King County’s major medical centers continue jockeying for position in the emerging new health-care world.
U.W. Medicine and Valley Medical Center proposed this week what they call a “strategic alliance.” Valley wants to retain its name, although the news release says Valley would become “part of U.W. Medicine.”
Earlier this year, U.W. Medicine took over running Northwest Hospital (in north Seattle), without actually owning the hospital.
As Dean Radford writes in the Renton Reporter:
Public Hospital District No. 1, which owns [Valley] medical center and neighborhood clinics, would still exist. Its five commissioners would sit on a larger board that would oversee management of Valley Medical. The Valley board would continue to oversee the hospital district itself.
In essence Valley Medical Center would become part of the UW Medicine system, which owns and operates Harborview Medical Center and the University of Washington Medical Center. UW Medicine also shares ownership and governance of Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Children’s Hospital and Medical Center and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
The bigger picture: U.W. Medicine and Swedish Medical Center are competing to be top-dog in the greater Seattle area. All the other hospitals are nervously watching, trying to decide if they can survive independently, or if they need to affiliate. I alluded to this in an article last spring, as the same pressures are reflected in the mad scramble to build new Emergency Departments all over King County.
Science and Wonder 