May 9, 2022
Yakima Valley Memorial to Explore Joining MultiCare Health System
YAKIMA — Yakima Valley Memorial has signed a letter of intent (LOI) to explore joining the MultiCare Health System. Over the next few months, the two organizations will conduct a due diligence process to determine whether this relationship would advance both organizations’ missions, expand local access to health care and improve the quality of care for the Yakima Valley community.
Memorial and MultiCare have a shared goal of ensuring that high-quality health care remains locally accessible. Joining MultiCare would allow Memorial to accelerate the hospital’s ability to invest in new programs; implement an integrated electronic health record; and provide a sustainable future for Yakima’s only hospital. Joining MultiCare would also strengthen Memorial’s role as the leading healthcare hub in Central Washington.
Headquartered in Tacoma, MultiCare is a not-for-profit, secular health care system that has been caring for Pacific Northwest communities since 1882. It is the largest locally owned health system in the state, and its network of care includes 11 hospitals and hundreds of clinics in both the Puget Sound and Inland Northwest region.
“Over the past two years, Memorial has successfully navigated the closure of Astria, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and an increasingly costly and complex health care environment,” Memorial CEO Carole Peet said. “We are now evaluating a new strategy to guarantee continued access to outstanding local health care for our community for decades to come.”
The potential relationship would build upon a 2021 partnership between the two organizations to help expand oncology services in Yakima County.
The successful, ongoing partnership MultiCare has formed with Memorial in relation to oncology services — as well as similar partnerships with other health care organizations over the years — demonstrate MultiCare’s strong commitment to creating local health care hubs that serve residents close to home.
“Exploring this relationship is in line with MultiCare’s mission of partnering for healing and a healthy future,” said Bill Robertson, CEO of MultiCare. “We believe that it is of critical importance for communities across our region to have access to the health care they need, in those communities. I’m hopeful that our two organizations will find ways to work together to ensure that patients and their families in the Yakima Valley have access to a full complement of services close to home for many years to come.”
The LOI sets in motion a period of due diligence, during which both organizations share information to determine if they are strategically and operationally aligned. At the end of this period, Memorial and MultiCare will announce their decision.
About Yakima Valley Memorial
Yakima Valley Memorial is a health care system that includes Yakima’s only acute-care center, a 226-bed, nonprofit, community hospital serving Central Washington’s Yakima Valley. Yakima Valley Memorial includes primary care practices and specialty care services including high-quality cardiac care; cancer care through North Star Lodge; breast health at `Ohana Mammography Center; acute hospice and respite care at Cottage in the Meadow, winner of the Circle of Life Award from the American Hospital Association for innovative palliative and end-of-life care; pain management at Water’s Edge; an advanced NICU unit, the only place in Central Washington that offers specialty care for at-risk infants; advanced services for children with special health care needs at Children’s Village; and The Memorial Foundation, a separate 501c(3) organization that raises funds for innovative health care programs in the Yakima Valley (www.memfound.org).
Visit Memorial online at www.yakimamemorial.org or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/yakimavalleymemorialhospital), or Twitter (www.twitter.com/Yakima_Memorial).