By: Ashley Saari
Monadnock Ledger-Transcript
January 9, 2017
The new year has begun, and with it, the official affiliation of Monadnock Community Hospital with its new partners, Huggins and Catholic Medical Center.
So what will be the impact on the average patient walking in the doors of MCH? Most, said MCH CEO Cynthia McGuire, won’t notice the change.
“We don’t see immediate impact on our patients other than increased access to specialty services for the patients in our community, such as the recently established rheumatology services at MCH,” said McGuire.
The hospitals each maintain much of their own autonomy – the names remain, as do the boards that run the individual hospitals. The assets and liabilities of each hospital remain separate – although services will be coordinated. CMC remains a Catholic institution and Huggins and MCH remain non-secular. Staffing isn’t affected.
The goal isn’t to consolidate existing services where they overlap – if a patient is currently receiving clinical services locally, they can continue to receive that service. But they also have access to those areas where one hospital may fall short. In some cases, this collaboration was already in place.
So what does the affiliation change? “We have had a long standing relationship with CMC for many of our patient service lines such as cardiology and vascular services, laboratory services and our inpatient hospitalist services,” said McGuire. “In addition, we hope that our relationship will allow for our patients to have a seamless care experience when services at CMC are needed much as they experience right now when utilizing cardiology services. ”
The affiliation, under the name GraniteOne Health, will have a representative board of trustees, with representatives of all three hospitals, but with CMC having a majority. That board’s main task is to establish and maintain a system-wide strategic plan for the system. The hospitals will still have their individual boards which operate the individual hospitals, and they will be responsible for implementing the strategic plans voted on by GraniteOne at each hospital.
This affiliation will also assist Huggins and Monadnock in recruiting and retaining clinical care providers.
GraniteOne has a high-level oversight of MCH and Huggins and will jointly have oversight of CMC along with the Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester.
Costs are not expected to go up as a result of the affiliation – in fact, one of the goals of the process is to increase use of these services in order to achieve economies of scale to reduce costs.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.
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