With continuous change and challenge on the horizon for North Country hospitals, two healthcare organizations are working proactively to formalize ongoing collaborations. River Hospital and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center today formally announced their intent to move forward in a clinical collaboration designed to integrate healthcare delivery in their respective St. Lawrence River communities. Over the past few months, board members and leadership from the two hospitals have met to evaluate the benefits of such a collaboration.

“Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center has a long standing history of providing quality care to the residents of the Ogdensburg and surrounding towns. We see great synergies through the collaboration of the two health systems,” said Ben Moore, President and CEO of River Hospital. “We closely monitored the work of the North Country Health Systems Redesign Commission, and as essential providers in our respective communities, River Hospital and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center see great benefit to implementing some of the Commission’s recommendations,” Moore continues.

In the coming months, the two organizations will explore the best means of collaboration to build a healthcare delivery system designed to improve quality, efficiency, affordability, and patient access.

A collaboration between the hospitals will seek to maintain and expand clinical services that are important to the community, while upholding the unique identity of each hospital.

“Our hospitals have similar philosophies when it comes to community health care,” Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center CEO Nate Howell explains. “Through our collaboration we are taking active steps to ensure that the communities in which we serve will continue to have access to quality health by looking for ways to leverage economies of scale while pursuing things like joint medical staff recruiting aimed at growing the services available locally.”

The collaboration discussions build upon an existing relationship between the two hospitals. Specialists from Claxton-Hepburn currently provide care in surgery, nephrology, gastroenterology, and radiology to patients in Alexandria Bay.