Possible partners for Rideout

One West Coast-based healthcare organization says it has been in contact with Rideout Health about the possibility of an “affiliation.”

A spokesperson for Adventist Health told the Appeal-Democrat that they have been in contact.

Rideout leaders earlier this year reported that the board of directors is conducting talks with larger healthcare organizations about some sort of partnership.

Rideout CEO Gino Patrizio and board chair Janice Nall said they believe Rideout’s future will involve an affiliation, but they could not define exactly what that would entail and said they couldn’t report what organizations were being consulted.

The Appeal-Democrat had received messages from area residents reporting or speculating what healthcare groups were involved, but Patrizio and Nall said that confidentiality agreements prevented them from either confirming or denying talks were conducted with any particular organization.

Other organizations cited confidentiality agreements and declined any comment.

Patrizio said the search continues for an affiliate but couldn’t go into specifics about the process.

“Our board continues to move forward with the due diligence process to evaluate our potential affiliate partners,” he said. “We remain on schedule to make an announcement sometime during this spring.”

The Appeal-Democrat contacted or tried to contact six organizations that had been reported by various sources, and pulled information on them from their websites.