Tower Health expands services
WEST READING >> Tower Health has announced that it is reorganizing and expanding its home health services, which enable patients to recover or live with an illness — while remaining in their homes.
As part of that strategic decision, Tower Health, Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health and UPMC Pinnacle said they will dissolve Affilia Home Health — which is jointly owned — effective Jan. 1, 2019. At that time, each company will operate home health services in their respective service areas.
“We have worked well with our partners in Affilia Home Health, LG Health/Penn Medicine and UPMC/Pinnacle. Our decision to leave reflects the different ways in which each organization seeks to meet its individual goals,” Clint Matthews, president and CEO,
“Home health plays a vitally important role in the continuum of care and advances our ability to provide access to the right care at the right time and the right place.” — Clint Matthews, president and CEO, Tower Health
Tower Health, said in a press release. “For Tower Health, this action expands our ability to find ways of better managing the healthcare needs of the communities we serve.”
As part of the reorganization, Tower Health will retain the 58 employees currently working in Affilia’s West Reading office, 206 S. 6th Ave. At the same time, Tower Health will launch its expanded home care service with the addition of Home Health Care Management (HHCM) — the parent company of Berks VNA, Pottstown VNA and Advantage Home Care.
The new entity will be rebranded as Tower Health at Home.
Home Health Care Management currently has 157 employees, according to Jessica Bezler, a spokeswoman for Tower Health. The addition of Affilia’s 58 employees would bring the number of employees to 215.
Tower Health does not anticipate the reorganization will affect any jobs and care for its home health patients will continue without interruptions, according to a press release. Over the next couple of months, Tower Health will work with Affilia and Home Health Care Management leadership and employees, referring physicians and patients answer questions about the transition and to plan for 2019.
“When HHCM becomes part of Tower Health, we will be able to focus our efforts on further advancing the quality and value of our home healthcare services,” Matthews added. “Home health plays a vitally important role in the continuum of care and advances our ability to provide access to the right care at the right time and the right place.”
Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health and Reading Hospital & Medical Center (now Tower Health) merged their home-health services in 2003. UPMC Pinnacle joined in 2012, creating the current membership of Affilia Home Health.
“Employers and payers value health systems that are able to provide a more coordinated network of care for patients, across the continuum,” Tammy Ober, vice president of operations, Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, managing partner for Affilia, said in a release. “Each of us will broaden the clinical expertise we possess through our association with much larger health systems, to deliver even higher quality and value to our patients and communities.”
Thursday’s announcement about Tower Health at Home follows two other Tower Health announcements in the past month: that the health care system would acquire 19 Premier Urgent Care locations across the region and that it will enter into a joint venture with United Surgical Partners International to acquire and develop ambulatory surgery centers in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
United Surgical Partners International, which is a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare Corporation, currently operates more than 270 surgical facilities, more than 100 urgent care centers and 24 imaging centers in the U.S. Among the facilities are six in Pennsylvania, including two in Berks County.
Tower Health consists of Reading Hospital in West Reading; Brandywine Hospital in Caln Township; Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia; Jennersville Hospital in Penn Township in southern Chester County. It also includes Reading Hospital Rehabilitation at Wyomissing; Reading Hospital School of Health Sciences in West Reading; and a connected network of 2,000 physicians, specialists and providers.