As most Westchesterites are aware, the healthcare sector here has experienced a spate of mergers and acquisitions recently. Major players in New York City, such as NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) Hospital and Montefiore, have taken over smaller community hospitals — echoing a national trend of consolidation and requiring leaders to knit together sets of competing cultures.
“Fresh ideas, respectfully balanced with all of our past accomplishments, are a recipe for success,” says Stacey Petrower, president of NYP Hudson Valley Hospital, where a merger afforded the Cortlandt Manor hospital the chance to enhance clinical services within Westchester. Big-name cachet, says Petrower (who became president in 2016, after longtime president John Federspiel retired), allows the hospital to attract and recruit excellent physicians; give patients access to Columbia University Medical Center’s faculty practice, ColumbiaDoctors; and open access to clinical trials. In turn, Hudson Valley Hospital drew NYP with “the warmth, compassion and friendliness that emanates from being a small community hospital,” Petrower says.
Her challenge is to fuse the best of both worlds, which she hopes to do through “open dialogue with our medical staff, management team, and front-line employees.” Petrower adds, “It is a privilege to be entrusted to lead this hospital through integration with a major system, growth and expansion, leadership and culture change, and I keep that at the forefront of my mind when representing our hospital.”
