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The long-awaited merger of three Capital Region health systems received federal clearance last month, paving the way for improved access to higher quality care and protecting the new organization from financial challenges posed by federal healthcare reform.

The new system will govern Northeast Health, Albany-based St. Peter's Health Care Services and Troy-based Seton Health by the end of the summer, merging nearly 12,000 employees in more than 125 locations.

This marks the start of the reshuffling of programs and services - particularly at the four acute care hospitals in the system - and multi-million-dollar updates to the two Troy hospitals.

"We're in a period of dramatic change in health care - from a funding level, from a technology level and from a consumer expectation level," Elmer Streeter, director of corporate communications at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, told The Evangelist.

Working together
Collaboration will help the hospitals weather the loss expected from changes in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, and from reform that will likely lead to a boom of newly-insured patients seeking care.

"Dramatic change is going to occur," Mr. Streeter continued. "It's going to occur whether we do anything or not. The exciting thing is that we have some very visionary leaders who have decided that we will do anything to see that this region will take charge of [its own needs]. In the end, I think people will ultimately have more opportunities" for health services.

Northeast Health will remain secular, while Seton Health and St. Peter's will remain Catholic. The new parent company will join Catholic Health East, a collaboration of East Coast Catholic healthcare systems.

The parent company will follow the ethical and religious directives of the Catholic Church, but will not be a Catholic entity. This means abortions will not take place in any of the system's facilities, said Joseph Pofit, director of the diocesan Community Health Alliance, which includes Catholic Charities and Catholic hospitals and nursing homes.

He said the merger signals a stronger commitment among the facilities "to recognizing the dignity of the person" and to developing programs that benefit the poor and disadvantaged.

"I think this community is blessed to have a system that is this large and this diverse," Mr. Pofit said.

What's ahead
Some upcoming changes include:

• the construction of a new Outpatient Cancer Treatment Center at St. Mary's Hospital in Troy, which will also become the main location for the system's behavioral health program;

• the emergence of Samaritan Hospital in Troy as the inpatient medical/surgical provider in Troy;

• the transfer of all sub-acute and acute rehabilitation, long-term care, home care, retirement housing and hospice care to The Eddy; and

• the use of St. Peter's Hospital as the system's provider of specialized care for all medical specialties, including cardiovascular care, cancer care, women's and children's services, neurosurgery and more.

Albany Memorial Hospital will continue as a community hospital with a specialty-focused, surgical program and will also provide ambulatory and short-stay surgery.

St. Peter's will continue its $258 million renovation and construction program scheduled to be completed in 2013.

St. Peter's Hospital may open a medical campus in central Halfmoon to serve the growing population of southern and central Saratoga County. It would be located near Exit 9 of the Northway and could include ambulatory care facilities, a sleep center, physician offices and other primary and outpatient care facilities affiliated with the new health system.[[In-content Ad]]

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