Mon Health, WVU Medicine move into Fayette
West Virginia networks plan to fill ob/ gyn gap
Two West Virginia hospital networks are planning to reach into Pennsylvania to fill a void left when a Fayette County hospital closed its maternity center in June.
Mon Health System plans to open a two- physician gynecology practice in the central Fayette County community of Hopwood in mid- to- late August, while WVU Medicine is considering opening an obstetrics clinic in Uniontown within a year.
Uniontown is the county seat and the biggest city in the county. It sits about 30 minutes from where the two health systems are based in Morgantown about a mile apart.
The 160- bed Uniontown Hospital stopped delivering babies June 30 after an eight- year partnership with UPMC unraveled with the Pittsburgh health care giant’s decision to pull out. Since then, Uniontown Hospital has worked toward a closer working relationship with WVU Medicine, hospital spokesman Joshua Krysak said.
“The transition has been a challenge, a lot of work,” Mr. Krysak said. “We’re still working toward a greater collaboration with WVU Medicine.”
WVU Medicine, which began staffing Uniontown Hospital’s emergency room and supplying some medical specialists July 1, also considered taking over the hospital’s newborn delivery services but dropped the idea because the numbers didn’t work.
“The financials of that were such that it would not make sense,” said Leo Brancazio, chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. “We are trying to establish an OB clinic in Uniontown proper,” with mothers referred to WVU Medicine’s J. W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown for delivery.
West Virginia Health System, known as WVU Medicine and the state’s largest employer, is a fastgrowing network made up of nine hospitals. Its flagship hospital, J. W. Ruby Memorial, has 690 beds.
Mon Health System is a threehospital network anchored by the 189- bed Mon Health Medical Center, where 1,500 to 1,800 babies are born each year.
The end of the UPMC partnership follows increasing financial strain and belt- tightening at Uniontown Hospital.
The Fayette County hospital’s margin on core medical services fell to negative 4.14% in fiscal 2018,
down from a peak of positive 3.64% in fiscal 2015, according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. Last year’s negative operating margin marked a five- year low.
Budgetary cutbacks at Uniontown Hospital included delaying a $ 32 million campus upgrade, which included a threestory parking garage, by 18 to 24 months. CEO Steve Handy briefed staff about the project’s delay in an April memo.
The closing of Uniontown Hospital’s 13- bed maternity unit and word that Mon Health would take over the medical office in Hopwood, formerly run by UPMC, has spiked the number of inquiries from expectant mothers to Mon Health from the Uniontown area to 15 to 30 a week, said Mon Health CEO David S. Goldberg.
Other WVU Medicine forays across the state line into Pennsylvania include the Fay West Family Medicine practice in Scottdale, Westmoreland County, which WVU Medicine acquired last year, and Waynesburg Primary Care clinic, a medical practice in Franklin, Greene County.
Waynesburg Primary Care will be folded into a $ 14 million WVU Medicine facility, which will include ob/ gyn medical offices, that is scheduled to open next month in Waynesburg.
In addition, WVU Medicine recently received zoning approval to build a 25,000- square- foot medical office building in North Union, Fayette County. A spokesman for the system said plans for the building hadn’t been finalized.
Mon Health and WVU Medicine’s dueling designs on Fayette County aren’t unusual, Mr. Goldberg said.
“We have a record of collaboration where it makes sense,” said Mr. Goldberg, a former Allegheny Health Network executive who has been at the helm of Mon Health for almost a year. “It’s about being community focused.”
Among the agreements tying the two systems together are ones covering emergency medical ground transport, pediatrics, kidney care, home care and telehealth services for evaluation of stroke patients.
But Mr. Goldberg said Mon Health intends to remain independent and so there are no plans to merge with its larger Morgantown neighbor, WVU Medicine.
“We’re cohabitating very well,” Mr. Goldberg said.