Twenty-six rural hospitals across Ohio and West Virginia have partnered to form the Ohio High Value Network — a clinically integrated network aimed at strengthening care delivery, improving outcomes and reducing costs for patients.
The collaborative includes 25 Ohio hospitals and care sites in more than 115 cities and towns across 37 counties, along with one hospital in West Virginia. Together, they serve a population of more than 2.5 million patients.
The network is structured as a CIN and is designed to support both clinical and operational collaboration across its members. Its formation reflects a growing national trend of rural hospitals banding together to preserve independence, drive value-based care and weather increasing financial and regulatory pressures.
“We believe that strong collaboration is the best way to sustain high-quality care in our communities,” Myron Lewis, OHVN board chair and CEO of Blanchard Valley Health System in Findlay, Ohio, said in an April 17 news release. “The more we work together, the better we can serve our communities — continuously improving quality, lowering costs, and further strengthening rural healthcare.”
At the heart of OHVN is a clinical integration committee, comprising clinical representatives from each member health system. The committee will oversee the network’s quality improvement, care coordination and best-practice sharing initiatives.
“The clinical integration committee provides a forum for clinicians to learn from each other, share best practices that improve patient outcomes and collaborate on ways to ease burdens on medical providers,” Clinton MacKinney, MD, chief medical officer of Cibolo Health, which is managing the network, said. “These efforts will strengthen high-quality, advanced care in our member hospitals and invigorate the communities our members serve.”
Beyond clinical coordination, OHVN will support operational alignment and shared services, enabling members to streamline administrative functions and reduce contracting costs. The network is also exploring additional hospital partnerships and expects membership to expand in the coming months.
“It’s been a goal of mine for more than seven years to form this level of collaboration among our independent hospital systems,” Jeff Graham, president and CEO of Adena Health in Chillicothe, Ohio, said. “With the size and scope of the Ohio High Value Network, we can collaborate on even more impactful areas to enhance our ability to deliver advanced, high-quality care and do so efficiently.”
The daily operations of OHVN will be managed by Cibolo Health, a Texas-based consultancy that specializes in building high-value rural health collaboratives. Cibolo Health also leads two other rural CINs: The Rough Rider High-Value Network in North Dakota (launched in 2023) and the Headwaters High-Value Network in Minnesota (launched in 2024).
