ANCHORAGE — Three medical providers in Fairbanks have started 2017 under new management.
Banner Health is no longer managing the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, Tanana Valley Clinic and the Denali Center. The three medical providers are all owned by the Greater Fairbanks Community Hospital Foundation, which created Foundation Health Partners to manage the facilities.
Foundation Health Partners is now the largest private employer in Fairbanks with more than 1,650 workers, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
CEO Dr. Greg Johnson said most of the management changes are happening behind the scenes, and he doesn’t expect patients to notice any differences in service.
“It’s the same team that we have had — the same individuals doing the same work,” said Johnson, who was the hospital’s CEO under Banner. “Day-to-day, it’s very much the same.”
Johnson said having the health care facilities under local management will provide them more freedom to partner with community organizations on local issues and give them more financial control.
“We are now in a position where when we have anything that needs to be addressed, we can do it locally,” he said. “Now we can really create those community partnerships.”
Jeff Cook, president of the hospital foundation’s board of trustees, said the change brought 30 new jobs to Fairbanks. The health care facilities brought functions in-house that had previously been performed at Banner Health’s corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.
“We were ready for this,” Cook said. “We have the talent here. We have the facilities.”
Cook said Foundation Health Partners will continue to purchase supplies from Banner, which oversaw the operations of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital for 16 years.