Nanticoke, Peninsula merger complete
As Nanticoke Health Services officially joined Peninsula Regional Health System Jan. 2, executives from both facilities anticipate the merger will offer improved services for patients.
“For us, we've always had the desire to work more closely, in an integrated manner, with the hospitals in our area so that we can be more efficient and effective,” said Steve Leonard, president and chief executive officer of Peninsula Regional Health System, which owns Peninsula Regional Medical Center, a 266-bed facility in Salisbury, Md.
Leonard said he expects the merger will result in better case management and chronic disease management to help keep local patients healthy and well. On the hospital side, he said, the larger healthcare system will allow officials to evaluate what services should be offered. PRMC is ranked the 11th largest hospital in Maryland and is affiliated with Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network.
“There are things that are done in Salisbury that it's safe to say will always be done in Salisbury, like open heart surgery and neurosurgery. Yet at the same time, we want to look at Nanticoke and say what can we grow here that makes sense for the community,” he said.
Penny Short, president of Nanticoke Memorial Hospital in Seaford, which in 2019 recorded about 5,600 admissions, would not say what other healthcare systems Nanticoke considered partnering with, only that they considered several before choosing to partner with Peninsula.
“We had great organizations coming to the table wanting to partner with us, but we've worked with Peninsula a lot over the years and we felt culture was one of the No. 1 things that would make a partnership like this successful, and Peninsula stayed at the top of our list all the way through,” she said.
Short said the merger will help with recruiting physicians and allow the hospital to provide more services to the community. She said Nanticoke's cancer, cardiology and orthopedic departments already provide top-quality care, and the merger will make them even better. “Even in the past we always had a relationship with Peninsula, so our patients who needed higher-level care always went to Peninsula for those services,” Short said.
As far as in-network care – crucial to keeping patient costs down – Leonard said the new healthcare system will allow officials to start discussing with insurance companies ways for patients to receive services on both sides of the Delaware/Maryland border. Leonard said one meeting is scheduled to begin this month, but he expects more meetings with insurance companies over the next few months.
“Sometimes things don't move as fast as you would like them to,” he said.
The two hospitals will retain their names, but a branding study is underway to create a new name for the healthcare system that will reflect the culture, the work that is done and the community, Leonard said. A new name for the healthcare system is expected in spring 2020, he said.
Leonard said there was a lot of logic bringing the two border hospitals together.
“I think it's fair to say hospitals all over the country are going through this process, and there are definitely even a few mergers going on in the state of Maryland, so the idea of hospitals coming together, it's not just Nanticoke. It's happening in a number of areas,” he said.
