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0 8C O V E R S T O R Y NE W PH YSICI A N S, E X PA NDED ser vices a nd upg raded faci lities took t he spot lig ht in 2015 dur ing St . Vincent Charity Medica l Center's 150th anniversar y year. Severa l other projects are still in the works for 2016, including one announced last month: St. Vincent 's has launched the first bariatric surgery program in the nation with the Employers Centers of Excellence Network (ECEN) through the Pacific Business Group on Health. The ECEN is comprised of Fortune 500 companies which have banded together to secure the finest surgical care for their employees at the most reasonable cost. "Bariatric surgery was pioneered locally at St. Vincent's in 1997, and since that time, we've performed 7,000 bariatric surgeries — more than any other hospital in Ohio," says David F. Perse, MD, St. Vincent's President/CEO. "In June, through our hospital based insurance contracts, we became involved with Pacific Business Group on Health in a conversational mode. That conversation immediately surrounded our bariatric surgery line as one of our core strategic lines; the others centered on behavioral health and orthopedic/spine. We were invited to participate in the request-for-proposal process, which was completed in July, and after that we were able to engage with Health Design Plus as the eastern United States site for bariatric surgery for a large national retailer's employees." Another hospita l will be the western U.S. site. Its program will launch in Ma rch. Eventua lly, a third hospita l site is expected to be added in the southern U.S. Under the ECEN arrangement with St. Vincent's, bariatric surger y a nd a ll related pre- a nd post-op ser vices will be covered by this reta iler for its employees a nd their adult dependents via a bundled payment model. While two national reta ilers a lready have ECEN progra ms in place for hea r t surgery and joint replacement at other hospita ls, this is the first one in the nation for bariatric surgery. "I see this as va lidation of the qua lity outcomes that we have," says Chandra Hassan, MD, FACS, Medica l Director of Bariatric Surgery at St. Vincent's. "Our complication rate with Employers Centers of Excellence Network PHOTO © SMITHBERGER PHOTOGRAPHY, NORTH CANTON St. Vincent's Lands National Contract David S. Perse, MD, President and CEO of St. Vincent Charity Medical Center, and Christine Miceli-Hahn, PA-C, Clinical Director of Bariatric Surgery at St. Vincent's BY ROBERT JANEK 0 8