Since being diagnosed with stage four breast cancer last year, Angela Sanders has entrusted Akron General Medical Center with her life.
“The first day I stepped foot in there, I felt like I was part of the family,” she recalled. “Despite the fear of the unknown, I felt very comfortable. I felt at ease.”
When she heard Akron General was joining forces with the Cleveland Clinic, she liked the idea — as long as the staff she has come to know at the cancer center remains.
“It’s a good thing if they can have the same employees that they have on staff right now at Akron General,” she said. “I think it’s a good merger. I think it’s a good thing.”
From enhanced cancer care to new equipment for patient care, changes are coming soon to Akron General when it joins forces with Northeast Ohio’s health-care giant.
The Cleveland Clinic recently finalized its deal to acquire an undisclosed minority ownership stake in Akron General Health System for $100 million.
The sale is expected to close early this week.
Akron General’s nearly 5,000 employees will remain, officials from both hospitals have said.
The deal makes sense for Akron General, which needs a larger partner to improve access to capital and compete against its bigger cross-town rival, Summa Health System, said Bill Ryan, president and chief executive of the Center for Health Affairs, a Cleveland-based advocacy group for Northeast Ohio hospitals.
“I’m not sure Akron General would have been a significant competitor in the Akron marketplace for much longer without some help,” he said. “It’s going to shore Akron General up and allow Akron General to continue to do the things that they do well and potentially expand their market share and expertise.”
The six-year agreement gives the Clinic the option to acquire Akron General Health System after the first year.
Along with the medical center, the health system includes physician practices, Visiting Nurse Service and Affiliates, Hospice of VNS, Lodi Community Hospital, Edwin Shaw Rehabilitation Institute, three health and wellness centers and other outpatient locations.
If the Cleveland Clinic gets complete ownership of the health system, it must maintain the Akron General name and continue to run the medical center as a full-service medical and surgical hospital with physician training programs, according to a notice filed for the health system’s bond investors.
If the Clinic doesn’t exercise its purchase rights before the deal expires, “both parties will meet to discuss the future of the partnership including the option of continuing the Cleveland Clinic’s minority ownership in Akron General Health System,” according to the document shared with investors.
The goal is to make Akron General stronger and maintain and add medical services locally, said Alan J. Papa, the health system’s president and chief operating officer. If a patient needs very specialized services that are available only in a few places nationwide, the affiliation will make it easier to coordinate care with the Cleveland Clinic.
“In our discussions with the Clinic, we want to keep as much care in Akron,” he said. “Patients really don’t want to travel. Keeping it here and providing the quality care, which we have now for 100 years, is important to the community, and it’s important to our staff and physicians.
“… Being in one system will be helpful to us because it will hopefully improve quality and the patient experience.”
Setting priorities
Leaders from both hospital systems already have been meeting to set initial priorities for Akron General under the affiliation.
Among them:
• Purchasing new medical equipment, including monitors, nurse call systems and “smart” IV pumps that eventually can link into computerized patient records.
• Upgrading the health system’s electronic medical records to the same system as the Cleveland Clinic.
• Integrating Akron General’s heart and cancer programs with the Cleveland Clinic’s.
• Recruiting physician specialists, particularly for heart and cancer care.
• Expanding and modernizing the medical center’s emergency department, either by rebuilding or remodeling, within the next two years.
• Adopting “care paths,” or standardized ways to care for patients that have been proven to work.
• Encouraging Akron General’s affiliated doctors to join the Cleveland Clinic’s Quality Alliance, which establishes quality targets for physicians and helps negotiate financial benefits with insurers for meeting those standards.
“We are continuing to work and fill gaps and collaborate and strengthen programs and grow,” said Ann Huston, the Cleveland Clinic’s chief strategy officer. “This is not an arms-length relationship where we don’t have much interaction at all. There’s going to be a lot of interaction between our two organizations.”
In some cases, she said, the Cleveland Clinic is using Akron General’s expertise. For example, the Clinic already has started referring patients to the health system’s hospice program.
Upgrades, opportunities
The promised equipment upgrades will help Akron General’s nurses care for patients, said Mark Whitehurst, chair of the Professional Staff Nurses Association, the local unit of the Ohio Nurses Association that represents about 700 nurses at Akron General.
“Patients have been well taken care of,” he said. “It makes it easier to do your job when you have updated equipment.”
Akron General is seeking the Cleveland Clinic’s help recruiting heart specialists to grow services and replace retiring doctors, said Dr. Dennis Wright, chief of vascular surgery and executive medical director of Akron General’s Heart and Vascular Center.
The program also should benefit from the Cleveland Clinic’s strong reputation, he said.
“I’m pretty excited about the whole thing,” Wright said. “As with anything, there’s always going to be bumps in the road. But by and large, this is very exciting for us. I think it’s a great opportunity for both institutions.”
Likewise, Akron General’s McDowell Cancer Institute will get assistance with physician recruitment and access to more clinical trials through the affiliation, said Dr. Andrew H. Fenton, the institute’s executive medical director.
The Cleveland Clinic, along with University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University, form the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of 41 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers.
About 10 percent of the 1,400 to 1,500 patients treated annually at Akron General’s cancer center participate in clinical trials — a number that Fenton said far exceeds the 1 percent to 2 percent at most hospitals. National Cancer Institute-designated centers typically enroll 15 percent to 20 percent of their patients in trials.
“It will open up a larger menu of trials for us to put our patients on and offer cutting-edge therapies,” Fenton said.
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or cpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Powell on Twitter at twitter.com/CherylPowellABJ.