WILMINGTON, Ohio—The Clinton Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees voted on Wednesday, Oct. 9, to discontinue the CMH Family Medicine Residency Program, effective June 30, 2014.
CMH president and chief executive officer Mark Dooley said the decision was made after several months of careful consideration and analysis of the program by the hospital’s senior leadership team and the hospital board.
“The board has decided that the evolution of health care in general and our hospital in particular dictates that we focus more on our core mission and values in order to provide area communities with the best possible health care,” Dooley said. “The trend nationally is for residency programs to be based in larger metro areas. We are faced with declining reimbursement on all fronts and think it best that we not continue as a teaching hospital in order to focus our energies on health care services vitally needed in or community.”
As evidence of that focus on services needed in the community, Dooley noted that CMH has added nearly 20 new physicians over the past two years, including specialists in family medicine, general surgery, orthopedics, plastics and reconstructive surgery.
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Most recently the hospital added cardiac catheterization services along with full-time clinical programs in ear, nose and throat and vascular surgery. “Residents of Clinton County and the surrounding area were forced to frequently travel to receive these services in the past,” Dooley said. “We have put our focus on providing our community the peace of mind that comes from receiving extraordinary health care close to home in as many specialty areas as possible,”
Dooley says the hospital has a comprehensive plan in place to serve the patients currently seen at CMH Family Health Center, 825 W. Locust St., where faculty and residents saw outpatients. The hospital has been actively adding primary care physicians and mid-level providers to assure that access will continue.
Five family medicine providers have been added to local communities in 2013. Two are in Wilmington, along with one each in Washington Court House, Waynesville and Maineville. Dooley says, “Adding these physicians in the different communities allows us to provide access points close to home for patients along with maintaining the hospital’s commitment to providing care for the indigent when needed.”
CMH Board of Trustee Marcy Hawley said, “This was a very difficult decision for the board and it was not entered into lightly as we know it affects the lives of the residents, the faculty, and the staff. We have been very proud to have been a teaching hospital connected to the University of Cincinnati. Several graduates have become well-respected doctors in our community. The hospital is committed to help in the transition of the many employees at the Family Health Center to other jobs in the system, as well as to provide ongoing health care to the patients they served.”
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