Auburn Memorial Hospital talking partnership with Rochester General Health System

AUBURN  —  Auburn Memorial Hospital is considering an affiliation with Rochester General Health System.

The hospital and health system are starting talks to try to work out the details of a potential agreement. Auburn Memorial Hospital, a 99-bed acute-care facility, expects to spend four months discussing the possible partnership with Rochester General Health System, a health-care delivery system that includes the 528-bed Rochester General Hospital.

“We plan to explore how an affiliation will provide for greater access to local care, physician recruitment and retention, facilities support, and best-practice sharing,” Auburn Memorial Hospital President and CEO Scott A. Berlucchi said in a news release. “However, it’s premature to delve too deeply into those elements until due diligence is complete.”

Any affiliation with Rochester General Health System would include Auburn Memorial Hospital employees’ “ongoing involvement,” Berlucchi said.

Auburn Memorial Hospital has been weighing the prospect of affiliating with a larger health system since August. The hospital expects to provide an update on the affiliation talks in four months.

Auburn Memorial Hospital is a not-for-profit acute-care facility that serves a population of about 80,000 in Cayuga County and surrounding Finger Lakes areas. It also runs 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 includes Rochester General Hospital, the 120-bed Newark-Wayne Community Hospital, long-term care facilities Hill Haven and DeMay Living Center, a medical group of more than 40 practices in Monroe and Wayne counties, the Behavioral Health Network, and the Independent Living for Seniors program.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com