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Since the August 31 announcement that St. Joseph Hospital (SJH) and
Madrona Medical Group (MMG) are exploring affiliation, we have continued
to communicate with key stakeholders and have started moving through the
steps leading to a decision.
All physicians in the community have been invited to a series of forums
to provide open communication and to understand and address concerns.
Two forums have been held to date, the first hosted by Nancy and the
second by both of us. We were very pleased with the two-way dialogue and
frank discussion that resulted from strong forum attendance, emails and
personal phone calls. Nancy has assured physicians that discussions with MMG, and affiliation if that is the outcome, will be structured around
several critically important principles:
Quality -- Affiliation could improve the quality of healthcare by
sharing best practices among a wider range of providers than is now
possible. Both organizations have strong programs and the opportunity in
working together is to leverage the strength of both organizations to
reach higher levels of integration, quality and service. This is about
growth that would bring efficiencies and alignment to directly benefit
the community.
Access -- PeaceHealth’s mission and values of social justice and
collaboration call for a position of guardianship for the greater good
of the entire community. We believe that this affiliation could directly
improve access for all patients by enlarging the group of providers
working to further the PeaceHealth mission. In addition, the success of
practices outside the St. Joseph Medical Group is important to
PeaceHealth, because it helps ensure that our community has access to a
wide range of providers to support the most appropriate care and to
respect patient preference.
Health Care Value -- This new relationship will reduce resource
duplication and promote better utilization of healthcare resources, for
example eliminate duplication of Hospitalist and imaging services. We
believe that this increased efficiency will help us to provide excellent
care at a sustainable cost for our community.
Overall, affiliation with MMG would contribute significantly to
achieving Peace Health’s vision, in particular by expanding the best
practices of both organizations more broadly across the healthcare
continuum than it is possible for either organization to do alone.
The affiliation process
The process has been designed to proceed through three stages:
Discovery, negotiation and approval. If agreement is achieved, a
transition plan will be developed. Leaders from SJH and MMG have been
meeting weekly to oversee the discovery stage, which has been a major,
two-way exchange of information involving organizational structure,
asset records, financial statements, job descriptions and so on.
The negotiation stage began this week. The negotiating team from SJH
includes Nancy Steiger, Regional CEO/Chief Mission Officer; Dale Zender,
Regional Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Medical Group;
Peter Adler, PeaceHealth Senior Vice President for Strategy, Innovation
and System Development; and Stu Hennessey, PeaceHealth Senior Vice
President for Legal Services.
From MMG the negotiating team includes Erick Laine, M.D., CEO; Jim
Bochsler, M.D., President and Chairman of the Board; Michael Geist,
M.D., Vice President of the Board and Chief Medical Information Officer;
David Finnigan, M.D., Medical Director, and Keith Tromburg, Chief
Financial Officer.
A series of negotiating meetings are being scheduled in November and
early December to work out agreements needed to complete a transaction
and begin the operations of the new physicians within PeaceHealth.
Timeframe
In early November, the PeaceHealth system and Whatcom Region board
members will conduct an ethical discernment, a formal process that
considers whether and how affiliation would be in alignment with its
mission, vision and values.
Several levels of approval will be needed if a formal proposal to
affiliate is developed. This would include approval by the MMG board and
two-thirds of MMG shareholders, by the PeaceHealth Whatcom Region
governing board and the PeaceHealth system board. If discovery,
negotiation and a proposal proceed on the anticipated timeline, final
approval could be voted upon by the boards of each organization by late
January.
Our plan is to share information as each phase is completed. However,
due to a confidentiality agreement, information will be limited during
the discovery and negotiation stages.
We continue to be very excited about this opportunity to enhance our
promise of providing safe, evidence-based, compassionate care for the
communities we serve. |