CORNWALL – On Wednesday, February 12th, Cornerstone Family Healthcare (CFH) and Hudson Valley Community Services (HVCS) announced plans to integrate their services and administrative functions in late 2020 after both organizations signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to merge. CFH, with 50,000 patients and sixteen locations, and HVCS, with over 3,400 clients and seven locations, already share a number of clients and a programmatic focus on assisting underserved patients.
Pending regulatory approvals and a final board vote, both organizations expect the merger to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The decision to merge followed months of preparatory work by each non-profit’s board of directors. HVCS’ board began a strategic search for a merger partner in 2018 due to the changing health care environment. Exact programmatic and departmental structures are to be mapped out over the coming months.
Wayne Day, Chairman of the Cornerstone Family Healthcare Board of Directors, said, “The decision to merge our organizations came after many months of due diligence on the part of both boards. As we got to know HVCS better, the more the merger made sense to everyone involved. Hudson Valley Community Services and its board of directors share our values and commitment to this community. Uniting our organizations in this way will improve our ability to serve those who rely on us.”
“The HVCS board, directors and staff undertook a comprehensive strategic planning process starting in 2018,” explained Andrew Evans, President of HVCS’ Board of Directors. “The ideal path forward was to find a partner with similar mission and values with whom to align ourselves. We found that partner in Cornerstone, an organization that is dedicated to the health and wellbeing of the same population in the Hudson Valley that HVCS has served for more than thirty years.”
Mike Oates, Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation (HVEDC), said, “This is wonderful news for the Hudson Valley. We couldn’t be happier to see two outstanding organizations come together to provide better healthcare solutions for the region. I have no doubt as Cornerstone and HVCS work to combine organizations – they will do a fantastic job at finding cost efficiencies, share best practices, and ultimately find better ways to compete in the marketplace. This is important for not just the healthcare sectors, but all industries.”
Linda S. Muller, MS, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cornerstone Family Healthcare, said: “Hudson Valley Community Services and Cornerstone Family Healthcare have shared a common mission for decades, meeting the health and human service needs of the Hudson Valley community. Combining our organizations will strengthen our programs while ensuring that the valuable services we offer remain accessible to those who need them in our community.”
Andi Straus, HVCS’ Executive Director, discussed her pleasure at the news. “Together our two organizations, as an integrated entity, will be able to continue offering not only the quality medical care that Cornerstone has always delivered, but also bring HVCS’s expertise to address the social determinants of health that are so critical in ensuring that Hudson Valley residents have a high quality of life,” she said. “I am so pleased to see HVCS enter a new phase in its development and growth. “
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