The brand new partnership will make a transformational affect on bettering the well being and well-being of Georgians by way of schooling, analysis and revolutionary affected person care.

MARIETTA, Ga. and AUGUSTA, Ga., March 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Wellstar Well being System and Augusta College Well being System (AUHS) have reached an settlement to type an revolutionary new partnership that expands Augusta College’s well being sciences coaching and analysis throughout the state and builds a broader affiliation between Wellstar Well being System and the college’s Medical Faculty of Georgia (MCG). The agreements have been authorised this week by the boards of Wellstar and AUHS, in addition to the Board of Regents of the College System of Georgia. 

Wellstar, AUHS and Augusta College share a mission to create a more healthy future for Georgians and clear up well being care challenges throughout the state. Via this partnership, they plan to make a transformational affect on bettering the well being and well-being of each affected person they serve.

“This is a vital day for well being care in Georgia. I’m excited for the advantages that this partnership will present our state, together with world-class care websites, better entry to look after our communities and extra coaching and schooling for physicians and different vitally essential well being care suppliers at Augusta College and its excellent Medical Faculty of Georgia,” stated Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.

To be referred to as Wellstar MCG Well being, the partnership will broaden medical coaching, analysis and scientific care all through Georgia, whereas implementing a profitable mannequin of bringing collectively community-based well being methods and tutorial medical facilities like MCG and its affiliate hospitals. MCG and Augusta College are a part of the College System of Georgia (USG), and MCG serves as the one public medical faculty within the state.

“This partnership combines the strengths of AUHS, Augusta College and Wellstar to advance medical schooling and analysis and supply extra entry to high quality well being care the place folks want it most, particularly in rural Georgia,” USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue stated. “It permits AUHS to learn from Wellstar’s efficiencies within the supply of well being care and supply experiential schooling in a contemporary scientific atmosphere, which will increase MCG’s constructive affect on native communities and Georgia’s medical workforce.”

Upon regulatory approval, the partnership will deal with 5 areas to create a more healthy future for Georgia:

• Entry to Experience: Creating an ecosystem of care that gives essentially the most superior scientific care, revolutionary tutorial educating fashions and lifesaving analysis to all corners of the state and past.
• Increasing the Pipeline of Clinicians: Making important investments to extend the variety of physicians educated in Georgia on the Medical Faculty of Georgia.
• Care Innovation: Creating new and revolutionary scientific care choices and fashions to reinforce the well being and well-being of sufferers they serve.
• Pediatric Care: Bringing Wellstar and AUHS’s exemplary pediatric care to extra Georgians throughout the state by way of Kids’s Hospital of Georgia and Wellstar’s devoted pediatric care and emergency departments.
• Digital Well being: Making important investments in bettering scientific IT, modernizing digital care facilities and including distant care choices backed by the educational medical experience of the Medical Faculty of Georgia.

“Enhancing healthcare for Georgians requires taking new approaches, creating revolutionary care fashions and unprecedented collaboration,” stated Candice L. Saunders, FACHE, president and chief government officer of Wellstar Well being System. “This partnership will deliver collectively the perfect capabilities and improvements from Wellstar, AUHS and the Medical Faculty of Georgia to advance healthcare in Georgia, making it simpler for sufferers to get the care they want wherever they’re.”

“As our two organizations have labored collectively during the last three months to achieve this settlement, the rationale for our partnering with Wellstar has solely grown stronger – to allow our well being system to thrive in at present’s difficult well being care atmosphere and to increase our mission of bettering well being for all Georgians by way of excellence in affected person care, schooling and analysis,” stated Brooks Keel, PhD, president of Augusta College and appearing chief government officer for Augusta College Well being System. “Our partnership with Wellstar will safe the long-term future of educational medicine-influenced well being care in Augusta and the encompassing area, enhance the variety of physicians, nurses and allied well being professionals we’re capable of prepare and make substantial investments in our well being care amenities and new applied sciences to offer care in additional handy settings for sufferers throughout Georgia.”

Within the proposed settlement, Wellstar has dedicated to investing almost $800 million over 10 years in AUHS amenities and infrastructure, together with greater than $200 million allotted to Augusta College Medical Middle – a greater than 600-bed security internet and educating hospital. Moreover, capital for a brand new hospital, medical workplace constructing and ambulatory surgical procedure heart in Columbia County and the prices related to implementing a brand new state-funded digital medical data system all through AUHS can be funded. These investments will end in strengthened and expanded neighborhood applications, financial exercise and jobs throughout the area.

“Our affiliation with Wellstar will speed up the advances MCG will make in scientific care, medical schooling in addition to analysis throughout the state. This contains enabling a bigger variety of college students and residents to have expanded alternatives to be taught from among the most extremely certified physicians and different well being care professionals in our state,” stated David Hess, MD, dean of the Medical Faculty of Georgia and government vp of medical affairs and integration at Augusta College.

The first AUHS scientific websites concerned within the settlement embrace AUMC, Kids’s Hospital of Georgia, the scientific operations of the Georgia Most cancers Middle, Roosevelt Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital and the brand new hospital in Columbia County.

“I am grateful for the assist of Governor Kemp and the Common Meeting as we have labored to make sure the way forward for AUHS and discover a associate prepared to put money into the most recent amenities, know-how and tools to look after sufferers and supply state-of-the-art coaching for MCG’s medical college students and residents,” USG Board of Regents Chairman Harold Reynolds stated.

The settlement additionally contains AU Medical Associates, the doctor follow plan comprised of college physicians who’ve appointments at MCG and neighborhood physicians straight employed by the plan, in addition to a number of clinics and different well being care websites in Augusta, all through Georgia and in sure counties in South Carolina.

“As an Augusta resident, I am excited to see the potential of MCG because it grows and matures into what I consider is likely one of the finest public medical faculties within the nation,” stated USG Regent Jim Hull, chairman of the AUHS Board of Administrators. “This partnership is significant for that journey and can solely improve each MCG’s repute and Augusta College’s recognition as a best-in-class analysis college.”

Pending regulatory approvals, the organizations plan to shut the partnership in late summer time.

About Augusta College Well being System

Augusta College Well being System, in partnership with the Medical Faculty of Georgia, is Georgia’s solely public tutorial well being heart and a spot the place world-class clinicians are bringing the drugs of tomorrow to affected person care at present. As the first educating affiliate of MCG, AUHS supplies essentially the most complete routine-to-complex care at AU Medical Middle, which homes the area’s solely Degree 1 trauma heart, Kids’s Hospital of Georgia, which homes the areas solely Degree IV NICU, the Georgia Most cancers Middle, in addition to historic Roosevelt Heat Springs Rehabilitation and Specialty Hospitals, a digital care community and greater than 80 main and specialty, and subspecialty care clinics throughout the state. Be taught extra at augustahealth.org.

About Wellstar Well being System

As one of the vital superior and built-in well being methods in Georgia, Wellstar Well being System would not take a one measurement matches all strategy to healthcare. We offer deeply private care that takes every individual’s distinctive life story under consideration. With 24,000 group members, nurses and docs, Wellstar supplies compassionate, high-quality care. Our group is made up of extra Prime Medical doctors than some other well being care system in Georgia, throughout almost each specialty. We’re coaching the following era of clinicians, providing graduate medical schooling that prepares clinicians to ship the best high quality of well being care to our neighborhood. A number of Wellstar amenities have been acknowledged within the U.S. Information & World Report Greatest Hospitals rankings for offering world-class care in quite a lot of specialties, together with cardiology, neurology, most cancers care and pediatrics. As well as, Wellstar Paulding Hospital has been awarded the Malcolm Baldrige Nationwide High quality Award, the nation’s highest stage of recognition for efficiency excellence. Wellstar is the one well being system to have a digital innovation hub – Catalyst by Wellstar. Catalyst by Wellstar is the -first-of-its-kind innovation firm and enterprise agency created and operated inside a well being ecosystem to holistically tackle healthcare disruption by harnessing issues, constructing options, deploying capital and establishing strategic partnerships throughout industries. Wellstar operates the one complete trauma care system within the state with Degree II, Degree III and Degree IV trauma facilities, pediatric emergency departments and a devoted Burn Middle. These facilities assist us serve essentially the most vital sufferers with a variety of emergency care choices. Collectively, we’re proud to have served one out of each six Georgians, together with sufferers from 148 out of 159 Georgia counties. We offer almost $1 billion in uncompensated care in Georgia yearly and have been acknowledged as one of many prime 10 suppliers nationally on charity care. Via greater than 450 neighborhood partnerships, together with our Wellstar Middle for Well being Fairness, the care we offer in our neighborhood extends far past the partitions of our amenities. And our journey continues as we work to achieve sufferers and households in new communities in new methods— to reinforce the well being and well-being of each individual we serve.

About Augusta College

As one in every of Georgia’s 4 public analysis establishments, Augusta College affords customizable, accessible schooling on campuses in Augusta and throughout the state. Augusta College goals not solely to be completely different, but in addition to make a distinction — to reimagine and recreate the way forward for artwork, know-how, schooling and well being care. Residence to Georgia’s solely public tutorial medical heart and designated by the state as a well being sciences heart of excellence, Augusta College is devoted to making a safer, more healthy and extra equitable Georgia. Be taught extra at augusta.edu.

In regards to the Medical Faculty of Georgia

The Medical Faculty of Georgia at Augusta College is likely one of the nation’s largest medical faculties by class measurement, with 264 college students per class. The tutorial expertise is anchored by the principle campus in Augusta, regional scientific campuses for third- and fourth-year college students throughout the state and a second four-year campus in Athens in partnership with the College of Georgia. MCG’s increasing partnerships with physicians and hospitals throughout Georgia presently supplies about 350 websites the place college students can expertise the complete spectrum of medication, from complicated care hospitals to small-town solo practices. MCG and its educating hospitals additionally present postgraduate schooling to greater than 500 residents and fellows in additional than 50 completely different Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Training-approved applications.

SOURCE Wellstar Well being System