Strengthening Prince William Hospital
Advertisement
Text size: small | medium | large
Michael J. Scwartz
Published: March 12, 2008
This is in response to a letter in the March 4 issue regarding the Prince William Health System (PWHS) merger with Inova Health System.
After careful research, the community members who serve on the PWHS Board of Trustees determined that a merger with the not-for-profit Inova would be in the best interest of our community. Inova shares the same like-minded vision as Prince William. The quality of Inova’s care is excellent. Inova Fairfax Hospital is ranked by US News & World Report as among the best in the nation in such specialties as heart and heart surgery, cancer and gynecology. The response from the community has been overwhelmingly in favor of the merger. It would allow us to accomplish more in a short period of time, and this is crucial because our population is exploding.
Under the merger, Inova would give the PWHS Trustees more than $200 million to invest in multiple capital-intensive projects. Most of the funds would be spent on the Prince William Hospital campus. It would allow us to build a new patient tower featuring all private rooms. In addition, we would gain enhanced services such as expanded cardiac care, critical care and radiological imaging.
Our mission is to provide exceptional quality healthcare for those we serve. As always, the community and our patients are our top priority.
This merger will allow us to expand our staff along with our services, including recruiting 60 additional physicians.
It is our duty to review and negotiate contracts between the Health System and our contracted physicians.
The anesthesiologists at Prince William Hospital, like certain other specialties, maintain an exclusive contracting arrangement with the hospital.
In the case of exclusive relationships, it is standard procedure to periodically review the quality of services provided. This is an appropriate business practice and the merger has no bearing on this process. I would like to point out that after Loudoun Hospital merged with Inova in 2005, all existing exclusive contracting arrangements with physician groups remain in place.
With the merger, Prince William and Inova can combine our strengths and resources to better serve this community.
MICHAEL J. SCHWARTZ
President and CEO
Prince William Health System
Post a Comment
The commenting period has ended or commenting has been deactivated for this article.
Can't find what you're looking for? Try our quick search:
