Marquette County has a new health care system
MARQUETTE -- Local leaders cheered as Bell and Marquette General Hospital CEOs joined forces as Superior Health Partners.
"This is the best day in my 37 years of health care," said Superior Health Partners' President, Gary Muller.
The Partnership is designed to prepare the U.P. for the new health care reform law. It will also combine hospital resources for improved quality and value and most important, it will keep medical care local.
One hundred million dollars leaves the U.P. in health care annually, when locals seek care in larger cities, and the Partnership hopes to change that.
"As partners, it doesn't make a difference to me where you go," said Bell Hospital CEO, Rick Ament. "I just want you to stay in the system. What I don't want you to do is I don't want you to go to Wisconsin, and I want to earn your business back."
With the hope of more patients and the expansion to a $380 million system, the Partnership projects the addition of 200 new jobs. Also, a new, advanced I.T. infrastructure, making patient records widely accessible to doctors at Bell and MGH.
Most physicians seem pleased with the hospitals' collaboration, but some Ishpeming residents fear Bell will forgo community involvement as a result of the collaboration. However, the partnership reassured people that local support will continue, only on a mutual basis.
"Where it used to be us versus them, we'd like it to be us and them," Ament said. "That's just a little change that will allow people to say we can be part of something bigger without giving anything up, that's the vision."
Although Partnership President Gary Muller said he couldn't release the details, he said other U.P. hospitals have also shown interest in joining the partnership in the near future.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWLUC