HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Three large Huntington-based health care operations are coming together to form what’s being called the Marshall Health Network.
The integration includes the former Mountain Health Network, Marshall’s University’s Marshall Health and the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine.
Marshall Health CEO Beth Hammers said there’s power in numbers.
“This is not a merger or an acquisition but rather it’s a natural evolution of a partnership that we and those before us have built over the last 50 years,” Hammers told MetroNews Thursday. “This integration will allow us to speak with one voice and we’ll have a unified message–a message that can be amplified throughout West Virginia and beyond.”
The assets of the new network include Cabell Huntington Hospital, St. Mary’s Medical Center, Hoops Family Children’s Hospital, Rivers Health, Marshall Health’s physician practice, the academic side of health care offered through the School of Medicine along with other medical offices and physician practices.
Hammers said the goal is to keep more people in West Virginia to receive their health care.
“It allows us to leverage our resources across the network to better optimize and bring about new service lines and programs for the communities we serve and we’re doing all of this while we protect the academic and research mission of the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and other health care-related university programs,” Hammers said.
The Marshall Health Network is the latest large-scale health care network to form in West Virginia. Both WVU Medicine and more recently Vandalia Health, made up of CAMC and Mon Health, have been adding hospitals and services at a rapid pace. The Mountain Health, with its main hospitals of Cabell-Huntington and St. Mary’s, is now called the Marshall Health Network.
Hammers acknowledged it’s a competitive field but she said the three parts of the new Marshall Health Network have already been successful in building many lasting partnerships on their own.
“I think one of the things that’s exciting is the transformative shift that you’re going to see with this integration and how we view health care deliver, how we train future health care officials and how we engage with our community,” Hammers said.
The Marshall Health Network has its first major announcement set for next week, Oct. 10, at the Logan Regional Medical Center, where it will unveil the first rural residency in general surgery in the U.S.
“We’re pretty excited about being able to bring that to southern West Virginia,” Hammers said.
It’s another example of the ‘Power of We’, building off the ‘We Are Marshall’ theme, according to Hammers.
“That signals to everyone that we understand that with a university, a health care system and a medical school what we can do together,” she said.
A community celebration of the new network is planned for Oct. 17 in the Marshall University Medical Center/Cabell Huntington Hospital Atrium beginning at 4 p.m.
About Marshall Health Network, Inc.
Marshall Health Network, Inc. is a West Virginia-based not-for-profit academic health system that includes Marshall Health physician practice; four hospitals: Cabell Huntington Hospital, a 303-bed teaching hospital, St. Mary’s Medical Center, a 393-bed teaching hospital, Hoops Family Children’s Hospital, a 72-bed pediatric specialty hospital within Cabell Huntington Hospital; and Rivers Health, a 101 acute-bed hospital, and the employed physician practices of the hospitals. Cabell Huntington Hospital is a teaching hospital for Marshall University Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing, while St. Mary’s Medical Center operates St. Mary’s Schools of Nursing, Respiratory Care and Medical Imaging.