In the year since Community Medical Center joined Geisinger Health System, a dramatically different health care landscape has leaders at the hospital calling Scranton a national "laboratory" for profit and nonprofit competition.
During a Times-Tribune editorial board meeting Wednesday, officials with Geisinger sidestepped the question of whether Scranton can sustain three different hospitals. Instead, GCMC's Anthony Aquilina, D.O., chief medical officer, and Robert Steigmeyer, CEO and president, framed the community in terms of health care systems.
"This area can support two health systems," said Dr. Aquilina.
Geisinger's nonprofit system and Commonwealth Health's for-profit system have absorbed the community's three hospitals, until recently all financially struggling independent nonprofit hospitals.
Tennessee-based Community Health Systems - one of the largest publicly traded hospital companies in the country with 135 hospitals in 29 states - created an umbrella company in 2012, Commonwealth Health, to connect the eight hospitals it has acquired in the region since 1999, including Regional Hospital of Scranton and Moses Taylor Hospital.
Since 2005, Danville-based Geisinger Health System has merged with hospitals in Northeast Pennsylvania, including CMC. While having many hospitals, Geisinger leaders continually stress the need for giving patients the appropriate treatment in the best location at the right time.
Mr. Steigmeyer said Scranton hospitals transitioning to nonprofit and for-profit systems around the same time makes for a unique situation.
"I think Scranton serves as a laboratory for for-profit and nonprofit health care in America," Mr. Steigmeyer said. "It'll be interesting to watch."
Generally, the medical community has lauded improvements in both of the city's hospital systems, which have helped replace and modernize aging equipment and infrastructure and recruited more physicians and staff.
Both hospital systems have added physicians and staff to the area. Since the Geisinger merger, GCMC has added 419 full-time jobs and still has 163 positions to fill, said Mr. Steigmeyer.
"We're working aggressively to fill the positions," he said.
Physicians added to the hospital since the merger include those in the following specialities: neurosurgery, neurology, cardiothoracic surgery, trauma surgeons, hospitalists and gynecology and pediatric cardiology, neurology and gastroenterology.
Geisinger has announced plans for $125.7 million of $160 million committed by the health system to the Scranton area - $80 million for facility projects, $25.7 million for physician office space and $20 million for information technology improvements. Part of the merger with CMC, Geisinger agreed to complete the upgrades within seven years.
The majority of GCMC's campus was built in 1967, with facility additions in 1990 and 2005. Construction on the main campus will begin in the summer, Mr. Steigmeyer said. After an anticipated 24 months of new construction to add 150,000 square feet of space, the hospital also will undergo about 18 months of renovations.
"It's going to be a very busy time for construction," Mr. Steigmeyer said, anticipating construction continuing through 2016.
Also related to the upgrades, Geisinger's Lake Scranton primary care practice is estimated to move in 2014 to the Mount Pleasant Corporate Center at Seventh Avenue and West Linden Street.
Contact the writer: rward@timesshamrock.com, @rwardTT on Twitter.