New Hampshire-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (D-HH) and Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) have agreed to form a multi-specialty physician group together, the former announced last week.
Citing the looming physician shortage, SVHC's President and CEO Thomas A. Dee said joining forces with D-HH will help the nonprofit health system recruit high-quality physicians, as well as expand its services.
The arrangement that will form the new physician group, tentatively called Dartmouth-Hitchcock Bennington, is expected to finalize by summer 2012, according to the D-HH press release.
The arrangement is just one more example of healthcare providers in New England strategically teaming up to improve population health and coordinate care in anticipation of health reform provisions, according to the VT Digger.
"This certainly reflects what is going on nationally," said Mike Noble, a spokesman for Fletcher Allen Health Care in Berlin, Vt. Just two weeks ago, Fletcher Allen announced it was affiliating with Central Vermont Medical Center, integrating the medical care, information technology, finances, and human resources of both facilities.
In addition to mergers and acquisitions in Vermont, Massachusetts remains a focal point for recent hospital M&A activity, representing consolidation among healthcare organizations across the country.
For more information:
- read the VT Digger article
- here's the Dartmouth press release
- here's the VT Digger article on Fletcher Allen