A physician-hospital organization affiliated with Navicent Health in Macon, Ga., is partnering with Stratus Healthcare to potentially offer information technology services to doctors and rural hospitals in southern Georgia, the groups announced Wednesday.
Navicent, whose flagship is the 637-bed Medical Center of Central Georgia, is a not-for-profit healthcare system that owns a minority stake in the Central Georgia Health Network, the physician-hospital organization with 980 physicians and allied health professionals, said CGHN CEO Chuck Carroll.
Stratus is a non-equity collaboration of physicians and more than 20 hospitals and doctors co-founded by Navicent CEO Dr. Ninfa Saunders.
Carroll said Stratus and CGHN were separately developing clinically integrated networks that will serve as a private information exchange for doctors and hospitals to share data and medical records, Carroll said. Under the agreement, they will join forces to try to settle on a single platform, he said.
CGHN is talking with Stratus about finding the capital to build out the network and link doctors far from Macon with Navicent, CGHN and each other, he said.
Physicians need access to data to comply with value-based reimbursement models that peg some part of payments to quality and patient satisfaction metrics, Carroll said. Clinically integrated networks can get that data to physicians located far from urban areas, he said.
The new partners, CGHN and Stratus, want to offer the data exchange to doctors outside of Macon to get them involved on the ground floor to assist their practices and link them potentially to specialty care if they need it, Carroll said.
CGHN has 650 physicians among its 980 members and, along with Navicent health facilities, serves communities throughout more than 15 counties in Georgia, according to a press release.
