On June 21, 2012, leaders from both the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and Thompson Health gathered before a host of Thompson associates to sign an official affiliation agreement.
The signing ceremony was held in Thompson’s new cafeteria, which was just one component of a $43.5 million expansion/renovation completed earlier in the year.
Then-URMC CEO Dr. Bradford Berk described Thompson that day as “unquestionably one of the most progressive, well-run and medically robust health systems in our region,” adding, “Working together, we have enormous potential to improve the health of our region.”
Ten years on, much of the potential has been realized, with the two health systems continuing to find ways to leverage the affiliation to this day.
“After months of discussions, due diligence and board approvals, Thompson had high hopes in June of 2012, and part of the reason was we truly were entering into the affiliation at a time when we were doing extremely well. Healthcare was evolving rapidly, however, and we knew in order to remain viable and continue to offer the highest quality of care, close to home, we needed to align with this incredibly large, well-respected organization we knew could take us to the next level,” said Thompson Health President/CEO Michael F. Stapleton Jr., who was Thompson’s executive vice president and chief operating officer at the time but had already been tapped to become its president and CEO just 10 days later.
Every year since affiliating – and even during the pandemic – Thompson has had positive operating margins, and Stapleton said this is something highly unusual for community hospitals of Thompson’s size. The affiliation, he explained, has offered a number of efficiencies when it comes to everything from purchasing supplies, to software, to insurance.
“In aggregate, these initiatives have realized several million dollars’ worth of savings,” he said.
Best of all, Stapleton said, Thompson’s patients now have access to far more specialists than they did 10 years ago.
Prior to the affiliation, Thompson and URMC partnered in a handful of areas but there was a growing need for specialty services in Thompson’s area and recruitment of needed specialists was not considered cost effective. Since the affiliation, a number of specialty services have been added or expanded. These have included anesthesia, pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine, nephrology, urology, vascular surgery, geriatrics, palliative care, maternal/fetal medicine, orthopedics, oncology and hematology, pathology, pain management and emergency medicine.
As a result, Stapleton said, Thompson is better equipped to care for patients with complex needs. At the same time, he noted, collaboration in the areas of quality and best practices has also been rewarding for Thompson, as has moving Thompson’s information technology under URMC’s Information System Development Department. “At a time when cyberattacks are more and more common, this gives us a level of protection we could not afford as a stand-alone community hospital,” he said.
Thompson has also benefited from unique borrowing opportunities provided by the University. URMC built a 44,000-square-foot building for Thompson’s Canandaigua Medical Group, was heavily involved in the implementation of an improved electronic health record system and also supported Thompson’s capital campaign for its state-of-the-art intensive care unit, which opened in March of 2020.
“Thompson has been an integral part of this community for well over a hundred years and I know ten years ago, there were some who were unsure of what partnering with URMC would really mean,” Stapleton said. “When I talk to those people now, they recognize how Thompson has remained independent and has retained its own unique identity while at the same time reaping so many benefits. It’s truly the best of both worlds, and this anniversary is definitely something to celebrate.”