Affiliation Update - Special Board Meeting

New River Medical Center’s Hospital District Board of Directors is holding a special meeting on Monday, November 26, 2012, at 6:30 p.m. in the hospital board room to discuss health system affiliation.

For the past number of months, a task force of New River Medical Center’s nonprofit Board of Directors has been exploring the pros and cons of affiliating with a larger health system and analyzing the benefits an affiliation may bring to New River Medical Center, its patients and the community.  The task force will bring an affiliation recommendation to the Hospital District Board of Directors for consideration at this special meeting which is open to the public.

As part of their evaluation process, the Affiliation Task Force discussed reasons that may compel New River Medical Center to affiliate including growing market share, improving access to providers and services, and improving availability of financial resources.

The Affiliation Task Force established an extensive list of criteria for potential affiliation partners to address including the following must-haves:

• Recruit and retain primary care and specialty providers who support local health care
• Continue to invest in facility, capital and technological advances to remain state-of-the-art
• Maintain, develop and grow services to ensure a continuum of health care services are offered and provided locally
• Disclose and share all past and current relationships and real/potential conflicts of interest related to those relationships
• Ensure financial viability by guaranteeing current bond debt
• Encourage and enable continued input by guaranteeing existence of a local governing board and/or community representatives

The task force reached out to a number of health systems including Allina, CentraCare, Fairview, Mayo, North and Sanford. They received interest from Allina, CentraCare, Fairview and North.  The four interested systems presented to the Affiliation Task Force and were analyzed on their ability to meet the established criteria.

Based on the systems' initial presentations, the Affiliation Task Force asked CentraCare and Fairview to advance to the second round of interviews and site visits.  Task force members toured an affiliate hospital and the corporate offices of CentraCare and Fairview and interviewed board members, leadership and physicians at both systems.  CentraCare and Fairview each made a second presentation to the task force and nonprofit board members and responded to multiple follow-up questions.

After final review and analysis, the Affiliation Task Force and nonprofit board will present an affiliation recommendation to the Hospital District Board of Directors for consideration at the November 26 special meeting.  If the Hospital District board is supportive of the recommendation, New River Medical Center will begin working on a management agreement with the chosen partner while simultaneously conducting due diligence and negotiating the affiliation agreement.

Both CentraCare and Fairview provide an impressive continuum of high-quality patient care, and New River Medical Center has the fortune to select a partner who will assist with achieving strategic governance, financial growth and market stability in the changing health care industry to ensure that quality health care services are available in this community for generations to come.