For more than 60 years, St. Claire Healthcare (SCH), in Morehead, Kentucky, has collaborated with other educational and healthcare institutions, working together to meet the region’s needs while making a positive impact on health outcomes for people in Eastern Kentucky.
In late May, St. Claire Healthcare’s Board of Directors unanimously approved a partnership with UK Healthcare that will enable SCH to continue its commitment to a region that largely remains medically underserved. The decision came at the end of a process in which a dozen potential partners were reviewed.
“Since its founding in 1963, St. Claire Healthcare has been a beloved ministry of the Sisters of Notre Dame,” said Sister Marla Monahan, SND, Past-Chair of the St. Claire Healthcare Board of Directors. “From the beginning, members of the Congregation served in leadership roles in both administration and patient care. We realized that with the current situation of healthcare and rural health, we needed to decide how we were going to be able to ensure the next 60 years for St. Claire. Having enough capital as a single, stand-alone rural hospital was a challenge.
“After looking at many possibilities, the one that was willing to commit to help us with that capital expenditure was the University of Kentucky, with whom we already had many partnerships and agreements. In fact, when we established the hospital, our first Sisters reached out to the University of Kentucky and Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, then Chair of the Department of Medicine, who was a visionary and helped establish not a small rural hospital, but a regional healthcare operation.”
SCH and UK Healthcare have committed to $300million in capital investment to create a more robust healthcare system, better equipped to handle future health challenges and ongoing epidemics in the region. Five of the seven Colleges of Health at UK have committed to establish programs, creating a substantive regional medical hub. The partnership will provide additional clinical resources for specialty and sub-specialty care, new research opportunities, and clinical informatics that will strengthen rural providers while attracting additional providers for clinical training in rural areas.
UK was the only partner that could ensure clinical integration that will remain local. Also, it does not seek to consolidate or contract services, but is committed to aligning with the SCH mission in order to expand its service.
Donald Lloyd, SCH President and CEO, identified three issues that drove the decision.
“One, we had familiarity with UK through a 60-year relationship,” he said. “Second, their values are very much aligned to ours. The third thing was that the Sisters of Notre Dame on the Board wanted decisions to be made about the people of Eastern Kentucky from a Kentucky perspective.”
While the entity will not be a Catholic hospital, UK Healthcare has agreed to honor SCH’s Ethical and Religious Directives in its current footprint.
Sister Marla Monahan said, “This will fulfill the true intent of what it means to be Catholic: all are welcome in terms of serving the most marginalized, poorest population in the country, the best possible way we can, which we hope will be even better.”