St. Joseph’s Health, University of Rochester Medical Center form new venture

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — St. Joseph’s Health in Syracuse and the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) on Thursday announced formation of a new organization to work with health systems across the state.

The venture, Concordia Healthcare Network LLC, is the result of more than 18 months of development work and extends “prior strategic partnerships,” per a Thursday news release with the letterhead Concordia Healthcare.

The entity is described as a “super-clinically integrated network” (CIN) created to help other health systems, hospitals, and provider groups “transition to value-based care, an increasingly common” payment approach that requires systems to “comprehensively monitor and manage” the overall health of their population in addition to billing for services.

Three health systems have so far committed to participation in Concordia. They include Family Health Network of Central New York, a federally funded community health center serving residents of Cortland and contiguous counties; Lourdes Hospital and its physician network, serving Binghamton and the Southern Tier; and Innovative Health Alliance of New York (IHANY), which covers Albany and the Capital Region.

Organizational structure

Both St. Joseph’s Health and Accountable Health Partners (AHP) jointly operate Concordia, per the release.

AHP is the CIN that serves URMC faculty members, affiliated hospitals and other providers in the Finger Lakes and surrounding areas.

St. Joseph’s Health is a regional nonprofit health-care system that offers primary, specialty and home care and a hospital.

Concordia Healthcare has offices at both St. Joseph’s Health and at URMC, Kelly Quinn, media contact for St. Joseph’s Health, said in an email response to a BJNN inquiry. It does not yet have employees but expects to hire new employees later in 2019. Until then, “considerable resources and staff time are being allocated” from the ownership partners.

The formation of Concordia does not change the structure of either network or its services to providers, St. Joseph’s and URMC say. Instead, it will serve as a “super CIN” that shares collective expertise and resources with health systems in other parts of upstate New York — “helping all members to increase patient access to services and improve the quality of clinical care, while keeping costs as affordable as possible,” the organizations contend.

“We believe the whole of Concordia Healthcare Network will be greater than the sum of its parts,” Dr. Robert McCann, chair of the 10-member Concordia Healthcare Network board, said in the release. “The Concordia name will not be widely known to patients, but they will see benefits from their local health systems through expanded access to providers, improved preventive care, better clinical integration and more affordable health-plan options.”

McCann is also the CEO of Accountable Health Partners and chief of medicine at Highland Hospital in Rochester, a URMC affiliate.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com