Ed Aldag
Analyst · Tayo Okusanya with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead
As I think everyone that follow hospital space would agree that the CHS in particular problems are not an industry problem, but a CHS problem, and certainly we could go into as much detail on that offline as you would like. From our portfolio, as we – as has always been the case, the vast majority of our properties are some of the largest operators in the country. We think we have seven or eight or the top 10 hospital operators in the country as a part of our total portfolio. But where we start with every hospital is, and our underwriting standpoint is we want to make sure that that hospital is needed in that community. If it's needed in that community then if you've got the wrong operator, they've got a situation at the corporate level from the operator standpoint, you can replace the operator. But if you are wrong on whether or not that hospital is needed in the community, then you'll never be able to make that out. So, we start there. We think of the hospital as a part of the infrastructure, much like the water system, and you ask yourself the simple question, if the hospital were to close, does the community hurt, can the people get their healthcare needs met somewhere else? If the answer is no, the community doesn't hurt and yes they can get their healthcare needs met somewhere, else then we move on to another situation. But if the answer is, that hospital is very much needed in that community then you go to the next step. Then the next step is, is it a facility that the physicians want to practice at. If it is a facility that either based on its current configuration or your expected upgrade to it, a place where physicians want to practice, then you go to the third, and the third step, you don't get to who the operator is until the third step. Because as I said from the first step, you can replace the operator, you can be wrong there and replace that one fairly quickly. As I said in my closing remarks of my prepared remarks, you absolutely – I've been doing for more than 30 years. Healthcare is an ever changing in the environment, particularly in the hospital world. I've seen probably 5 different sites. We had significant changes in my business life time to the reimbursement system, and of course it changes, so small changes every single day and certainly every single year. You need to be able to operate with operators that had the ability to move and change within those environments, because as we started this question, with, you are right. Hospitals aren't going anywhere. You just got to be sure that you've got operators that can operate within that environment. Hope that answers your question.