Adena Health Joins Statewide Collaboration To Strenghthen Rural Care
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(Chillicothe) – Twenty-six rural hospitals, including Adena Health, have come together to launch the Ohio High Value Network (OHVN), a collaboration focused on clinical quality and business initiatives to strengthen health care in rural communities covering 37 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
The clinically integrated network, announced today, cares for more than 2.5 million patients across more than 115 cities and towns. With 25 Ohio-based hospitals and multiple care sites participating, the OHVN is poised to transform how Ohio rural health care systems work together by establishing operationalcollaborations designed to share best practices among its members, advancing quality, and lowering the cost of care. The network also includes one hospital in West Virginia.
Adena Health President and CEO Jeff Graham, a founding board member of the OHVN, noted that the collaboration expands on a successful foundation, as many OHVN members are already partnering in one of several regional hospital collaborations in Ohio.
“We already know that working together not only provides benefits for our hospitals, but also for our patients, our employees, and our communities,” said Graham. “It’s been a goal of mine for more than sevenyears to form this level of collaboration among our independent hospital systems. With the size and scope of the Ohio High Value Network, we can collaborate on even more impactful areas to enhance our ability to deliver advanced, high-quality care and do so efficiently.”
Graham’s vision reflects a broader commitment shared by OHVN members to unite independent systemsand strengthen care for rural Ohioans.
“We believe that strong collaboration is the best way to sustain high-quality care in our communities,” said Myron Lewis, OHVN board chair, and president and CEO of Blanchard Valley Health System in Findlay. “The more we work together, the better we can serve our communities—continuously improving quality, lowering costs, and further strengthening rural health care.”
Underscoring the network’s strong southern Ohio regional foundation, Holzer Health System in Gallipolis, Memorial Health System in Marietta, Southern Ohio Medical Center in Portsmouth, and Adams County Regional Medical Center in Seaman are among the OHVN members collaborating with Adena. The network is also in discussions with other rural hospitals in Ohio interested in joining as members and expects to grow.
The active daily management of the network will be led by principals from Cibolo Health, a national leaderin helping independent rural hospitals create clinically integrated networks with their peers to overcome the obstacles rural health care providers face. Cibolo Health’s leadership team includes Nathan H. White, president, and A. Clinton MacKinney, MD, chief medical officer.
The Ohio High Value Network is the third rural hospital network organized and operated by Cibolo Health. The first, the Rough Rider High-Value Network in North Dakota, launched in 2023, and the second, Headwaters High-Value Network in Minnesota, started in 2024.
The clinically integrated network will drive the OHVN’s quality enhancement initiatives and care coordination efforts and reduce administrative burdens for providers. The OHVN will also launch a Clinical Integration Committee to oversee the network’s clinical and quality initiatives. The committee will include one clinical representative from each member health system.
“The Clinical Integration Committee provides a forum for clinicians to learn from each other, share bestpractices that improve patient outcomes, and collaborate on ways to ease burdens on medical providers,” Dr. MacKinney said. “These efforts will strengthen high-quality, advanced care in our member hospitals and invigorate the communities our members serve.”
