Auburn and Rochester hospitals end affiliation talks

AUBURN  —  Auburn Community Hospital will not affiliate with Rochester General Health System after the two parties ended four months of discussions.

The health-care providers started examining affiliation prospects in February, shortly after Auburn Community Hospital’s board of trustees voted to explore the potential alliance. The Auburn hospital said it was searching for a partner to improve patients’ access to care, boost physician recruitment, increase physician retention, and augment facilities support.

“The due diligence process helped us to better understand the community’s concern about potentially losing relationships with the health-care providers they already know,” Auburn Community Hospital President and CEO Scott A. Berlucchi said in a news release issued today. “The things we’ve learned over the past four months will help us focus on developing the right partnership for our patients and our community.”

Auburn Community Hospital said it has resumed searching for an affiliate. It plans to provide public updates throughout the search and include its employees and physicians in the process.

The decision to break off affiliation talks between the Rochester and Auburn hospital systems was mutual, they said.

“If a partnership doesn’t work for the community, it won’t work for the hospital or the health system,” Rochester General Health System President and CEO Mark C. Clement said in the release. “This is the reason we perform a comprehensive due diligence period and never promise an outcome before that exercise is complete. Auburn Community Hospital is a very important community asset, and we wish the team well as they continue through this process.”

The not-for-profit Auburn Community Hospital is a 99-bed acute-care facility that serves about 80,000 people in Cayuga County and the surrounding Finger Lakes region. It also has urgent-care facilities in Auburn and Skaneateles, a veterans clinic, and the Finger Lakes Center for Living, an 80-bed skilled-nursing facility.

Rochester General Health System’s flagship is the 528-bed Rochester General Hospital. It also includes the 120-bed Newark-Wayne Community Hospital, two long-term care facilities, a medical group of more than 40 practices in Monroe and Wayne counties, the Behavioral Health Network, the Independent Living for Seniors program, and an ambulatory division providing a network of outpatient-care facilities.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com