PROVIDENCE – The Providence-based HopeHealth, the largest hospice provider in Rhode Island, is absorbing a fellow Massachusetts nonprofit Community VNA, combining their forces to serve more than 2,000 patients per day with home health, palliative and end-of-life care.
“This is a natural fit for two not-for-profit health care organizations dedicated to providing the highest quality care for home health and seriously ill patients,” said HopeHealth CEO and President Diana Franchitto. “Our values perfectly align.”
The Attleboro-based Community VNA will now be known as HopeHealth Community VNA, following a nonprofit affiliation deal involving a transfer of assets that was recently approved by Massachusetts health care regulators, the state’s attorney general and the Supreme Judicial Court. Plans for the merger were first announced a year ago.
The two organizations said the affiliation will help Community VNA prosper in a competitive, highly-regulated industry, allowing it to expand its reach beyond the 13 communities it serves mostly in southeastern Massachusetts, including Attleboro, Norton, Dighton, Plainville, Rehoboth, Seekonk, and Taunton.
“Community VNA embarked on strategic planning initiative several years ago, and assessed the need for a strategic partner,” Franchitto said. “Ultimately it was decided that an alignment with HopeHealth would not only help them focus on their mission, but would give them the ability to continue to grow.”
As a result of the affiliation deal, the former CEO of Community VNA, Reynold G. Spadoni, will serve as chief strategy officer for HopeHealth. Also, six members of Community VNA’s board of directors will transition to HopeHealth’s board, while the rest of the more than 15 volunteers on the Community VNA board are stepping down.
HopeHealth said no one is being laid off as a result of the merger. About 120 people work for Community VNA, while 600 work for HopeHealth, the nonprofit said.
“As the health care industry continues to change around us, we have a responsibility to adapt so that we can continue to grow and thrive in the future,” Spadoni said. “Community VNA knew that partnering with HopeHealth, an organization well known for its commitment to quality and exceptional service, would ensure we could stay focused on our 110-year-old mission of providing industry leading quality care to our community.”
HopeHealth, with locations in Providence, Lincoln, Wakefield and Middletown in Rhode Island, as well as in Attleboro and Brockton in Massachusetts, said annual Community VNA fundraiser events will continue and funds raised will still go toward programs helping people from the service areas where they are held.
“We’re very excited about it and really excited to be able to serve the community in the way it’s come to expect from Community VNA,” Franchitto said.
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com.
