Porter Health Care System Teams Up Loyola University Health System

Here’s some exciting news, everyone. Porter Health Care System is making additions. No, nothing is being physically built, but you could say a relationship has been built. Porter Health Care System CEO Jonathan Nalli along with David W. Hecht, MD, Senior Vice President for Clinical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer for Loyola University Health Systems announced on Monday March 18, 2013 at a press conference in the Porter Regional Hospital conference room that a new affiliation between the two companies has been created.

“We feel that as we continue to grow and expand we wanted to align with a university quaternary medical center and teaching facility that would allow us to offer that level of depth and breadth and expertise right in Northwest Indiana,” Nalli said.

Loyola University Medical Center is ranked as one of the top 100 medical facilities in the country by Becker’s Hospital Review and has received many awards and recognitions throughout it’s time in existence. Loyola is most notable for its oncology program, so much so that it has received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the American College of Surgeons. Loyola has also received a Gold Performance Achievement Award for its superior standards and implementation of stroke care.

This partnership has been in the works since January 2012. The affiliation is effective immediately, and to start the partnership on the right foot, two programs will be put into play: an oncology program and a neuroscience and neurocare program. Both will add to the new cancer care center and the expansion of the neuroscience center at Porter.

“You all have a great reputation here and we hope to compliment that,” Dr. Hecht said to all who represented Porter at the press conference. “For oncology, we have a long history of providing excellent care; we have one of the leading bone marrow units in the country along with excellent cancer care throughout all the specialties. We’re very excited about that because of all the clinical trials that we have ongoing, we have other affiliations with institutions in Illinois, we are very excited to be able to carry that on here so that your patients can get access to those types of clinical trials that are really cutting edge type of care that they can get here. And that is really the goal of this partnership.”

With two hospitals and seven outpatient facilities that serve patients throughout Northwest Indiana, Porter Health Care System considers this to be a boon not only to the company itself, but to the patients and those that receive care from its facilities.

“There are times when there are certain types of health care situations that occur where a physician would refer you to a specialist in a different type of hospital setting,” Nalli explained. “For that to occur the vast majority of the time, you work that second opinion at a university center usually in Chicago. What this type of relationship and partnership affiliation will provide is the opportunity to have access to those university level physicians right here in Northwest Indiana. But most importantly your local physician here has access to those Loyola physicians by phone, by email, by conference call. Everything that those doctors are working on is only a phone call away so that they can provide a greater and more in depth type of examination here and begin to start the process of any type of referral or any type of additional care that you would require locally.”

Basically, Porter is taking our health seriously and making our lives easier by bringing the doctors, technology, and health care to us. Porter Health Care System is already a leader in medical technology and health. Adding a great enterprise like Loyola University Medical Center will only make their futures brighter. I know that many will agree when I say we are looking forward to all that comes out of this new partnership.