Wellstar Kennestone Hospital (FOX 5)
Marietta-based Wellstar Health System and Augusta University Health System announced the two organizations have signed a letter of intent to "form an innovative new partnership." While the full details of how this partnership would work has not been publicized, they say it would help broaden the university’s Medical College of Georgia affiliation.
The announcement of the partnership, which has been in the works since 2019, was made Tuesday on the Augusta University Health website.
"AUHS, Augusta University and the Wellstar Health System have a shared mission to solve Georgia’s health care challenges," USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue said. "By joining forces and working together, we can leverage Wellstar’s clinical platform and leading-edge systems to support patients while providing more opportunities for students to learn, train and care for residents in local communities across Georgia."
The partnership focuses on three key areas: expanding digital health accessibility, increasing student training and research, and innovating new care offerings.
"By bringing Augusta University Health System together with Wellstar Health System and leveraging our respective strengths, we would improve the health of the community, address social determinants of health and expand access to quality care for all Georgians," said Candice L. Saunders, FACHE, president and chief executive officer of Wellstar Health System.
Wellstar Kennestone Hospital (FOX 5)
The partnership could open the door for a new teaching campus at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, which could potentially rocket the Medical College of Georgia from the ninth-largest freshman class in the country to the first.
"With our entire nation facing a physician shortage and our state typically ranking about 40th in the number of physicians per capita, educating the next generation of physicians is more critical than ever," said David Hess, MD, dean of the Medical College of Georgia and executive vice president of medical affairs and integration at Augusta University. "I’m excited about the partnership with Wellstar, since it will enable our students and residents to continue to learn from some of the most highly qualified physicians and other health care professionals in the state while allowing MCG to expand its contributions to improving public health in Georgia especially in more rural regions."
The partnership will also look at under-served areas of the state and how to increase medical coverage to those areas.
Any deal is far from final though, and spokespersons on Tuesday said they could not answer key questions, including how much Wellstar might pay to take over the system’s hospitals.
It would be part of a series of hospital mergers in Georgia and nationwide, as standalone hospitals become large enough systems to afford massive investments in electronic record systems — and also have the market power to negotiate more lucrative payment agreements with insurers.
Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare took over a three-hospital system based in Augusta earlier this year, pledging to invest more than $1 billion in upgrades and expansions over the next 10 years. That nonprofit group was named University Hospital, although it wasn’t controlled by Augusta University.
The announcement comes after Wellstar closed several key facilities in metro Atlanta this past year including Atlanta Medical Center, leaving only one Level 1 adult trauma center in north Georgia. Wellstar said it lost $122 million at the two hospitals in 2022. But critics said Wellstar pulled out without giving local officials a chance to save the hospitals, eliminating one of only two top-level trauma centers in the Atlanta area. This decreased available medical care for poor and mostly Black patients, and shifted burdens onto remaining hospitals, despite its obligation to provide care as a nonprofit system.
Gov. Brian Kemp sent $130 million in federal pandemic funds to Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta’s publicly owned hospital, to help offset the impact of the closure.
Wellstar runs nine hospitals in suburban Atlanta, mostly concentrated in the northwest suburbs.
Augusta University Health System runs the 478-bed Augusta University Medical Center and the 154-bed Children’s Hospital of Georgia, both in Augusta. It also has regulatory approval to build a 100-bed hospital in Grovetown, in the growing Columbia County suburbs of Augusta. The system also runs the Georgia Cancer Center in Augusta, and Roosevelt Warm Springs Rehabilitation and Specialty Hospitals in Warm Springs.
The Board of Regents, which oversees Georgia’s 26 public universities and colleges, would have to approve any final agreement between AU Health Systems and Wellstar.
The Associated Press contributed to this report