Kathleen Kinslow has taken over as President and CEO of the Aria Health System replacing Roy Powell after 14 years. In an interview in the Philadelphia Business Journal she seems to be signaling a change coming to the Frankford Campus.
Kinslow said Aria’s Torresdale campus will remain a full-service hospital where the system will look to build on its strengths in areas including cardiology and orthopedics. Its Frankford Campus, she said, has the challenge of providing care to a community where many suffer from chronic health conditions such as diabetes and congestive heart failure.
Aria, she said, needs to determine ways to provide care to these patients in their home so they don’t end up using the hospital emergency department as their primary-care doctor.
That’s an interesting idea. The Aria system is a for profit corporation and they can’t make money with all of the uninsured people coming to the ER for treatment. Makes sense to divert them to a lower cost delivery system if its possible. Every hospital in the country has this problem but in Frankford it is much greater because of the demographics. Aria has to make money in order to stay here and we do want them to stay. Lets see how this develops.
Read the entire article here.
I always get so annoyed when people talk about Aria closing their Frankford campus. I’d rather it just up and close already. But they seem to be able to consistently operate it.
Also, anyone hear any news of their nursing school? That’s another thing people are always whispering about. Like they’re going to move it any minute.
I talked to Jorge Santana (Tony Payton’s chief of staff) about some related issues a few months ago and one subject that came up was the idea that a location along the Avenue would be ideal for one school or another. Frankford Nursing school is already in the area on Penn Street. It would be a good fit and would provide room for expansion. In this economic climate, people are clamoring for retraining.