PARKERSBURG — With Camden Clark Medical Center an important part of the WVU Medicine system, all of the hospitals in the system get to take advantage of connections to West Virginia University and work being done there to improve health care statewide.

In 2011, Camden Clark Medical Center joined with the West Virginia United Health System — a network of hospitals across the state — to be able to connect, share experience, information and innovations.

Through that Camden Clark merged with the former St. Joseph’s Hospital, consolidated all local hospital services to the Camden Clark Medical Center and has been working on improving care regionally and across the state under a new name, WVU Medicine, which it adopted a couple years ago.

“WVU Medicine is at a very interesting time,” said Albert Wright, CEO of WVU Medicine. “Over the past few years increasingly the Board of Directors are really moving WVU Medicine towards meeting its mission as the academic medical center to improve the health of the population throughout the state.

“By statute, the president of the university is the chair of the Board of Directors of the WVU Health System so we are aligned with the university.”

WVU Medicine represents eight hospitals in the state. Through the university, the system has access and works closely with the schools of medicine, pharmacy, nursing, public health and dentistry and the related physician practice plans.

The system’s academic medical center hub is located in Morgantown at Ruby Memorial. Other hospitals in the system have been stepping up to take lead roles in the system, including hospitals in Parkersburg, Glen Dale, Bridgeport, Buckhannon, Keyser, Martinsburg and Jefferson County.

They also are partnering with other facilities across the state to open new centers and new clinics.

“All of our hospitals are integrating the electronic medical record so a patient’s medical record follows them around the state as they are in the West Virginia University Medical system,” Wright said. “We are doing a lot of neat things. Increasingly, it is about keeping care in West Virginia.”

That includes recruiting primary care doctors who can serve patients throughout the state and bringing in subspecialists, either in Morgantown or strategically placed around the state, so people will have access to coordinated care and don’t have to go out of state to be treated.

All of that ties back to the university.

“We couldn’t be WVU Medicine without WVU,” Wright said. “The university helps us to attract physician scientists who are not only interested in clinical care, but also interested in training the next generation of health care professionals who are interested in conducting research and innovation to try to improve care as well.

“Without the university, we could still be a very good health system, but we couldn’t be a great health care system. I think the university is a magnet for us to be able to attract great clinicians and staff.”

WVU is loved throughout the state and nationwide, Wright said.

“It allows us to recruit top notch people,” he said. “In the last 18 months, we have recruited 220 new physicians to the university in Morgantown and throughout the state.”

They have brought in a wide variety of specialties with a focus on primary care, emergency medicine, heart and vascular care, cancer specialists, pediatric specialists, critical and trauma care.

“We have to be broad enough to take care of the population,” Wright said. “We are focusing on perceived deficits we are trying to correct.”

WVU Medicine is still recruiting for 175 additional positions. It is looking to recruit more people specializing in more aspects of medicine and is also looking at people to do research and innovation in treating the drug abuse problem affecting the state and working to prevent relapses.

In addition, services available in Morgantown are becoming available at the WVU Medicine hospitals around the state.

“So when you go into the cancer institute in Parkersburg, you have access to the exact same clinical trials, the exact same subspecialized pathology, radiology, tumor board that our patients here in Morgantown have access to,” Wright said.

David McClure, president and CEO of Camden Clark Medical Center, said joining the WVUHS (later becoming WVU Medicine system) was a “no-brainer.”

“It made sense to stay within the state. Our focuses are patient population in the state of West Virginia and our goal has always been to keep our patient population healthy, active and moving in the right direction,” he said.

It was WVUHS that brought Camden Clark and St. Joseph’s together and consolidated the two facilities into one and helped move more services out into the community.

Joining the system offered Camden Clark three opportunities, McClure said.

“It offered us the opportunity to have the wherewithal and depth and breadth of knowledge of all eight hospitals in the system,” he said. “It is not just the eight hospitals formally in our system, but we are providing clinical services and outreach programs to other areas of the state, like Wetzel County, Davis Memorial in Elkins, Garrett Memorial in Maryland. There is an outpost in Charleston for academic services.

“We are not just providing hospital care; we are providing education and expansion of health and well being throughout the state.”

Being part of a larger medical system has given Camden Clark a better credit rating to be able to borrow money and pay it back. That has helped Camden Clark build a new emergency department and expand its South Tower recently and begin work soon on a new cardiology building.

Patient movement from Camden Clark to other hospitals in the system is more seamless as a patient’s electronic medical records follow them throughout the system.

“If we cannot provide the care here in our community which is based on illness or severity of injury of that patient, we don’t have to call multiple hospitals. We call the university hospital and they accept those patients immediately,” McClure said. “What is nicer is those patients get to come back to our community for their follow-up care.”

Camden Clark also has access to doctors across the system who can consult in emergencies through telemedicine to determine if a patient needs to be transported to Morgantown or if doctors at the local level can stabilize them before having to be transported.

“That seamless relationship with the university is invaluable,” McClure said.

Camden Clark is now part of the WVU Cancer Institute.

“The same treatment that you would get in Morgantown, you would get here in Parkersburg,” McClure said. “We follow the same protocols, participate in the same clinical trials, our physicians participate in tumor boards and educational opportunities through the university.

“It keeps our physicians up to date and practicing at their highest level.”

A cardiac surgeon based in Parkersburg is part of WVU Medicine’s Heart and Vascular Institute and regularly consults with that group and can consult on individual cases.

“I can go through each of our premiere service lines and show you a tie back to the university where they support us with either physicians or with the knowledge base to provide those services here in the community,” McClure said, adding they regularly have doctors coming in from Morgantown to see patients.

“That is a great benefit for our families who don’t have to travel to Morgantown,” he said.