MARTINSVILLE — By the end of this week, Memorial Hospital and Danville Regional Medical Center will cease to exist as independent operations. In their place will be one health system, as the two will officially become SOVAH Health.
That takes place after the first meeting of the health system’s board of directors tonight. Over the last two months, the board of trustees for each hospital held joint meetings, finalizing the decision to form one group. While that process may be finished, there’s still several things that are in the process of taking place to complete the merger.
“We have to standardize some of our policies and procedures,” said Memorial Hospital Director of Marketing Elizabeth Harris. “That doesn’t mean everything. Some things should remain campus specific. But there are a lot of things we need to have a system unified approach to.”
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One of those is a need for a unified medical staff. Right now, the two hospitals operate under their own by-laws. On Wednesday, those two groups met and voted unanimously to form one unified medical staff, with one set of by-laws to follow.
“There’s a lot of different elements in [the by-laws] that needs to be unified,” Harris said. “We’ve been having different committees [work on it] and meetings to make sure we can come together and unify those.”
Now, most of the changes taking place won’t be noticed by local residents. The hospitals will keep operating in their respective cities. The two hospitals are also still owned by Lifepoint, just under the new SOVAH Health banner (which is short for Southern Virginia Hospitals). What the change does, officials from both hospitals hope, is to make things more efficient and also help with recruiting new medical talent to the area.
The one thing residents in Martinsville and Danville will notice is the change in appearance. Over the next two weeks, signs highlighting either Memorial Hospital or Danville Regional will be taken down. In their place will be “SOVAH Health Martinsville” and SOVAH Health Danville” banners.
“We’re still working through sign changes and ad updates,” Harris said. “We’ve got our patient guides and logo ready. People will also notice the difference if they call in. If someone calls either hospital, they’ll hear ‘SOVAH Health’ on the other end of the phone.”
There have also been some changes in positions. Harris, for example, will now serve as the market director of marketing and communications, meaning that she will be in charge of public relations for both properties. Alan Larson, who currently serves as CEO of Danville Regional, will take over both properties. Meanwhile, each hospital will have a local leadership team and administration. Dr. Ross Taylor has been named as the Chief Medical Officer for the health system, with Cynthia Chevenka named as the system’s director of behavioral health.
Making changes
A merger between the two hospitals is something they've been building up to since 2013. That was when the two announced they had formed the South Central Market for LifePoint. The difference between that operation and the new system involves red tape. Even as a group collaborating, doctors still struggled to get through the certification requirements for both hospitals and it took days to get a patient's paperwork. And in some cases, the hospitals saw themselves as each other's competition.
“The rationale was here we have these two hospitals of similar size, 30 miles apart, where can we coordinate things so we're not acting competitive against each other?” Harris said. “These discussions started happening and it was a lot of reviewing where it could make sense, when it would make sense.”
So what made officials from both hospitals decide now was a good time to move forward on merger plans? Concern over bills being discussed in Congress and the Virginia General Assembly.
“To be honest, there's a lot of changes happening with healthcare,” Harris said. “We're seeing uncertainty play out on the national scale with what's going to happen with affordable care reform, on the state level, do we expand Medicaid, do we not? All those conversations demonstrate to us that we need to do this now, to be proactive to stabilize ourselves.”
Memorial was bought by Lifepoint in April 2005, while Danville Regional was purchased a few months later, in July 2005. Right now, Memorial Hospital operates with more than 850 people. Out of that number, more than 120 are doctors, treating patients in the 223-bed facility. The Danville campus, meanwhile, has 250 beds and employs more than 1,300 residents. Combined, officials feel they'll be able to recruit more doctors.
“We're going to be able to position ourselves to do more,” Harris said.
Next steps
Up next, several boards will be formed to help advise the administration at both hospitals. First will be the SOVAH Patient Family Advisory Board, followed soon after by the Quality Oversight Committee. Finally, there will be an Employee Engagement Group also selected. Harris said the group is working to let people know about the changes and opportunities.
“We’re reaching out to our patients as they come in,” she said. “Many of them have had questions at our clinics, mainly if anything will change about their doctors or their care. The answer to that is no.”
