The future Health Collaborative
Greater Cincinnati Health Council, founded in 1957
The Health Collaborative, founded in 1992
HealthBridge, founded in 1997
In a move that will streamline operations and better meet community health needs, three health care-related organizations in the region have announced a merger.
By early April, the Greater Cincinnati Health Council, Health Collaborative and HealthBridge will become one organization under the name Health Collaborative.
The agencies have already been operating under one chief executive officer, Craig Brammer, since 2012. The organizations combined administrative operations at that time but continued to have separate operating budgets and governing boards.
“As three separate organizations, each independently created exciting new programs and services that benefited our region, but at times we were duplicating effort or finding that we missed opportunities to explore solutions that leveraged the talent and technology from all three organizations,” Brammer said in a release. “As CEO, I could see the potential for better alignment, but with the separate legal structures, it was challenging to form the right teams and keep the finances segregated as required.”
The Greater Cincinnati Health Council — a member association of hospitals and nursing facilities — is a place to “put competition aside and work collaboratively to improve health care in the region,” according to its website.
Member hospitals from the Butler County area include Atrium Medical Center, Fort Hamilton Hospital, Mercy Health — Fairfield Hospital, McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital, Beckett Springs, West Chester Hospital and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
The health council announced its impending merger to its membership group at the end of January, said Laura Randall, senior vice president of external affairs.
Randall said through the health council, hospitals in the region can collaborate on issues in health care, such as a fall prevention campaign and advanced care planning. They also leverage group purchasing for cost savings and participate in disaster and trauma planning — most recently around the Ebola scare last fall.
Mark Smith, president of Fort Hamilton Hospital, said the hospital values its relationship with the Greater Cincinnati Health Council and is supportive of the merger.
Dr. Marcus Romanello, chief medical officer at Fort Hamilton, said the hospital’s membership in the health council has brought about “cross-network collaboration on patient safety initiatives, identification of best practices, sharing of population health data, and creating a unified regional voice for health care policy.”
The Health Collaborative — a multi-stakeholder organization — delivers cross-sector solutions and health improvement pilot projects to the region. The agency is currently focused on payment reform and primary care improvements, Randall said.
The collaborative also operates the website Your Health Matters, developed in 2010, for consumers, physicians and insurance payers.
With 3,000 visitors a month, the site includes a resource library; results from hospitals’ patient experience surveys; and data submitted voluntarily by about 600 primary care physicians on the quality of care received by patients with diabetes, high blood pressure, colon cancer and vascular diseases.
HealthBridge — an health information exchange company — offers technology solutions to care providers, such as implementation of electronic medical records in recent years and the delivery of clinical messaging of lab and other test results to physicians.
Randall said work began on the merger during summer 2014 when the separate governing bodies approved a directional concept. Work is in progress now to develop a new governance and facilitate the legal transaction.
Randall said just under 70 employees across the three organizations are expected to stay in current or redesigned roles.
As a merged entity, there will be a single budget, executive team and board of directors that will allow staff and resources to be targeted more effectively, according to a release.
“The emphasis is on productivity and alignment,” Randall said. “As a merged organization, we will more easily be able to bring together our technical, clinical and collaborative resources to design programs and solutions targeting better health, better care and lower cost.”
Collectively, the organizations have brought tens of millions of dollars to the region to support new technology, and pilot programs to improve care delivery, lower costs and promote health.
“The unique linkage of these three nonprofits will further expand the synergies between local and regional health care providers and systems, equipping them to take advantage of a nationally-recognized health information exchange that will provide innovative technology solutions in the health care field,” said William Kent, co-chair of the HealthBridge board and senior vice president for infrastructure and operations at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
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