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Norton Healthcare Partners with UK HealthCare

 |  By John Commins  
   November 09, 2010

Lexington, KY-based UK HealthCare and Norton Healthcare, the Commonwealth's largest health system, have announced their intent to formalize a longstanding working relationship through an "alliance" to bolstering teaching and clinical programs.

Michael Karpf, MD, University of Kentucky executive vice president for health affairs, and Norton Healthcare President/CEO Stephen A. Williams say the goal of the alliance is to develop a statewide system of care.

"We are also focusing on developing stronger clinical partnerships throughout the Commonwealth. By working together our physicians and other healthcare professionals will provide a wider range of higher quality services more efficiently while also assuring immediate access to the best subspecialists in Kentucky," Karpf and Williams add.

The physician-leaders cite Kentucky's poor health rankings for both adults and children, particularly with cancer, heart disease, stroke/neuroscience, and diabetes, as reasons for forming the alliance.

Last summer, the University of Louisville/University Medical Center, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare and Catholic Health Initiatives, announced that they too were exploring a formal partnership to improve healthcare in the Bluegrass State, citing many of the same reasons as UK HealthCare and Norton Healthcare.

Under the strategic plan, UK HealthCare, the clinical arm of the University of Kentucky, will continue to focus on the academic medical center's development as a subspecialty care provider in Kentucky and surrounding states. The five-hospital Norton Healthcare —Kentucky's largest comprehensive healthcare system and an existing teaching site for UK's pharmacy and nursing programs—will develop a statewide system to improve medical care access and quality.

 The affiliation will target four areas:

  1. Clinical Services: Strengthening programs for advanced patient care in cancer, neuroscience, cardiology, and organ transplants.
  2. Teaching programs: Expanding teaching programs, which will increase the number of medical professionals, addressing the severe shortage facing the state, particularly in OB/GYN, neuroscience, primary care, and family practice.
  3. Children's health issues: Expanding services from primary care pediatrics to subspecialty care to ensure that Kentucky's children don't have to leave the state to access care. Also, along with Norton Healthcare's Kosair Children's Hospital and Kentucky Children's Hospital, the alliance will address major children's health issues such as obesity and juvenile diabetes.
  4. Federal healthcare reform: UK will tap into Norton's experience with accountable care, as federal healthcare reform initiatives are launched. Norton was recently selected by the Brookings/Dartmouth University initiative as one of the nation's first four pilot sites (and the only one in Kentucky) to develop an Accountable Care Organization.

"UK and Norton Healthcare's decision comes as the nation's healthcare system is preparing for reform. Healthcare providers across the country have recognized that they must embrace collaborations that provide high quality care while emphasizing efficiency and limiting unnecessary, costly duplication of services," Williams says. "Regional cooperation and pooling of resources will be essential features of what is sure to be a national trend in the years to come and Norton Healthcare's and UK's decision puts Kentucky on the leading edge of that new reality."

Norton Healthcare boasts a 44% market share in the Louisville area, with more than 100 locations in Greater Louisville and Southern Indiana. The not-for-profit system includes five Louisville hospitals; 12 Norton Immediate Care Centers; 10,900 employees; more than 400 employed medical providers; and nearly 2,300 total physicians on its medical staff.

UK HealthCare facilities include UK Chandler Hospital, Kentucky Children's Hospital, UK Good Samaritan Hospital, Kentucky Clinic, Markey Cancer Center and 80 specialized clinics and more than 140 outreach programs throughout Central and Eastern Kentucky. 

UK HealthCare is comprised of 6,000 physicians, nurses, pharmacists and healthcare workers. UK HealthCare also is in the midst of a $760 million expansion project that includes a 1.2 million-square-foot hospital.

John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.

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