contactor, we have given explicit instruction to them that local subcontractors should be used whenever possible.
All businesses in Kitsap County, including health care, face competition locally and/or from Seattle. Having trained in many areas in US and Canada, I feel qualified to say that Kitsap has some of the finest physicians in the world. Our local hospital, Harrison Medical Center, is consistently rated highly in many independent reports. Yet many Kitsap residents choose to receive their health care in Seattle.
I don't think that personal attack is an effective way to win over patients or customers. My approach to beating the competition is to be humble, to be innovative and to offer an exceptional level of service unmatched by my competitors. That is what my colleagues and I are doing and we sincerely believe that it is through healthy competition that we can bring about positive long-term impact to the Kitsap economy. I would like to offer this quotation from the late David Sarnoff to Mr. Ryan as food for thought: “Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people.”
Jason C. Cheung, MD
Silverdale |
