Fort Hamilton Hospital Officially Becomes
Kettering Health Network’s Seventh Hospital

Officials from Kettering Health Network and Fort Hamilton Hospital have signed a definitive affiliation agreement that has made Fort Hamilton the Network’s seventh member hospital. The signing took place on Monday, July 12 and is retroactive to July 1, 2010, the start of Fort Hamilton’s fiscal year.

“We are pleased to welcome Fort Hamilton into our Network family this week,” said CEO Frank Perez. “This is a very significant move in the furthering of our mission to provide close access to quality care for people in our nine-county service area. We have not had a full-service hospital in the southern-most reaches of our service area, and there is obviously dynamic growth in the Cincinnati-Dayton corridor.”

A new Fort Hamilton Hospital board has been formed with representatives from the existing board and newly-appointed KHN members from the community. The first meeting of this new board is August 4 and will be followed by an integration celebration.

Plans for pursuit of the affiliation agreement were announced on February 11 of this year. KHN President Fred Manchur said it would take 90 to 180 days to finalize the agreement. Fort Hamilton Senior Vice President Lynn Oswald announced in August of 2009 that the hospital intended to leave the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati and pursue another affiliation.

“It was important to us to have a seamless transition into a new network,” Oswald said. “Beyond the obvious benefits of the group purchasing power and favorable insurance rates, we needed the support of back-office services such as finance, marketing and payroll. We will get great support in this regard from a network with proven stability and financial performance. I know our patients will be glad to know we joined one of the nation’s Top Ten Health Systems with a proven track record for providing consistently outstanding care.”

Located at 630 Eaton Avenue in Hamilton, the 175-bed Fort Hamilton Hospital was established in 1929. The hospital has 1,140 employees and 150 actively-practicing physicians. Fort Hamilton currently offers interventional cardiology, a state-of-the-art intensive care unit, a full-service oncology program, obstetrical and behavioral health services, and comprehensive wound healing among other services.

“We had several groups that wanted to affiliate with us, but I thought Kettering Health Network was the best fit for us,” said Fort Hamilton Board Chair Robert Weigel. “They have successfully incorporated three other hospitals in the past ten years, and the culture of their network just made us very comfortable. We felt that they recognized our strengths and would make every effort to expand the hospital’s offerings for Hamilton and surrounding communities.”

Kettering Health Network will now feature Fort Hamilton Hospital; Kettering, Grandview, Sycamore and Southview Medical Centers; Greene Memorial Hospital; Kettering Behavioral Medical Center; and more than 60 outpatient centers. The network now has about 9,500 employees and 1,400 active physicians.

For more information on KHN or its member organizations, visit www.khnetwork.org. More information about Fort Hamilton Hospital is available at www.forthamiltonhospital.com.