Zeeland Community Hospital and Spectrum Health To Explore Integration

Zeeland Community Hospital (ZCH) and Spectrum Health have signed a non-binding letter of intent to explore a potential integration. The process to evaluate the relationship will begin immediately and continue during the next several months.

“This is another step in an excellent working relationship that has existed between our organizations for more than a decade,” said Matt Van Vranken, executive vice president, Spectrum Health System and president, Spectrum Health Hospital Group. “The combination of resources and services that would result from integration would help both organizations meet our mutual goal of improving the health of the communities we serve.”

Zeeland Community Hospital is a 57-bed, not-for-profit hospital staffed with nearly 200 physicians, 500 employees and 165 volunteers.

“The decision to explore a potential integration with Spectrum Health resulted from a comprehensive study conducted by Zeeland Community Hospital over the past year,” said Henry Veenstra, president, ZCH. “The study considered multiple organizational structures that would allow ZCH to continue to serve patients and the community well into the future. We are excited about moving to the next phase in this process and are confident that aligning with Spectrum Health will be of great benefit to our patients and community.”

ZCH is a member of the Spectrum Health Regional Hospital Network and Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital Partners in Children’s Health. Veenstra said that these existing relationships have resulted in significant savings and operational support for ZCH through group purchasing, shared services, and access to patient safety and quality initiatives.

Zeeland Community Hospital has served Ottawa County and portions of Kent and Allegan counties for over 80 years, providing a broad range of inpatient and outpatient services including surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, emergency, urgent care, intensive care, digital mammography, CT scan, MRI and nuclear medicine technologies. ZCH has a strong commitment to community health education, partnering with local schools, churches, and businesses. ZCH is a 2009 winner of West Michigan’s 101 Best & Brightest Companies to Work For award and is the proud recipient of the 2009 Benchmark in Patient Satisfaction award from Arbor Associates Inc.; the 2009 Modern Healthcare magazine’s Best Places to Work in Healthcare; and the 2009 Hospital Value Index’s^TM Best in Value^TM award which distinguishes ZCH as being among the best hospitals in the nation in terms of quality, affordability, efficiency and patient satisfaction.

Spectrum Health is a not-for-profit health system in West Michigan that offers a full continuum of care through the Spectrum Health Hospital Group, a collection of eight hospitals and more than 140 service sites; the Spectrum Health Medical Group, mmpc® and West Michigan Heart—physician groups totaling more than 400 providers; and Priority Health, a health plan with nearly 580,000 members. Spectrum Health’s 16,000 employees, 1,500 medical staff members and 2,000 volunteers are committed to delivering the highest quality care. The organization provided $79.4 million in community benefit during its 2009 fiscal year. In 2010, Spectrum Health was named a Top 10 Health System by Thomson Reuters.