WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — WVU Medicine’s expansion into bordering states is not going to stop anytime soon, according to the health system’s president and CEO Albert Wright.
Wright believes that healthcare will continue to consolidate around the country, and WVU Medicine needs to grow to keep up.
“We’re seeing the formation of large regional healthcare systems and consolidation of healthcare around the country, and that’s going to continue,” he said last week at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce Business Summit.
Increasing WVU Medicine’s population base is one of Wright’s focuses as the system reaches out into Pennsylvania and Ohio with recent acquisitions. Not only will that growth support facilities in those regions, it also brings more opportunities to serve patients with high-level programs at the flagship hospital in Morgantown.
“Those things require population. We don’t want children to need open-heart surgery, but if we’re going to have that program in Morgantown, we need that population because there aren’t that many kids,” Wright said.
Changes to Medicare and Medicaid in recent years are affecting health providers around the country, with West Virginia hit particularly hard, as a significant percentage of residents receive health insurance through the federal government. Wright said that reaching across state lines can help WVU Medicine access more patients in different brackets.
“That expansion into Pennsylvania, which is a big part of what we’re doing, is going to give us access to about 750,000 more people, which is material for us, one. Two, it gives us economies of scale in our Peak Health insurance product. It gives us economies of scale in our group purchasing organizations,” he said.
Wright also hopes to see the health system’s expansion provide growth for the university itself. He views this as an opportunity to introduce WVU’s brand to prospective students in neighboring states.
“The university, if it’s going to be successful, needs students beyond just the state of West Virginia, and we want kids in southeast Ohio or southwest Pennsylvania to come to West Virginia University, and as our brand expands, we think we’re going to help with that,” he said.
Wright’s comments were part of a panel discussion with WVU leaders, including university president Michael T. Benson and director of athletics Wren Baker.