On September 12, Cottage Hospital of Woodsville, NH, and Adirondack Health of Saranac Lake, NY, became the newest members of the New England Collaborative Health Network (NE-CHN) based out of St. Albans, VT that was founded in May 2024 by Copley Hospital, Northwestern Medical Center, and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.
NE-CHN offers independent hospitals, and their community care partners a structure, similar to large network systems, enabling them to achieve cost savings related to group purchasing and shared administrative functions without giving up control to a large health system that can often create challenges for rural patient care, local community focus and cultural alignment.
“In addition to saving money, one of the more attractive features of being a New England Collaborative Health Network member is having a seat on the NE-CHN Board to drive meaningful change and align the network priorities for the benefit of rural community needs,” said Holly McCormack, CEO of Cottage Hospital.
Both Cottage Hospital and Adirondack Health have identified immediate cost savings and recognize future opportunities to improve operational performance through a shared purpose, vision, and urgency to address issues that are common to rural hospitals, and not limited by state boundaries.
“The healthcare industry is changing and transforming at an unbelievable pace,” states Aaron Kramer, Adirondack Health CEO. “As frustrating and unpredictable as that may seem at times, there are really only two options available to us: We can adapt, or we can be left behind. NE-CHN will provide the structure that helps us adapt.”
A recently released report from Chartis concluded that 50% of rural hospitals in America lost money this past year and identified 418 of them as “vulnerable to closure”. “You’ve got three to five years to get this figured out. You don’t have five years to talk about it,” explained Dr. Bruce Hamory, the State of Vermont consultant from Oliver Wyman and Associates. Dr. Hamory states that hospitals will not be able to solve these problems alone and recently highlighted the New England Collaborative as one of his potential solutions to share services and reduce the costs of care for unaligned hospitals.
“We are thrilled to welcome Cottage Hospital and Adirondack Health,” said Joseph Woodin, CEO of Copley Hospital and Chair of the NE-CHN Board of Directors. “Their addition will strengthen our growing network, enabling us to provide enhanced shared service solutions for our collective independent hospitals and health systems.”
For more information, visit nechnetwork.com.