Providence Health and St. Joseph officials tout medical merger
Two healthcare-provider chains on the West Coast are merging and looking to combine their medical expertise to improve mental-health services, officials from both chains announced on Wednesday.
Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health and Services, which operates Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, and Irvine-based St. Joseph Health combined to form Providence St. Joseph Health — making it one of largest nonprofit healthcare groups in the United States.
The new healthcare group will now be operating 50 hospitals and overseeing more than 100,000 employees across seven states — California, Alaska, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington.
In Southern California, St. Joseph Health’s seven Orange County facilities will work with Providence’s six medical centers in Los Angeles County.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for two fantastic healthcare providers in separate counties to come together and combine the best practice to advance healthcare for our communities,” said Erik Wexler, the Southern California regional chief executive for Providence during a ceremony at Providence St. Joseph, where the announcement was made. “The fact that the organizations have been talking for about a year or so on coming together, today is a very special day for our organization.”
Annette Walker, interim chief executive for St. Joseph Health, said it was obvious to bring together two medical groups that have similar goals and aspirations. She said she thinks that the level of service for the hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties will be elevated because of the merger.
“All the organizations we have are really fine organizations, but we’re always striving to improve things,” she said. “The healthcare environment right now is becoming increasingly challenging, for patients, consumers and people who deliver care. Together, we can help fix that puzzle to make sure that as things change in healthcare, they just get better for the communities we serve.”
Though the merger announcement was exciting for the healthcare officials, many people at the ceremony were more excited about the new medical group’s plan to address mental health.
Providence St. Joseph will now be the home to the Institute for Mental Health and Wellness, which will work with various organizations and nonprofits to come up with a way to address mental-health issues.
To help their efforts, the medical group created the Foundation for Mental Health and Wellness and invested $100 million to be used by any of the medical organization’s hospitals or surrounding nonprofits.
Julie Sprengel, chief executive of Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, said it is important to work with the other hospitals and organizations to develop better ways to treat those that have mental illnesses.
“We have the ability to give different viewpoints,” Sprengel said. “Our six [Providence] hospitals here in South California, they’re so different — culturally and socioeconomically. We need to be the voice of our patients.”
Wexler said that the stigma surrounding mental-health issues needs to go away in order for the new medical group and other healthcare providers in the country to tackle the problem.
“There’s a lack of funding out there and a lack of reasonable reimbursement to help treat these diseases, so I am immensely proud to be a part of an organization that is this taking this step forward and making a statement to the entire country about mental health.”
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Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
