Syracuse, N.Y. –based St. Joseph's Health joined Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health, effective July 1. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
St. Joseph's Health, a nonprofit that cares for patients in central New York and northern Pennsylvania, will continue to manage and operate its facilities, according to a news release from St. Joseph's Health and Trinity Health.
Trinity Health and St. Joseph's Health executives at a Syracuse ceremony joined the two organizations together symbolically, weaving ribbons together to form a heart. From left are St. Joseph's Health Director of Facilities Marylin Galimi, St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center nurse Serba Bazile and Trinity Health's Executive Vice President for Mission Integration Sr. Mary Persico, IHM.
St. Joseph's Health will remain a Catholic system. Executives, including mission and governance leaders, and the sponsors of St. Joseph's Health and Trinity Health commemorated the transfer of sponsorship of St. Joseph's Health from the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities to Trinity Health's Catholic Health Ministries in a July 1 ceremony that included readings, music and shared stories. The Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities will continue to provide spiritual support to St. Joseph's patients and employees, explained Carol Tingwall, Trinity Health's reputation management director.
In 2013 when a letter of intent was signed, Kathryn Ruscitto, president and chief executive of St. Joseph's who remains in that leadership position, said that joining the large national system would help St. Joseph's to meet the potential challenges of health care reform, including by accessing the intellectual capital of the large health care system. She said at the time that the move would help St. Joseph's to improve care quality, improve how it addresses population health, build up its infrastructure and achieve the scale needed to reduce costs.
Trinity Health co-sponsors Catholic Health System of Buffalo, N.Y. Catholic Health Systems hospitals are Kenmore Mercy Hospital in Kenmore, Mercy Hospital in Buffalo, and Sisters of Charity Hospital in Buffalo and Cheektowaga. St. Peter's Health Partners, a network of health care services in Albany, is also a member of Trinity Health.
A transition team, with leaders from both organizations, will identify work that needs to be done over several months to integrate the organizations. That group is charged with keeping the community, health care providers and other employees, donors and volunteers updated on the integration process.