MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The previously announced merger between CAMC and Mon Health has been finalized.
Vandalia Health is up and operating, CAMC and now Vandalia Health President Dave Ramsey announced Thursday at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce West Virginia Business Summit at the Greenbrier Resort.
CAMC Health Network and Mon Health System filed their letter of intent for a Certificate of Need with the state Health Care Authority in April. The CON was recently approved.
CAMC’s Ramsey will serve as the president of Vandalia Health and interim vice president for the southern region. Mon Health Systems President David Goldberg will serve as an executive vice president and lead the northern region.
Goldberg said like other mergers in the past, this will lower costs and improve care options for patients. He said combining operations across the state gives Vandalia Health access to more markets with the goal of increasing options and outcomes.
“It’s so hard today to be a single providing hospital,” Goldberg said. “Coming together gives us access to scale- the way we can buy supplies, the way we can get access to personnel and that’s why we’re doing it with CAMC.”
The merger will also bump Vandalia Health to one of the largest employers in the state.
“We’ll be the second largest non-governmental employer in the state,” Ramsey said. “We’ll have 12,000-plus employees between the 8,000 at CAMC and 4,000 or so at Mon Health.”
“The doctors they know, the facilities they know and the services they know will continue. Over time we’re going to share how we improve our outcomes, improve opportunities and improve access,” Goldberg said.
Merger talks, which began in January, have been centered around changing as little as possible but join efforts to bring the expertise in rural hospital management and quality care delivery to improve the quality of life for patients.
“We don’t plan on any layoffs, we don’t plan on changing any names anywhere,” Ramsey said. “All the organizations have a history of supporting the communities and if it’s not broken don’t fix it.”
The merger is an opportunity to apply a combined two centuries of healthcare experience and resources to a substantial portion of the state.
“Reduce cost, share best practices and hopefully improve access for all of our patients and be able to do it more economically and with more stability.”