IU Health Starke Hospital is nearing the completion of an affiliation transaction with Community Health Systems.
The arrangement was announced earlier this year, but the transition to partner with CHS has, in the meantime, gone through a laborious due diligence period.
According to IU Health Starke Hospital President Craig Felty, finalizing and signing the agreement with CHS is only days away.
“We’re excited because this opportunity with CHS is a growth strategy for us,” says Felty. “CHS is going to bring to the table a lot of operational and a lot of opportunities for us to really grow.”
CHS has over 200 hospitals in their network.
At this time, IU Health Starke does not anticipate much in the way of operational changes once the transaction has been completed.
By signing an agreement with the company, IU Health Starke believes it can form relationships with other hospitals in the network. That could lead to improved access to care for Starke county residents. Felty says they made a decision to change the way they did business years ago to provide limited services, but perform a high level of care with the services they do provide.
2016 is anticipated to be a busy year for the Knox-based hospital. A new hospital building is currently in the works. Felty says the decision to make a building required input from the staff to aid in the transition.
“We wanted people’s ideas of what they felt like their hospital should look like and should be and we were very pleased with the outcome,” says Felty.
Referring to their growth strategy, Felty says the proposed new hospital is also poised for future growth. An announcement of a final contract with CHS is expected in the coming days.
