By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com
Several readers have reached out to The Hamilton County Reporter with questions and concerns about the potential fate of Riverview Hospital now that it has entered into a managed service agreement with Parkview Health.
Kirsch
Johnson
The Reporter spoke with Dr. Greg Johnson, chief physician executive of growth and emerging markets for Parkview Health, and with Dr. William Kirsch, vice-chairman of the Riverview Health Board of Directors, about what this working relationship means for Hamilton County’s hometown hospital.
Both Johnson and Kirsch stressed that this relationship is not a partnership in the traditional sense. It is, rather, a “Managed Service Agreement” (MSA).
“That’s where we are contracted to come in and manage the health system including hospital operations and in their other facilities, including their three ED urgent cares and the Westfield Hospital,” Johnson said. “Really, it’s about integrating all of those facilities as well as their physicians in the MSA. We have a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) that will be supporting Riverview. We’ve had a Chief Operating Officer (COO) ‘on the ground’ at Riverview for the past three months. We’ve been under an interim agreement – interim MSA – with Riverview since July, and then we signed a more permanent managed service agreement that went into effect on Nov. 3. The CFO and the COO are currently in place. There is a search right now for a CEO.”
According to both Johnson and Kirsch, Riverview and Parkview began talks initially because of a product called Epic Community Connect, which is an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system.
“You have to be a certain size to purchase Epic,” Johnson said. “Epic is the best electronic health record in the United States – actually in the world – and as a smaller health system you really can’t buy it directly. You have to have a sponsoring health system, and Parkview has sponsored Epic Community Connect in multiple other hospitals and physician practices.”
According to Kirsch, the Epic EHR system allows a doctor to get patient data from multiple locations. The example he used was that he can get health records for patients from Florida or for patients who have traveled to the East Coast so he can have all the relevant data to help him, as a physician, make the right decision for patient care.
“We [Riverview] were not big enough to contract directly with Epic,” Kirsch said. “Epic started something called the connect program where you went to a bigger institution. Our previous one was with the hospital out in St. Louis. I don’t know if they cared a lot about supporting us. It was just a business transaction for them. The first part we’re going to do is transition our EHR to be handled by Parkview because Parkview wants us to succeed here, and, anymore, the electronic health record is critical. It’s a central part of getting our information helping us provide care to patients.”
Kirsh told the Reporter this is all about better patient care.
“The whole goal here is to provide a huge teamwork between administration and physicians to support everyone there,” Kirsch said. “The whole reason we exist is taking good care of the patients. That always needs to be the central focus point. We only exist to take care of the people in this area, and that’s the whole point of this. The change in management was to help strengthen that. Parkview has a solid reputation. As far as the doctors and the employees, we need to keep our people to do our job here. We actually want to grow because Hamilton County is growing, and my whole thought is we’re always a team to take care of the patients.”
Johnson told The Reporter Riverview is scheduled to go live with the Parkview instance of Epic in February 2026.
“When Riverview first reached out about this Epic product, that’s really how we began to develop in a relationship,” Johnson said. “I’d like to say that I think Riverview appreciated the culture and the vision of Parkview Health wanting to be high quality, high service, high access. Likewise, Parkview we were pleased with the alignment of the missions of the two health systems. Riverview has a culture of high quality, wanting to increase access for their community, and obviously the high-service component. It’s really a good alignment with our cultures.”
The largest concern readers asked about was the possibility of Riverview losing its independence and identity as Hamilton County’s hospital.
Both Johnson and Kirsch said on record that Riverview losing its identity is not a possibility either from the patient or the staff side of this agreement.
“On day-to-day operations, they will not notice the difference,” Johnson said. “The high-quality, high-service care that’s provided at Riverview prior to Parkview being there will continue after Parkview is there. What I think you can see over time, both from positions of community and patients, is that we would like to assist Riverview in expanding services.”
The example of that pointed out by Johnson is the recent opening of Parkview Physicians Group (PPG) – Noblesville Diabetes and Endocrinology, located at 395 Westfield Road, Suite D, Noblesville, which you can read about at tinyurl.com/NvilleEndoClinic.
“In a lot of places, the much larger institution has completely taken over the smaller rural county hospital,” Kirsch told The Reporter. “This is actually fairly unique with Parkview. They did not purchase us. They did not take it over. We are still Riverview Hospital – county-owned. They are managing us. It’s a management agreement, not a purchase agreement.”
Johnson agreed, saying that Riverview as an independent hospital is here to stay.
“Riverview will maintain its brand, and it will maintain its position in the community,” Johnson said. “The community will see enhanced services, but the Riverview brand is respected. It’s been a pillar in the community for many, many years and it will continue to be a pillar in the community for many, many years because of this relationship.”
