In an effort to improve the quality of health care in the Upper Valley region, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and other regional, but smaller, health care facilities have formed an affiliation called the Hitchcock Alliance.
The Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital in Colebrook, N.H. is the fourth and latest facility to join this Alliance, a voluntary corporation composed of Mary Hitchcock, Cooley Dickison Hospital, Inc. in Northampton, Mass. and West Central Services, Inc. in Lebanon, N.H..
UCVH and Mary Hitchcock announced their official affiliation Oct. 1.
Officials at both hospitals said the new partnership will provide the staff with broader access to education options and the patients with greater medical options.
"Within the Hitchcock Alliance network, we will be able to offer our Colebrook partners both peer support and other professional opportunities that we believe will ultimately benefit the people living along the northern reaches of the Connecticut River Valley," said James Varnum, president of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in a press release.
The Alliance will also ensure the financial viability of each hospital.
"The goal of the Alliance is to create an integrated regional care system ... [that] will enable them to improve the coordination of care and help assure financial viability of each hospital," said Stephen Marion, instructor in Community & Family Medicine at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
The individual hospitals will share the expense of costly materials and training. "By avoiding duplications of services and expenditures we will cut down on cost," said Marion.
By aligning itself with four regional hospitals, Mary Hitchcock is following the national trend to form cost-effective primary care networks.
In this type of system, a large conglomeration of providers reduces the cost of medical care as well as improves the quality of health care.
Mary Hitchcock is 429-bed regional referral and teaching hospital that is a part of the DHMC.
Other areas of DHMC are also exploring joint ventures with other health care facilities. The Hitchcock Clinic and Lahey Clinic of Burlington, Mass. will merge in the near future.
"Both are Physician group practices that believe their system is the right way to practice and the merger will secure the clinics ability provide integrated health care in that way," Marion said.
