Southside Affiliation with Centra Health Finalized

Southside Community Hospital’s affiliation with Centra Health was finalized Tuesday, January 3, completing a process that began with requests for proposals by SCH in 2004.

    “We will be better together,” said Gwen Eddleman, CEO of Southside Community Hospital. “Already we are working with Centra Health on a master plan to upgrade our facilities and services. This affiliation brings our community new resources that will translate into enhanced services.”

Centra Health is making available $35.5 million to Southside over the next 10 years. “We want Southside to be the hospital of choice in its region,” said George Dawson, president and CEO of Centra Health. “Through this affiliation, Southside will become part of the Centra Health system and have the capital it needs to tackle important facility improvements.”

One of the first projects is a major upgrade of Southside’s maternity facilities. Eddleman said it will begin this winter and be completed before year end.

Centra Health has a national reputation for clinical excellence and patient satisfaction. Solucient recently rated Centra Health as one of the 100 top heart hospitals in the United States and the organization is one of only a handful of hospitals in the mid-Atlantic region to earn Magnet nursing status, the highest nursing honor in the country.

Centra officials believe the combined organizations will be strengthened through an exchange of best practices and economies of scale. Patients also will gain better access to a broad range of advanced clinical services available at Centra Health’s Lynchburg hospitals.

“Making Southside stronger strengthens Centra Health,” said Dawson. “Working closely with physicians, we want to build bridges to Lynchburg for specialized care. Centra Health is already a referral destination for some SCH patients for services like cardiac surgery, neurosurgery and neonatal intensive care.”
     
The affiliation is one in a series of steps that Southside’s leaders took over the past two years to strengthen the hospital.  During the past two years, Southside has successfully recruited board-certified surgeons and specialists, new emergency physicians, and has begun a hospitalist program.

Southside Community Hospital, founded in 1927, is a full-service, acute care community hospital licensed for 116 beds, serving residents of Prince Edward and seven surrounding counties.  SCH employs more than 500 and has an active medical staff of 50 physicians. In 2005 Southside had more than 4,000 admissions and its emergency department treated more than 20,000 patients.

    Centra Health, which operates a combined 442 beds in Lynchburg, was formed in 1986 with the merger of Lynchburg General Hospital and Virginia Baptist Hospital. The non-profit health system employs more than 4,500 and has a medical staff of 300.  Centra Health had over 27,000 admissions in 2005 and its emergency department at Lynchburg General treated more than 80,000 patients. In addition to inpatient care, Centra Health operates physician group practices in numerous locations across Virginia, three long-term care/rehabilitation facilities, residential and day treatment programs for troubled youth, substance abuse treatment programs, mammography centers and more.