PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center, Forks Community Hospital and Swedish Medical Center would all benefit from a proposed partnership for tertiary care, Swedish’s top executive told Clallam County hospital officials Tuesday night.
“I will measure this partnership by the fact that a year from now, there will be more services and more robust care on the Peninsula,” Swedish Chief Executive Officer Dr. Rod Hochman told an audience of about 80 at OMC’s Linkletter Hall.
OMC, Jefferson Healthcare and Forks Community Hospital have each approved nonbinding memorandums of intent to form the partnership with the Seattle-based medical center.
If approved, the Peninsula hospitals would refer patients to Swedish for services they can’t get locally.
Swedish would provide clinical services and help the local hospitals make key improvements such as implementing electronic medical records.
Details of the affiliation are still being negotiated. OMC will hold community forums to explain those details and gather public feedback in Port Angeles and Sequim before any action is taken by the board.
Dates for those forums have not been set.
“It’s about more care locally and a great place to refer patients for care that we can’t do,” OMC CEO Eric Lewis said.
“I also see it as a great way to work together on the administrative part of health care.
“We can do things together much more efficiently, and we’ve got to get more efficient. If we’re not more efficient, we’re simply not going to be able to survive.”
OMC officials have stressed that patient choice and physician choice would remain under the partnership.
Hochman and Swedish’s Cherry Hill hospital Chief Administrative Officer Marcel Loh explained what the partnership could mean for Swedish, a 101-year-old nonprofit with four hospital campuses in the Seattle area.
“We’re very excited and frankly privileged to have an opportunity to develop a network that we think is really the way health care will need to be delivered in the future,” Loh said.
Hochman described “unprecedented” challenges in health care with the passage of the 2010 health care law and the poor economy.
“I think the outlook looks better together,” he said.
“This is one of the most exciting developments for us at Swedish that we’ve had this year.”
Loh said Swedish shares a philosophy with OMC to care for the uninsured. Swedish gave back $70 million in uncompensated care in 2009 and $110 million in 2010, Loh said.
“We basically have the same mission and vision as you all both at Olympic and Forks do from the standpoint of serving our community,” Loh said.
Forks Community Hospital officials were among those who attended the meeting.
A private meeting for medical staff was held after the public presentation.
Earlier in the day, Hochman and Loh spoke at a public forum at Jefferson Healthcare in Port Townsend before touring the OMC Sequim campus and dining with OMC commissioners and administration at the Port Angeles hospital.
“We can learn a lot from what you all are doing as well,” Loh said.
“So I kind of see this as a two-way street, that we’re going to learn with one another and from one another.”
Lewis added: “This partnership with Forks, Jefferson and Swedish, all of us working together, can be so much more powerful than OMC trying to do it alone.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com