Saginaw-based Covenant HealthCare announced Tuesday, March 10, that it is entering into a joint venture with Detroit-based Henry Ford Health to expand treatment options for mid-Michigan patients with neurological conditions such as stroke, traumatic brain and spine injuries and neurological cancers and other disorders.
The joint venture, which begins April 1, will formalize a clinical affiliation between the health systems and allow Covenant’s patients in the Saginaw-Bay City region access to Henry Ford specialists in neurology, neurosurgery, neuro-oncology and stroke while allowing them to stay closer to home.
It’ll be called “Covenant HealthCare in partnership with Henry Ford Health Neurosciences.”
“We have long had a relationship with Henry Ford,” said Beth Charlton, president and CEO of Covenant HealthCare, in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. “It’s going to provide Covenant an opportunity to … elevate what is possible right here in the region. It’ll take Henry Ford’s expertise and level it on top of what we currently provide at Covenant.”
As part of the agreement, “one to two fully dedicated neurosurgeons will begin to physically work alongside the existing neurosciences team at Covenant Healthcare in Saginaw,” said Bob Riney, president and CEO of Henry Ford Health.
“While the community will see virtual connectivity to subspecialists, they’re actually going to see specialists in neurosurgery from Henry Ford partnering on-site with Covenant physicians to bring advanced care to the community,” he said.
The health systems also plan to build a new, joint neurosciences outpatient facility on the Covenant HealthCare Mackinaw Campus in Saginaw Township, but Riney and Charlton did not provide any details about when construction will begin, how large the building will be or what it will cost.
They said that, eventually, all of the partnership’s neurosciences care will be provided out of that new site.
“Henry Ford has been here already in the area, providing some virtual care to patients and families that have needed sort of that next-level care that couldn’t be provided here in the region,” Charlton said. “So, to be able to provide that here, and … provide a state-of-the-art building to surround these extraordinary clinicians will be just game-changing for people being able to stick and stay here in the region.”
For Covenant patients who have brain cancer, for example, their cases would be reviewed by a tumor board that includes both Covenant and Henry Ford specialists. It’ll allow patients access to clinical trials at Henry Ford, too.
And it could help Covenant, which treats about 1,500 stroke patients each year, become a comprehensive stroke center.
“We do not have comprehensive stroke designation because we do not have an endovascular surgeon on staff,” Charlton said. “However, seven out of 10 stroke patients (in the region) … currently seek care at Covenant. So we have a very broad stroke patient care base, but the one piece of that comprehensive programming we’ve been void of has been the endovascular component of care.”
It’s a very narrow number of patients who need clot removal by an endovascular surgeon, she said, but “certainly, that will be a next step, achieving comprehensive stroke center designation.”
The financial elements of the joint venture were not disclosed, though Charlton said a joint venture committee will govern the partnership.
“So, what there will be is constant evolution and evaluation of where we are in the process, and we will be consistently making sure that we are able to provide the kind of care that we need to, to the number of patients that are requiring service,” Charlton said.
This isn’t the first time Henry Ford has entered into a joint venture with another health system.
It finalized a joint venture Oct. 1, 2024, with Ascension Michigan, becoming a single, $12 billion organization under the Henry Ford name as it competes in an increasingly consolidated health care market in Michigan.
As the majority owner of the newly combined system, Henry Ford Health maintains an 80% governance and ownership stake, while St. Louis-based Ascension controls 20%, Riney said at the time.
Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Henry Ford, Covenant announce new joint venture for neurological care
Reporting by Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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