After previous attempts in past years were unsuccessful, St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse is now becoming a member of Trinity Health, the second largest not-for-profit health system in the country. Trinity Health will now have 87 hospitals, operating in 21 states while employing up to 119,000 workers.
Kathryn Ruscitto, the president and CEO of St. Joseph's Hospital, said she's already seeing how joining Trinity is helping the hospital.
“We had a recent experience around needing to prepare an application to become a Accountable Care Organization and we would not have gotten it done without the support of the staff at Trinity,” Ruscitto said.
St. Joseph's Hospital has had some financial trouble recently. It released financial statements that said it lost $24.4 million in 2014 with $19 million of that coming from implementing a new electronic medical records system that was deemed necessary, one-time and nonrecurring.
Ruscitto said joining Trinity will also make the hospital more prepared for the future of healthcare reform.
“We want to be positioned to provide the best care possible in the future, preserve our mission, access to the best quality practices and being able to position ourselves financially to reduce costs and Trinity does all of those things for us,” Ruscitto said. “People will see the impact that it has on our ability to get better, faster and be prepared for the future of healthcare reform.”
Standard & Poor's Rating Services said the affiliation of St. Joseph's Hospital with Trinity could lead to a higher credit rating based on cost savings, purchasing powers and access to best practices.
“Over time we think both organizations will be strengthened by what we can bring to each other,” Richard Gilfillan, the president and CEO of Trinity Health said.
