Ontario hospital announces merger
HRMC will be part of St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center coalition

By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
JessicaK@argusobserver.com
Thursday, September 3, 2009 10:28 AM PDT

JESSICA KELLER | ARGUS OBSERVER Student X-ray technician Krista Bybee wraps up an exam on an X-ray of a set of lungs at Holy Rosary Medical Center, Wednesday. Hospital officials say services won’t be decreased, and could possibly be expanded, should the hospital be sold with two others to Trinity Health, which is also the parent corporation for St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, in Boise.

ONTARIO—Ontario optometrist Ann Easly said she heard the mumblings in the medical community for some time. So when officials at Catholic Health Initiatives, the parent corporation of Holy Rosary Medical Center, and Trinity Health, the parent corporation of St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, announced Wednesday they signed a letter of intent to join Ontario’s local hospital and two other regional CHI hospitals with St. Al’s to form one regional health care system operated by Trinity Health, Easly wasn't necessarily surprised.

While no final decision has been made, the non-binding letter of intent to transfer Holy Rosary Medical Center, St. Elizabeth Health Services, Baker City, and Mercy Medical Center, Nampa, into a system headed by St. Alphonsus, makes the eventuality that more likely.

Easly said, when she first heard of the possibility, the people in the medical community she spoke to were inclined to view it as a good thing for the hospital and the community, and she agreed.

“I think that it’s a positive thing for the community,” she said, adding it will make health care more accessible to area residents and decrease the wait time for access to certain services or physicians than they might otherwise have.

When her patients need some sort of medical procedure her office doesn’t provide, such as cataract surgery, she gives them the opportunity to go to Holy Rosary Medical or out of the area. If they have a detached retina, they have to go to a retinal specialist, of which there are only three in the valley. St. Alphonsus, however, and the other larger hospitals in Boise have retinal specialists on call, so with St. Al’s acting as the hub hospital for Ontario, Easly’s patients could have a more direct referral.

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Holy Rosary Medical Center President and CEO Mark Dalley also views the possible move as positive, although he said the details of the plan have yet to be worked out.

“I think that we’re all hoping that it'll work out,” he said, adding the next stage of due diligence should begin shortly in which Trinity Health executives will examine the ins and outs of each hospital very carefully. If everything goes well, a final agreement could be signed by the end of the year.

He said he considers the transfer as a great opportunity for Holy Rosary, especially in being tied so closely with St. Al’s, which has a great reputation, and which Holy Rosary can learn a lot from to provide even more outstanding services to community residents.

The current standard of care and the services dispensed at the hospital should not be affected, and in fact, he is hoping services would grow, Dalley said, including the number of physicians.

“I think we’ll be better able to recruit and retain physicians with the help of St. Al’s,” Dalley said. Holy Rosary Medical Center Board of Directors Chairman Ken Hart is also enthusiastic.

“I am very excited about what this merger will mean for this community that we serve,” he said. “By being part of a regional system, we believe it will enhance the quality of care at Holy Rosary.”

Whether Holy Rosary’s parent corporation is based out of Denver, as is CHI, or Michigan, like Trinity, the important relationship will be with St. Al’s.

He said common ownership between St. Al’s and the three medical centers in CHI makes sense in that there will be three rural hospitals in one regional setting that have a close parent hospital as opposed to now, where that situation does not exist.

“The local hospital is very, very healthy and very strong, and we just see this as adding an additional layer of support in the region with St. Al’s,” Hart said.

But Easly said she believes, with more health care in this country following “hub and spoke” hospital model, in which smaller hospitals act as spokes for the bigger ones, like St. Al’s, more mergers of these types are going to occur, especially as it grows harder for small rural hospitals to support themselves because of the expense. She does not think this is bad, however.

“I think there probably will be more efficiency,” Easly said.

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