Riverside Health System and UVA Health in Virginia have created a strategic alliance to expand patient access to innovative care for complex medical conditions, transplantation and the latest clinical trials. Under the agreement, Riverside and UVA Health will collaborate in multiple areas including clinical program development, research and medical education.
UVA Health is an academic health system that recently expanded to include four hospitals across Charlottesville, Culpeper and Northern Virginia, along with the UVA School of Medicine, UVA School of Nursing, UVA Physicians Group and the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library.
The agreement provides UVA Health with 5 percent ownership in four-hospital Riverside, and in turn, UVA Health has committed to financial and clinical resources to assist in growing local services in Eastern Virginia. UVA Health and Riverside will each retain their existing governance and administrative structures.
The organizations said the affiliation enhances care coordination in several care areas, including adult and pediatric transplantation while advancing efforts to educate and train the next generation of clinicians through a common commitment to medical education, research and innovation.
“Together, Riverside Health System and UVA Health will continue to bring an exceptionally high level of health care to Eastern Virginia,” said Mike Dacey, MD, Riverside Health System’s president and chief executive officer. “We are looking forward to our expanded partnership in clinical services starting with cardiothoracic surgery. Strategic affiliations with Academic Medical Centers have been a part of our strategic plan for the past four years. This affiliation advances the expertise of our respective clinical teams and provides patients with expanded access to the latest technologies and procedures to improve health outcomes and quality of life."
“In UVA Health’s new strategic plan, our mission is to transform health and inspire hope for all Virginians and beyond. Partnerships like our new alliance with Riverside Health System make it easier for Virginians with complex health conditions to receive the care they need close to home,” said K. Craig Kent, M.D., UVA Health’s chief executive officer and executive vice president for health affairs, in a statement. “We look forward to closely collaborating with Riverside’s exceptional leadership, physicians, and team members on a wide range of clinical care, research and educational initiatives.”
The new affiliation builds on a longstanding relationship between the two health systems that began in 2005 with the launch of a Newport News-based stereotactic radiosurgery center that uses precisely focused, high-energy beams of radiation to treat brain tumors, pituitary tumors and other conditions.
