By JIMMY LAWTON

OGDENSBURG – Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center CEO Nathan Howells says the creation of North Star Health Alliance will help cut costs, retain jobs and improve care.

The partnership has been in the works for more than a year and CEO Nathan Howell has been frank in his intentions to push the hospital toward affiliations that reduce costs through shared purchasing agreements and expanding services through partnerships.

Howell says the North Star Health Alliance will be a passive parent partnership. He said each entity will retain its own board of directors that will be responsible for their own bottom lines.

“We are excited to bring the two operations closer together,” Howell said.

Solidifying trust between the organizations, the River Hospital and CHMC also each exchanged one member of their executive boards.

A third board of directors, consisting of members from each of the hospital’s boards, will help identify strategic decisions and help identify potential benefits for the partnership.

“Cooperating together through the North Star Health Alliance, our two independent hospitals can better collaborate to serve our patients in the best way possible,” Howell said.

In addition to ensuring operational independence, Howell says the North Star Health Alliance allows River Hospital and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center to improve the quality of services.

With information-sharing systems established at the two hospitals, patients will be able to transfer between, and utilize services at, each hospital seamlessly.

Howell says River Hospital and CHMC are already sharing some employees and services. He said CHMC’s CFO has helped fill a position left open at the River Hospital. And the River Hospital is using Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center’s nephrology and oncology physician services.

Claxton-Hepburn benefits by gaining access to patient population extending as far as Fort Drum. In the future, the North Star Health Alliance will consider specialties that will jointly serve each hospital.

Howell said this is good for retaining jobs at the hospital as well as attracting more specialized physicians to the area.

As an example, Howell said CHMC currently lacks a pulmonologist, or lung specialist, and while CHMC alone might not have enough need to support the position, it may be able to split the cost by sharing the position with the River Hospital.

In this way Howell says patients benefit, both institutions benefit and the employees benefit.

Although the new partnership marks the end of a long process between the River Hospital and CHMC, Howell said he hopes to seem more affiliations in the future. Howell says the current health care system will likely look much different in as few as five years and it’s partnerships with other entities that will help keep St. Lawrence County’s Health Care System strong.

Howell says River Hospital and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center are already more efficient through sharing resources and collaborating on information technology.

Howell says the North Star Health Alliance also allows Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center and River Hospital to increase efficiencies and lower costs.

He says opportunities for future collaboration include compliance and quality assurance, grant writing, healthcare population management contracting and the consolidation of administrative functions.