The Bay Clinic and West Hawaii Community Health Center consolidated operations on July 1, forming a new health care organization for the Big Island known as Hawaii Island Community Health Center.
“The highest form of collaboration is consolidation,” said Kimo Alameda, former Bay Clinic CEO who first proposed the merger a year ago.
Richard Taaffe from WHCHC will serve as CEO, and Alameda will serve as the vice president of new business development, which he describes as focusing on expanding into rural areas to broaden health care coverage throughout the island.
“We’re looking at trying to secure funding to expand some of the sites both in East Hawaii and West Hawaii,” said Taaffe, mentioning potential clinics and centers in Ocean View, Puna, Pahoa, Ka‘u and Keaau.
The combined $50 million entity will serve more than 40,000 patients on the island through its staff of over 400 employees.
“No one is being laid off or anything like that,” said Taaffe, who noted the organization is instead looking to increase staff by roughly 50 positions this year.
“This means we can put more resources into providing services to the community,” he said.
Taaffe also hopes to increase the total number of patients to 50,000 in the next two to three years.
Other longer term goals include hiring specialists and expanding behavioral health, pharmacy, addiction outreach and educational resources and programs.
“We want to really develop an educational component, a health academy,” Taaffe said. “We can be training people here in the community for careers in the health field so that we don’t have to rely on people from outside the community as much.”
Patients of Bay Clinic or WHCHC can rely on the same services and locations, because no facilities will close as a result of the merger.
“Business continues as usual,” said Alameda. “Only our staffing will see a difference in workflow and who they’re reporting to.”
These workflow adjustments include the rollout of a universal electronic health record system designed to streamline the transfer of records between care centers.
“We’re transitioning to what’s called Epic,” said Alameda of the system. “That’s going to help us improve our clinic flow as well as share records with most hospitals.”
This includes Queen’s Medical Center and Hawaii Pacific Health for patients required to travel for certain services. The system will also allow WHCMC and Bay Clinic to share services easily.
“For example, in East Hawaii, they have great dental, but they don’t see a lot of kids, but we have a pediatric dental program,” said Taaffe. “So they can come over here, or go over there, and their medical records will be seen at both.”
The system is expected to launch Nov. 5.
Bay Clinic was first founded in 1983, and Alameda has been serving as its CEO for the last three years. WHCHC was founded in 2005, and Taaffe has been serving as the CEO since the beginning.
“Richard Taaffe is an exceptional CEO and collaborative,” Alameda said. “He has a model of consensus which brings everybody together.”
The collaboration between groups has been underway for the past year, with both organizations assisting with vaccine rollouts and testing centers during the pandemic. The experience provided the opportunity for the board members of both organizations to work together.
“Our board and the Bay Clinic board just got together and we started talking,” said Taaffe. “Their synergies and their visions are the same so we just said okay, we’re going to combine the boards.”
The Board of Directors of both organizations will keep their original members following the merger.
“No one’s losing their position on the board or anything like that,” Taaffe said, noting Michael Matsukawa from WHCHC will serve as Board Chairman and Haidee Abe from Bay Clinic will serve as vice chair.
Current employees will see several improvements including a two-week payroll period, carried over paid time off, and retirement plans.
“I think it’s the wave of the future,” said Alameda of the merger. “These group practices seem to work better in today’s medical environment.”
Email Grant Phillips at gphillips@hawaiitribune-herald.com.