Northwest Hospital and UW Medical Center Integration Update

It’s been several months since we announced that the UW Board of Regents approved the integration of Northwest Hospital and UW Medical Center into a single hospital with two campuses. Since then, many of our leaders and staff have been working to move things forward, and we’d like to take this opportunity to share their progress.

Joining the two organizations is an enormous undertaking, involving every aspect of hospital operations. The two campuses will be financially, clinically, technologically and administratively integrated, and will operate under one name and brand.

There is much to do, but there are also many benefits, including reducing administrative complexity, better aligning and standardizing our clinical services, implementing common technologies to make communication and internal referrals easier, and finding significant cost savings from the efficiencies of operating as a single organization.

On January 1, 2020, under the terms of the integration, Northwest Hospital will become one of two UW Medical Center campuses, which means everything from new building signage to new patient forms to new business cards and badges will reflect UWMC. It also means that Northwest Hospital employees will have a new employer, new benefits and, in some cases, new reporting structures. The Northwest Campus will be the community campus of UWMC continuing with its open medical staff model and its focus on providing community-based care.

We recognize that this project represents a tremendous amount of change and that many employees may be feeling some anxiety about the future. Many groups within both organizations have been working hard to make the transition as smooth as possible and to ensure that our Northwest Hospital and UW Medical Center employees get the information and assistance they need. These groups are focused on:

• • Hospital operations

• • Human resources

• • Revenue cycle

• • Branding and communications

• • Clinical research

• • Finance, accounting, and supply chain

• • Governance, corporate, and unique arrangements

• • Medical staff

• • Physician, faculty, and advanced practice providers

Even with all the change, there are many important things that won’t change: how we work as a team to provide excellent care and service to our patients at each of our campuses; our commitment to Patients Are First; and our culture of compassion and respect for our colleagues and our community.

We’d like to thank everyone who has been contributing significant time and effort to this project so far, as well as all of you who will be involved as we continue to move forward. We will be updating our UW Medicine employees with additional progress and also will be communicating frequently with the Northwest Hospital and UW Medical Center employees impacted by the integration. We know that you are eager to receive information, and we appreciate your patience as we work through important details.  More detailed communications will be coming in the next weeks and months.

As always, we welcome your questions, ideas and suggestions. Please share them with us at nwh2uwmc@uw.edu.

This is an exciting time for UW Medicine, and while we know this project will be challenging at times, it will ultimately position both campuses for long-term success and enable UW Medicine to better accomplish our mission in the region.

Thank you for your partnership and for the passion you bring to your work every day.

Sincerely,