Clarian Health merges with local hospitals

Central Indiana hospital CEOs show bipartisanship in an integration agreement as partisan tension raises over health care reform in Washington, D.C.

Bloomington Hospital, Bedford Regional Medical Center and Bloomington Hospital of Orange County celebrated their merger with Clarian Health on Thursday, creating a State Road 37 corridor of health care.

The four hospitals have openly worked together before, but with the new integration they will share more than advice. The hospitals will now share information and patients. The Clarian System will be able to cover patients across 11 counties, many parts of which are rural and in need of medical attention.

Clarian Health’s research institute is known for its affiliation with IU at Indianapolis’s Riley Hospital for Children.

IU President Michael A. McRobbie expressed the University’s support for the merger at Thursday’s integration ceremony. McRobbie said that IU medical students have a great relationship with Clarian and Bloomington Hospital.

“Half of Bloomington Hospital’s staff graduated from IU,” McRobbie said.

The merger is important to IU medical students because many end up working with either Clarian or Bloomington Hospitals, he said.

Daniel Evans, president and CEO of Clarian Health, said the good news for patients across Central Indiana is the ability of the hospitals to readily exchange information with cutting-edge technologies. The shared information will include medical records, MRIs, treatment facilities and new technologies, like televised patient care, in minutes.

Larry Bailey, incoming CEO of Bloomington Hospital of Orange County, said his hospital is a smaller facility located in Paoli, Ind. Bailey said he was pleased to know they can now use information technology that Clarian provides for better coverage in rural areas.

“If a patient has an emergency that we know we don’t have the equipment for, we can just contact the ambulance and tell them to take that patient straight to Bloomington or Indianapolis,” Bailey said.

Mark Moore, Bloomington Hospital president and CEO, said the affiliation with a bigger hospital is not for financial reasons and no staff cuts will result.

Merging the four hospitals will make the process of taking care of patients dynamic for any type of treatment, Moore said.

“The integration will let us do what we do in a different way,” Evans said. “We take care of patients’ needs.”