Rideout Health may link with Adventist Health

“We’re really excited and fortunate to have an organization like Adventist – which focuses its efforts on serving the underserved population – interested in coming to our community. Their values align with our mission, which is to provide services to the entire community,” Janice Nall, chairperson of Rideout’s board of directors, said.

By signing a letter of intent, both parties agree to exclusively negotiate with each other. Nall said the agreement is the first step in a process that could take months to finalize.

Over the next few months, officials from both health care

organizations will negotiate terms of a partnership. If a definitive agreement is made between the two groups, the state’s attorney general will review the proposed action.

Nall said the attorney general will basically review the terms of the agreement to make sure care to the community is not negatively affected before signing off on the deal and making it official.

She said if everything goes well, Rideout Health is hoping the process can be concluded and finalized by early 2018.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” Doug Tolley, a Rideout Health board member, said.

Nall said Rideout, which announced it was searching for an affiliate in March, decided to seek a partnership with a larger organization because of the changing health care industry. She said remaining as a stand-alone hospital is not feasible in today’s marketplace, as more and more smaller hospitals and organizations turn to integrated health care delivery systems.

“We believe that with (Adventist) in the community, health care will be stronger, and it will make more services available to our residents,” Nall said. “The process has taken

some time because we wanted to make sure we did our due diligence to find another organization that we felt would serve our community best.”

Nall said that due to nondisclosure agreements with the other health care organizations, Rideout Health could not say what other entities were involved in the affiliate search.

Rideout Health notified its employees on Thursday afternoon.

“We are pleased and humbled to be selected by the Rideout Health board of directors as their affiliation partner,” Scott Reiner, CEO of Adventist Health, said in Rideout’s internal announcement. “We look forward to joining them in improving health care outcomes and expanding access to quality care in Yuba City, Marysville and the surrounding communities.”

RIdeout employs more than 2,100 people, with approximately 300 physicians on its medical staff.

Adventist Health, based in Roseville, is a “faithbased nonprofit integrated health system” serving more than 75 communities in several states. Its workforce includes 32,900 people, with more than 23,600 employees, close to 5,000 medical staff physicians

and about 4,350 volunteers.

The organization operates 20 hospitals, more than 280 clinics, 14 home care agencies, seven hospice agencies and four joint-venture retirement centers. Adventist, according to its company description, was founded on Seventh-day Adventist heritage and values.

Earlier this week, U.S. Bank announced it was providing a $300 million revolving line of credit to Adventist Health.