Leaders of Oconee Regional Health Systems and Central Georgia Health System have signed a letter of intent to jointly develop healthcare services while aiming to achieve economies of scale and better population health.
Two large Georgia healthcare systems announced Tuesday a strategic partnership designed to improve patient care services throughout a seven-county area in Central and Southern Georgia.
Oconee Regional Health Systems (ORHS) which operates Oconee Regional Medical Center (ORMC) in Milledgeville and Oconee Regional Health Ventures and Jasper Health Services in Monticello, has executed a letter of intent to jointly develop healthcare services with Central Georgia Health System (CGHS) and its Medical Center of Central Georgia (MCCG) in Macon.
The 637-bed MCCG is the only tertiary hospital between Atlanta and Jacksonville, FL.
"It's not a completed deal at this point in time, but we do want our respective communities to know what is coming… over the next several months for the benefit of our patients, for our medical staff and for our community…" Jean Aycock, ORHS president and CEO, said in a teleconference.
Medicaid Expansion MIA in Georgia
One joint project already in the works, is an outpatient primary care center in Milledgeville, GA "that will house primary care, urgent care, and potentially occupational medicine and other programs," Aycock said.
It is expected to open in the next three or four months, "and will be one of the first visible things that our community will see in terms of additional access."
Ninfa Saunders, FACHE, president and CEO of Central Georgia Health System, said the arrangement improves "our ability to try to be able to manage the health of the population by increasing community access, keeping healthcare local, and supporting the local hospital."
Ninfa Saunders |
Not a Merger
Saunders stressed that the agreement is not a merger, but if relationships between hospitals were seen as a spectrum from loose affiliation to full integration, "this is really an arrangement to look at a joint venture, to look at economies of scale. This is more like right in the middle. It's not a merger/acquisition."
Saunders said it's important for the organizations going forward to understand the costs of whatever projects they undertake as a non-equity collaboration with three goals in mind.
The first is to look at where gaps may be and attempt to fill those gaps together. The second involves looking at health information technology to see if there are opportunities for a data repository to share information on patients that both systems now serve.
The third is a strategic initiative "to define the partnership based on very specific identifiable programs for a particular market," in the large, 30-county service area, portion of which both systems now cover.
Aycock said attorneys are looking at financial components of the deal, but those details are "[not] ready to be shared."
Critical Access Hospitals Crisis in GA a National Bellwether
Aycock and Saunders referenced financial problems that threaten many rural Georgia hospitals, and "weigh heavily on the minds of our board members and our community," Aycock said.
The arrangement "gives us the opportunity to look at cost structure, economies of scale, and some other things that are under development." Three or four hospitals in the region have recently closed.
Saunders said that one aim of the arrangement is to "instead of being a vertically integrated system, that we become longitudinal and a little bit more horizontal, by which I mean looking at systems of care," developing services through a post-acute care partnership or on the ambulatory side of care with Oconee Regional.
In a press release announcing the partnership, the organizations quoted James O. Smith, Jr., MD, owner of a family practice in Milledgeville and an ORMC board member for 15 years: "In the new order of healthcare, smaller, not-for-profit community hospitals like ours can continue to thrive and grow when best practices and other resources are shared."