MVHS medical staffs to merge

UTICA, N.Y. — The Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS) announced that the medical staffs of Faxton St. Luke’s Healthcare (FSLH) and St. Elizabeth Medical Center (SEMC) plan to merge.

The medical staffs will become the MVHS medical staff on Jan. 1, 2021.

“This is the first time in the history of health care in our community that the medical staff of all the hospitals in this region area will be working as one, unified group,” Dr. Waleed Albert, president of the FSLH medical staff, said in a statement. “This is a very historic time. Discussions and work toward this merger have been happening for quite some time. And while there was some reluctance/hesitancy when we began, over time, as we got to know each other from “the other side,” it became more and more apparent that the establishment of one MVHS medical staff was the right thing to do to strengthen medical care in our community, which will ultimately benefit our patients and community members.”

The merger will “help to improve” patient care in the community, and it brings MVHS “another step closer to being ready” to move into the new, downtown Utica hospital in 2023, MVHS contends.

“We all believed that it was very important for the two medical staffs to come together prior to moving into the new regional medical center so that we could begin streamlining departments and sharing best practices with each other,” Dr. Sushma Kaul, president of the SEMC medical staff, said.

An integration committee of the medical staffs will begin work in September to outline the process to elect new medical staff officers and to implement the approved bylaws within which the new medical staff will work, MVHS said.