UnityPoint Health - Peoria now includes Pekin Hospital. The affiliation was official January 1. Leaders with UnityPoint Health and Pekin’s Progressive Health Systems made the public announcement Tuesday.
UnityPoint Health - Peoria President Debbie Simon is also the chief executive over the entire organization that includes Methodist, Proctor and Pekin. She says they look forward to being able to plan together and move the affiliation forward.
“So we will make a significant investment in this community. We’re committed to that. And we will work with everyone in this community to build health care and to learn what will build community health.” The affiliation is official, but Simon says it will take a year to 18 months to fully achieve the merger of the medical records systems.
The Pekin affiliation with UnityPoint, grows the region closer to having two major healthcare systems. OSF Healthcare includes hospitals in 11 communities. The UnityPoint system now includes five hospitals in four West Central Illinois cities. But it’s also part of a larger system that includes closer to 16 hospitals in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Simon says the Pekin Hospital affiliation will only enhance patient centered healthcare in the area. “You need a strong health system to collaborate with another strong health system. The goal would be long term: Competition that provides the best in quality safety and affordable care. But collaboration, that makes sense to provide the best regional healthcare to the people we all serve.”
Bob Haley will remain the President of UnityPoint Health - Pekin. He says the hospital is still the institution its patients know and love, but now they are also part of a bigger family of care.