The brand new partnership will make a transformational impression on enhancing the well being and well-being of Georgians by means of schooling, analysis and revolutionary affected person care.
MARIETTA, Ga. and AUGUSTA, Ga., March 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Wellstar Well being System and Augusta College Well being System (AUHS) have reached an settlement to type an revolutionary new partnership that expands Augusta College’s well being sciences coaching and analysis throughout the state and builds a broader affiliation between Wellstar Well being System and the college’s Medical Faculty of Georgia (MCG). The agreements had been permitted this week by the boards of Wellstar and AUHS, in addition to the Board of Regents of the College System of Georgia.
Wellstar, AUHS and Augusta College share a mission to create a more healthy future for Georgians and resolve well being care challenges throughout the state. By this partnership, they plan to make a transformational impression on enhancing the well being and well-being of each affected person they serve.
“This is a vital day for well being care in Georgia. I’m excited for the advantages that this partnership will present our state, together with world-class care websites, higher entry to look after our communities and extra coaching and schooling for physicians and different vitally essential well being care suppliers at Augusta College and its excellent Medical Faculty of Georgia,” stated Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.
To be referred to as Wellstar MCG Well being, the partnership will broaden medical coaching, analysis and medical care all through Georgia, whereas implementing a profitable mannequin of bringing collectively community-based well being techniques and tutorial medical facilities like MCG and its affiliate hospitals. MCG and Augusta College are a part of the College System of Georgia (USG), and MCG serves as the one public medical college within the state.
“This partnership combines the strengths of AUHS, Augusta College and Wellstar to advance medical schooling and analysis and supply extra entry to high quality well being care the place folks want it most, particularly in rural Georgia,” USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue stated. “It permits AUHS to learn from Wellstar’s efficiencies within the supply of well being care and supply experiential schooling in a contemporary medical setting, which will increase MCG’s optimistic impression on native communities and Georgia’s medical workforce.”
Upon regulatory approval, the partnership will concentrate on 5 areas to create a more healthy future for Georgia:
- Entry to Experience: Creating an ecosystem of care that gives probably the most superior medical care, revolutionary tutorial instructing fashions and lifesaving analysis to all corners of the state and past.
- Increasing the Pipeline of Clinicians: Making important investments to extend the variety of physicians skilled in Georgia on the Medical Faculty of Georgia.
- Care Innovation: Creating new and revolutionary medical care choices and fashions to reinforce the well being and well-being of sufferers they serve.
- Pediatric Care: Bringing Wellstar and AUHS’s exemplary pediatric care to extra Georgians throughout the state by means of Kids’s Hospital of Georgia and Wellstar’s devoted pediatric care and emergency departments.
- Digital Well being: Making important investments in enhancing medical IT, modernizing digital care facilities and including distant care choices backed by the educational medical experience of the Medical Faculty of Georgia.
“Enhancing healthcare for Georgians requires taking new approaches, creating revolutionary care fashions and unprecedented collaboration,” stated Candice L. Saunders, FACHE, president and chief government officer of Wellstar Well being System. “This partnership will convey collectively the very best capabilities and improvements from Wellstar, AUHS and the Medical Faculty of Georgia to advance healthcare in Georgia, making it simpler for sufferers to get the care they want wherever they’re.”
“As our two organizations have labored collectively over the past three months to achieve this settlement, the rationale for our partnering with Wellstar has solely grown stronger – to allow our well being system to thrive in right now’s difficult well being care setting and to increase our mission of enhancing well being for all Georgians by means of excellence in affected person care, schooling and analysis,” stated Brooks Keel, PhD, president of Augusta College and appearing chief government officer for Augusta College Well being System. “Our partnership with Wellstar will safe the long-term future of educational medicine-influenced well being care in Augusta and the encompassing area, enhance the variety of physicians, nurses and allied well being professionals we’re capable of prepare and make substantial investments in our well being care amenities and new applied sciences to supply care in additional handy settings for sufferers throughout Georgia.”
Within the proposed settlement, Wellstar has dedicated to investing practically $800 million over 10 years in AUHS amenities and infrastructure, together with greater than $200 million allotted to Augusta College Medical Heart – a greater than 600-bed security internet and instructing hospital. Moreover, capital for a brand new hospital, medical workplace constructing and ambulatory surgical procedure middle in Columbia County and the prices related to implementing a brand new state-funded digital medical data system all through AUHS shall be funded. These investments will lead to strengthened and expanded neighborhood packages, financial exercise and jobs throughout the area.
“Our affiliation with Wellstar will speed up the advances MCG will make in medical care, medical schooling in addition to analysis throughout the state. This consists of enabling a bigger variety of college students and residents to have expanded alternatives to study from a number of the most extremely certified physicians and different well being care professionals in our state,” stated David Hess, MD, dean of the Medical Faculty of Georgia and government vice chairman of medical affairs and integration at Augusta College.
The first AUHS medical websites concerned within the settlement embody AUMC, Kids’s Hospital of Georgia, the medical operations of the Georgia Most cancers Heart, Roosevelt Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital and the brand new hospital in Columbia County.
“I am grateful for the assist of Governor Kemp and the Normal Meeting as we have labored to make sure the way forward for AUHS and discover a companion prepared to put money into the most recent amenities, know-how and tools to look after sufferers and supply state-of-the-art coaching for MCG’s medical college students and residents,” USG Board of Regents Chairman Harold Reynolds stated.
The settlement additionally consists of AU Medical Associates, the doctor observe plan comprised of school physicians who’ve appointments at MCG and neighborhood physicians immediately employed by the plan, in addition to a number of clinics and different well being care websites in Augusta, all through Georgia and in sure counties in South Carolina.
“As an Augusta resident, I am excited to see the potential of MCG because it grows and matures into what I consider is likely one of the greatest public medical colleges within the nation,” stated USG Regent Jim Hull, chairman of the AUHS Board of Administrators. “This partnership is significant for that journey and can solely improve each MCG’s status and Augusta College’s recognition as a best-in-class analysis college.”
Pending regulatory approvals, the organizations plan to shut the partnership in late summer season.
About Augusta College Well being System
Augusta College Well being System, in partnership with the Medical Faculty of Georgia, is Georgia’s solely public tutorial well being middle and a spot the place world-class clinicians are bringing the drugs of tomorrow to affected person care right now. As the first instructing affiliate of MCG, AUHS supplies probably the most complete routine-to-complex care at AU Medical Heart, which homes the area’s solely Degree 1 trauma middle, Kids’s Hospital of Georgia, which homes the areas solely Degree IV NICU, the Georgia Most cancers Heart, in addition to historic Roosevelt Heat Springs Rehabilitation and Specialty Hospitals, a digital care community and greater than 80 main and specialty, and subspecialty care clinics throughout the state. Be taught extra at augustahealth.org.
About Wellstar Well being System
As some of the superior and built-in well being techniques in Georgia, Wellstar Well being System does not take a one dimension suits all method to healthcare. We offer deeply private care that takes every particular person’s distinctive life story under consideration. With 24,000 crew members, nurses and medical doctors, Wellstar supplies compassionate, high-quality care. Our crew is made up of extra High Docs than some other well being care system in Georgia, throughout practically each specialty. We’re coaching the following technology of clinicians, providing graduate medical schooling that prepares clinicians to ship the best high quality of well being care to our neighborhood. A number of Wellstar amenities have been acknowledged within the U.S. Information & World Report Greatest Hospitals rankings for offering world-class care in a wide range of specialties, together with cardiology, neurology, most cancers care and pediatrics. As well as, Wellstar Paulding Hospital has been awarded the Malcolm Baldrige Nationwide High quality Award, the nation’s highest stage of recognition for efficiency excellence. Wellstar is the one well being system to have a digital innovation hub – Catalyst by Wellstar. Catalyst by Wellstar is the -first-of-its-kind innovation firm and enterprise agency created and operated inside a well being ecosystem to holistically deal with healthcare disruption by harnessing issues, constructing options, deploying capital and establishing strategic partnerships throughout industries. Wellstar operates the one complete trauma care system within the state with Degree II, Degree III and Degree IV trauma facilities, pediatric emergency departments and a devoted Burn Heart. These facilities assist us serve probably the most crucial sufferers with a variety of emergency care choices. Collectively, we’re proud to have served one out of each six Georgians, together with sufferers from 148 out of 159 Georgia counties. We offer practically $1 billion in uncompensated care in Georgia yearly and have been acknowledged as one of many high 10 suppliers nationally on charity care. By greater than 450 neighborhood partnerships, together with our Wellstar Heart for Well being Fairness, the care we offer in our neighborhood extends far past the partitions of our amenities. And our journey continues as we work to achieve sufferers and households in new communities in new methods— to reinforce the well being and well-being of each particular person we serve.
About Augusta College
As one in every of Georgia’s 4 public analysis establishments, Augusta College affords customizable, accessible schooling on campuses in Augusta and throughout the state. Augusta College goals not solely to be totally different, but additionally to make a distinction — to reimagine and recreate the way forward for artwork, know-how, schooling and well being care. Dwelling to Georgia’s solely public tutorial medical middle and designated by the state as a well being sciences middle of excellence, Augusta College is devoted to making a safer, more healthy and extra equitable Georgia. Be taught extra at augusta.edu.
In regards to the Medical Faculty of Georgia
The Medical Faculty of Georgia at Augusta College is likely one of the nation’s largest medical colleges by class dimension, with 264 college students per class. The tutorial expertise is anchored by the principle campus in Augusta, regional medical campuses for third- and fourth-year college students throughout the state and a second four-year campus in Athens in partnership with the College of Georgia. MCG’s increasing partnerships with physicians and hospitals throughout Georgia at the moment supplies about 350 websites the place college students can expertise the complete spectrum of drugs, from advanced care hospitals to small-town solo practices. MCG and its instructing hospitals additionally present postgraduate schooling to greater than 500 residents and fellows in additional than 50 totally different Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Schooling-approved packages.
SOURCE Wellstar Well being System
