PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center emerged from the first quarter of 2008 with a positive operating margin of 2.1 percent, hospital commissioners learned Wednesday.
While better than the negative 1.8 percent margin it posted in the fourth quarter of 2007, it only was “a cautious positive number,” said Julie Rukstad, OMC’s chief financial officer.
Operating margin is the “profit” of a nonprofit organization like the hospital. It buys equipment and funds capital improvements.
The hospital strives to post a positive margin of 3 to 4 percent.
Rukstad’s caution may be well founded.
The operating margin a year ago was 3.3 percent.
For the same period in 2006 it was nearly 6 percent.
