Piedmont Healthcare and Henry Medical Center announced in August that they had finalized the details of their partnership deal.
The 215-bed Stockbridge hospital will become a subsidiary of Piedmont Healthcare. Piedmont will lease the hospital’s facilities and take over day-to-day operations, with oversight by a newly constituted board of directors for Henry Medical Center. Henry County community members and doctors will make up a majority of the board, but Piedmont executives will also serve on it. The facility is owned by the Hospital Authority of Henry County.
Piedmont is expected to take over in January after final regulatory hurdles are cleared.
Under the plan, Piedmont will provide care to uninsured patients and relieve Henry’s county government of its obligation to pay $6 million a year for indigent care. Piedmont will also guarantee existing bond debt, make capital investments and develop a plan to expand clinical services.
The deal was prompted by years of financial losses at Henry Medical Center. The partnership is also part of a trend of consolidation in Atlanta’s hospital market.
The deal with Henry will add a fifth hospital to the Piedmont system. In addition to its flagship hospital in Buckhead, Piedmont operates hospitals in Fayetteville, Jasper and Newnan.
Diabetes education grant: Based on a $100,000 grant from Cisco, Gwinnett Medical Center (GMC) can now provide the underserved population with more access to education and information to help improve quality of life for those with type 2 diabetes.
The diabetes education program at GMC, which is recognized by the American Diabetes Association, is staffed by certified diabetes educators who help patients understand and learn how to manage their disease.
Education at GMC’s Diabetes & Nutrition Education Center includes an individual assessment with a diabetes educator and seven hours of classroom education. Follow-up appointments at four and eight months after education are also offered to monitor patient progress.
Diabetes education classes are available at Gwinnett Medical Center’s hospitals in Duluth and Lawrenceville.
Top blood transplant outcomes: The National Marrow Donor Program has released outcome data that indicate Northside Hospital's blood and marrow transplant program has the best survival rates for matched related and unrelated transplants of any program in the country. The data was based on related transplants performed in 2008 and unrelated transplants performed from 2004 to 2008, with 100-day follow-up post transplant.
The blood and marrow transplant program at Northside is one of the largest and most comprehensive programs in the nation, serving patients who require bone marrow or stem cell transplants.
In 2010, 175 transplants were performed at Northside, placing the hospital among the top 10 percent of all programs in the nation in terms of volume. The one-year survival rate of matched unrelated patients transplanted at Northside was 77 percent, the best of any program in the country.
Public health accreditation: Georgia Southern University's Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health in Statesboro has received accreditation by the Council on Education for Public Health. The school is one of only 48 colleges or schools of public health worldwide to receive this recognition.
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