Dearborn County Hospital, TriHealth Announce New Affiliation

Press release from TriHealth Dearborn County Hospital. File photo. (Lawrenceburg, Ind.) - TriHealth plans to affiliate with Dearborn County Hospital in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Finalization of the affiliation will take place over the next few months. The announcement followed a 10 month process, initiated by Dearborn County Hospital, to select a health system or hospital affiliate in the Greater Cincinnati area. DCH employees and medical staff were updated on the selection of an affiliate at a series of meetings held at the hospital. “DCH’s affiliation will not affect the ownership of the hospital, its governance, administration or management,” explained Carl Petty, , Chairman of the DCH Board of Trustees for Dearborn County Hospital. “Nor will it affect the hospital owned physician practices, DCH Physician Partners. “Dearborn County Hospital is financially strong and intends to remain independent.  No money or assets will be exchanged with the affiliation,” said Petty. “The primary objectives, established by DCH for the affiliation, are to build on to the hospital’s well-established foundation of patient services through enhanced protocols; new and/or expanded programs and opportunities for care; and advanced staff and physician continuing education,” said Roger Howard, Dearborn County Hospital President and CEO.  “In addition, the affiliation will help improve patient access to primary care physicians and a wider array of on-site physician specialists and subspecialists. “Meeting these objectives will allow DCH to expand its scope of services, while taking patient care to a higher level of quality and acuity through the sharing of best practices with the TriHealth system.  This will provide the opportunity for more care to be provided locally,” said Howard. “Our medical staff looks forward to working with TriHealth as our affiliate,” commented Nancy Kennedy, M.D., DCH Chief of Staff. “Throughout the process, we have had the opportunity to work with the leadership of major Greater Cincinnati hospitals and health systems.  While each brought unique opportunities to the table, in the end, it was determined that DCH’s mission, values and the potential for advancement and growth, both for the hospital and medical staff, were more clearly evident in an affiliation with TriHealth.” “We’re excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Dearborn County Hospital and its physicians to bring nationally-recognized clinical programs to their local residents.  Partnering with Dearborn, such a high-quality community hospital, will strengthen our two organizations and the communities we serve during a time of significant changes in healthcare,” said Mark Clement, TriHealth President.  “Coming together will allow us to offer the Dearborn community more care close to home – while providing seamless, affordable access to highly-specialized care when needed at TriHealth’s Good Samaritan and Bethesda North Hospitals.” “There is a deep respect and a strong cultural compatibility between physicians in our respective medical organizations,” stated Robert H. Collins, M.D., Senior Vice President of Quality and Chief Medical Officer for TriHealth.  “For the last several years, we have worked together to provide specialty services and critical care to Dearborn County Hospital patients. We look forward to working even more closely with our colleagues at Dearborn County.”