Akron General wants to spread its business strategy for health and wellness across the country.
The health system has formed a for-profit venture with Akron-based Signet Development Ltd. called Integrated Wellness Partners LLC. The partnership plans to help hospitals, universities, cities and other customers nationwide develop their own versions of Akron General’s Health & Wellness centers.
Akron General and Signet each have a 50 percent stake in the new business.
More hospitals are realizing wellness services need to be developed and expanded to prevent health-care “train wrecks” that require high-cost care, said Dr. Tim Stover, Akron General Health System’s president of outpatient services.
Health-care reform is moving the nation toward providing financial rewards for keeping patients healthy — a move that eventually could pinch hospitals’ inpatient revenue.
“The timing is perfect for this,” Stover said. “Other institutions are finally figuring out they cannot depend on filling hospital beds.”
The deal gives Akron General the potential to capitalize on a niche it has developed during the past 15 years.
The health system gets visits almost weekly from hospital officials and others interested in learning about the health system’s comprehensive outpatient centers and medically supervised fitness center, LifeStyles, said Doug Ribley, vice president of health and wellness services for Akron General Health System.
Since opening the first Health & Wellness Center in Bath Township 15 years ago, Akron General has served as a consultant to several other hospitals nationwide that have developed similar projects in their communities, he said. The health system couldn’t offer assistance with construction and financing, however, until it formed the partnership with Signet.
Through that venture, Signet will be responsible for helping clients with construction oversight, financing and legal issues, said Tony Manna, chairman of Signet Development.
Akron General is not assuming any financial risk to pay for the projects, Manna said. Any money that is made through Akron General’s stake in the for-profit venture will go back to support the nonprofit health system.
Signet has experience with numerous health-care projects nationwide, including several in the Akron area and in Florida, Mississippi, California, Maryland, Georgia and Alabama.
The developer will be able to offer several options through Integrated Wellness Partners, including assistance with obtaining financing or a lease alternative, Manna said. He estimated the centers will cost $30 million to $50 million each, depending on the location, size and services included.
“People are continuously bringing up to us developments like this they want to do,” Manna said. “We want to take it around the globe.”
Akron General will provide consulting services to help clients evaluate their markets and determine which services should be included in their outpatient centers.
Akron General’s Health & Wellness centers in Bath Township and Stow and another under construction in Green feature a medically supervised fitness center, as well as diagnostic services, physician offices, rehabilitation services and a satellite emergency department. The Bath facility also includes an outpatient surgery center.
For customers who need ongoing support, Akron General will provide continued management or consulting services for a fee once the centers are complete.
The idea of the partnership is to provide customers with a “turnkey solution” for developing and running an outpatient health and wellness center, said Mark S. Corr, Signet’s chief operating officer.
“This is going to help successfully transform and move the hospital systems into the next decade,” Corr said.
In recent years, the number of medically supervised fitness centers across the country has skyrocketed.
In 1985, there were about 75 nationwide, according to the Medical Fitness Association, a nonprofit membership group for medically integrated health and fitness centers.
By 2010, the number had increased to 1,076.
By 2015, at least 1,435 medical fitness centers are expected nationwide, said Jim Gallagher, the association’s director of business development.
Akron General was one of the early adopters and national leaders in the trend, he said.
“We think it’s ready to explode, not only nationwide but globally,” he said.
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or chpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Powell on Twitter at twitter.com/abjcherylpowell.
