BURLINGTON — Fletcher Allen Health Care officially became the University of Vermont Medical Center Wednesday. The Burlington hospital is the centerpiece of what is now the University of Vermont Health Network.
The four-hospital system, that also includes Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin and two hospitals in northern New York, is making the change to emphasize its affiliation with the university’s college of medicine and its role as a research institution and tertiary care center.
“There is no bigger issue on the domestic scene today than health care, and the delivery of health care to our patients and their families,” said Tom Sullivan, president of the University of Vermont.
“This partnership signals a new opportunity for efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of health care and safety for our patients,” Sullivan said.
He said the University of Vermont Health Network will be “heavily” involved in the national health policy debate, focusing on creating a “national model” for quality care and cost containment, adding that “the people of Vermont will be the first to be able to benefit” from the partnership’s work.
The partnership is three years old, and Wednesday’s press event was designed to highlight a rebranding effort that itself has been in process more than a year.
Fletcher Allen Partners, as the hospital network was previously known, was created in 2011 when Central Vermont Medical Center joined. In 2013 the two northern New York hospitals, Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital and Elizabethtown Community Hospital, were brought into the fold.
Dr. John Brumsted, the network’s CEO, said that member hospitals have already saved more than $6 million in supply chain purchases and realigned cardiovascular services to treat patients closer to home, while giving them access to specialized care in Burlington as needed.
Member hospitals will also gain greater access to medical residents and students, and will eventually be able to gain teachinghospital status in their own right.
A family medicine residency program is slated to come online in 2016 at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, New York, that will help it recruit and retain physicians, which is a challenge for isolated rural hospitals, said Paul Sands, chair of its parent company Community Partners, Inc — itself a subsidiary of the new network.
Sixty percent of medical residents go on to practice in the area where they did their residency, according to Sands.
Expansion Planned
The two Vermont hospitals in the network provided a combined $1.2 billion in direct patient services alone in fiscal year 2014, while the state’s 12 other hospitals had a combined $962 million in direct revenue during that same period.
The two New York hospitals had a combined $270 million in total revenue for 2012, the latest available figures from their tax filings.
The hospital system’s improved bond ratings and the interest of other organizations in joining its network are all evidence of its success, Brumsted said.
He affirmed that the network intends to continue its expansion by absorbing hospitals in Vermont and northern New York, but he offered few specifics.
“We’re in conversations with hospitals in Ticonderoga, New York, Malone, New York, Potsdam, New York, and we’re always having conversation with the hospitals in Vermont,” Brumsted said.
Brumsted would not say if there were specific lessons for the University of Vermont Health Network’s expansion in the ongoing settlement process that Partners Healthcare (http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/health-care/2014/11/four-takeaways-from-hearing-on-the-agssettlement.html) is working through with Massachusetts following its bid to purchase South Shore Hospital and Hallmark Health Systems, which critics have decried as anticompetitive and ultimately bad for consumers.
“I can only speak to our motivations for growing the network,” he said, “Our motivations are really clear, straightforward and simple, and that’s to improve access to the highest quality care possible and make sure that care is affordable and sustainable for our region.”
“We view coming together as a network and having these collaborative relationships as the direct pathway to do that,” he added
Any new affiliations must bring greater value to people in the community and the network, he said, and will be scrutinized through that lens. Expansion will not hurt consumers, he added.
“What consumers can expect is that we will always have the affordability of health care at the forefront of all of our strategies,” he said, “We clearly get that affordability potentially can be a barrier to access to care.”
