LOWVILLE — Lewis County General Hospital (LCGH) in Lowville on March 20 announced plans to affiliate with St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse. The LCGH board of managers on March 20 voted to authorize the hospital to enter “exclusive” negotiations to develop a “beneficial collaborative arrangement between both facilities,” LCGH said in a news […]
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LOWVILLE — Lewis County General Hospital (LCGH) in Lowville on March 20 announced plans to affiliate with St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse.
The LCGH board of managers on March 20 voted to authorize the hospital to enter “exclusive” negotiations to develop a “beneficial collaborative arrangement between both facilities,” LCGH said in a news release.
The board decision follows more than a year of LCGH consideration of options for affiliating with a larger regional system to “strengthen” local services and secure clinical support for specialized services, the hospital said.
St. Joseph’s had submitted a proposal for LCGH to consider, the Lowville facility said.
The goal of the affiliation that LCGH is pursuing is to “basically stabilize and maintain” and ensure the viability of health-care services in Lewis County, says Eric Burch, CEO, Lewis County General Hospital.
He spoke with HealthCare Provider on April 7.
“Our board and medical staff and administrative team have come to the conclusion that we were not going to make it alone … We really need to partner up with somebody,” says Burch.
When asked if Watertown’s Samaritan Medical Center, which is geographically closer to Lewis County, had submitted a proposal, Burch replied, ““Yes we received proposals from all of the facilities that were close to us.”
LCGH liked the “breadth of services” that St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center could provide, including access to a family-practice residency program, which could help Burch recruit doctors to staff the facility’s primary-care clinics and keep it “viable.”
Lewis County General Hospital has served Lewis County since 1931. The hospital employs more than 600 people. Besides its main campus in Lowville, LCGH also operates five clinics throughout the county, the facility said in its news release.
LCGH wants to explore “a wide range of topics” with St. Joseph’s, Michael Young, president of the LCGH board of directors, said in the news release.
“Our objective is to improve upon the already excellent healthcare we offer inside Lewis County’s service area and explore a relationship that will help us meet Lewis County’s healthcare needs far into the future. We’ll be approaching discussions with St. Joseph’s Hospital with open minds,” Young said.
Young also went on to “stress” that certain objectives were “likely to be critical.”
“We want to preserve existing patterns of healthcare in the community. We want to become a more sustainable driver of the local economy. We want to retain our employees, our name, autonomous governance and our county-owned status. And the Board is confident that with St. Joseph’s Hospital, we can make these things happen,” Young said.
The LCGH physicians had been consulted before the board made a decision to proceed, Dr. Catherine Williams, the hospital’s medical director, said in the news release.
“Ultimately, we want to keep care close to home, and possibly even expand the services we can offer here, while establishing a seamless connection with the specialized services of a major medical center. If we can accomplish that, that’s good medicine, and we support it,” Williams said.
The intention is to help “bring about positive health-care changes” in rural upstate New York, Mark Murphy, senior vice president for system development and ambulatory-care leadership for St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center, said in the LCGH news release.
“Through this affiliation, we will provide management expertise that will allow the healthcare professionals in Lewis County to do what they do best … deliver high quality care to their patients,” Murphy said.
Leadership teams from both organizations will work to form a joint strategic plan and finalize the definitive affiliation and required regulatory-approval process, which is expected to take at least six months, LCGH said.
LCGH is a 214-bed facility that generated more than $55 million in revenue during 2012, with operating costs exceeding $61 million that same year, according to CNYBJ Research and the 2014 Book of Lists.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com