A Healthier Tomorrow
We are entering a new era in health care—one that emphasizes collaboration between health organizations in order to come up with innovative solutions to meet the growing need for every individual to receive the right health care at the right place, at the right time, and with the greatest value.
It is in this spirit that we, CMC Healthcare System (CMCHS) and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (DHH), have established an Affiliation Agreement as a means to bring the best of both organizations to the communities we serve. The proposed affiliation involves two components: integrating the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Manchester-based physician group practice services with the services of Catholic Medical Center under its parent company, CMCHS, and integrating CMCHS into a regional system with DHH.
Our goal is to provide services and support to the greater Manchester community through clinical excellence and collaboration—cornerstones of our mission, vision and goals. Our focus is clear: the ultimate health and well-being of the patients who seek our care.
By more effectively coordinating our resources, we will increase the ability to address the primary care needs of the surrounding communities. In addition, we will be able to grow specialty care services, including bringing appropriate subspecialty-level care and clinical research into your community; enhance our ability to improve coordination of care whether you are visiting your doctor's office or require hospitalization; and improve our ability to recruit and retain hard to find sub-specialists.
This relationship, however, is not a new one. Catholic Medical Center and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Manchester have been working cooperatively for more than five years now in the Manchester community to provide efficient and integrated services for patients. These collaborations include specialty cancer care, maternity services, cardiology, expanded primary care, hospitalist services and a community health clinic for low-income residents. All of these efforts have strengthened the collective ability to provide increased access and care options to the greater Manchester community. Most importantly, we have accomplished this without building new capacity, but by making the best use of each organization's respective strengths.
Both Dartmouth-Hitchcock and CMC Healthcare System feel very strongly that for our affiliation to be successful, it is vital that we maintain our unique identities and continue to provide the same health care choices that our patients have come to expect, while working together to achieve a shared vision of creating the healthiest population possible in our region.
We believe that health care in the United States—and the way in which it is delivered—will be fundamentally changing in the next decade. A major part of that change will be centered on making the current system of healthcare delivery work as efficiently as possible. Serving as the foundation for that change will be strong community partnerships, precisely like the one we are proposing today.