Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is looking outside of mergers and acquisitions to expand access to specialty care and its reach across the Pacific Northwest.
The CommonSpirit Health subsidiary formed in 2021 when Virginia Mason merged with CHI Franciscan. The 10-hospital system aims to extend the clinical and administrative advantages of that scale to independent hospitals in Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Montana, said Ketul Patel, CEO of Virginia Mason Franciscan and president of Chicago-based CommonSpirit’s Northwest region.
Related: Rural hospital networks gain steam
The Virginia Mason Franciscan Health Care Network, which launched in June but has yet to announce provider participants, was designed in part to use the system’s specialist network and treatment models to keep more care at independent and rural hospitals, while referring the most complex cases to Virginia Mason Franciscan.
Patel said in an interview the partnerships with independent hospitals, along with Amazon One Medical and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum, will bolster the Tacoma, Washington-based organization's growing ambulatory care network. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How are you evaluating merger and acquisition opportunities?
The state of Washington and different parts of the entire Northwest have gone through so much consolidation that there's only a few remaining systems that might have some interest in doing that down the road. It’s going to be more and more difficult for organizations to become part of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in a formal way.
We don’t look at acquisitions and mergers as a way of the future for us in this region. We don't look at the growth for the sake of growth — our values have to align and cultural dynamics need to fit. The VMFH Care Network is a non-ownership way for us to develop relationships with organizations in Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Montana.
How does the care network operate?
Many of these small hospitals don't have access to care around some big specialties. They don't have the scale or the volume of patients to recruit physicians. We could work with them to establish clinics and provide resources through our virtual care.
There are hospitals in the region that want to stay independent. They come to us with their list of things they need supported, whether it is clinical care, supply chain, information technology or some of the other things we have benefited from greatly because we are part of a larger health system.
How much interest has there been in joining the care network?
We have actually gotten quite a bit of interest from organizations that were looking for something that was not an acquisition. This allows them to keep their unique connectivity to their community and use the scale of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health to help improve results.
How do the Optum and Amazon One Medical affiliations fit into outpatient expansion plans?
We're expanding our ambulatory footprint. We’re opening a substantial ambulatory site in West Seattle next month. There's a lot more in the pipeline.
Our almost 300 sites of care at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and our unique relationships, including the exclusive partnership with Amazon One Medical in the Puget Sound region, the Optum partnership and an urgent care-ER partnership with Intuitive Health, allow us to increase coverage across substantial geographies that no other health system in this region can do.
How has the partnership with Optum Washington’s Polyclinc developed?
Optum is moving more and more toward ambulatory care, and so they're becoming more and more reliant on partners like us for subspecialty and tertiary clinical services. That relationship has gotten stronger for us.
It’s a little early for us to be able to report back and say we've seen some significant changes and improvement, but I am very impressed with the resources they have. The partnership has been good in this region and our relationship will continue to grow.
What’s next for the Amazon One Medical agreement?
Washington is one of the most under-bedded states in the country. One of the biggest challenges has been getting patients in our door. The needs are very high. This partnership, along with the others, is very important because it allows us to not only expand our footprint, but also create more vehicles for access.
The One Medical relationship has been very good from the beginning. It was an opportunity for us to partner with an organization that was going to grow exponentially. We’re having active discussions with One Medical about expanding their footprint.
