Baptist to share Madisonville hospital with Deaconess, which now also has hospitals in Henderson and Morganfield

Baptist Health Madisonville

Starting Sept. 1, the hospital in Madisonville will be jointly operated by Baptist Health, which has owned it for nine years, and Deaconess Health System Inc. of Evansville, which recently added two nearby Kentucky hospitals.

The joint operation will include physicians' offices and outpatient facilities in Madisonville, Powderly, Dawson Springs, Princeton and Hopkinsville. Deaconess operates seven hospitals in Southern Indiana and recently took over the former Methodist hospitals in Henderson and Morganfield.

The hospital will be called Baptist Health Deaconess Madisonville and get "initial capital investments of more than $50 million" in surgical suites, the emergency room and the cancer-care facility, a press release said.

“In selecting a new name, we wanted to strongly signal that both Kentucky’s largest health-care system and the Tri-State’s largest health-care provider are joining forces, bringing their expertise to further elevate the level of care provided to the community and bolster services through targeted investments,” Baptist Health CEO Gerard Colman said in the release.

Deaconess CEO Shawn McCoy said, “Baptist Health and Deaconess will pool resources and experiences to grow and expand the hospital’s primary-care, surgery, cardiac and cancer-care programs, ensuring that patients from Madisonville and surrounding communities can continue to access quality health care close to home.”

The firms had announced their plan for a joint operation, but had not announced details. Baptist Health bought the former Trover Health System in 2012, renaming it Baptist Health Madisonville. Deaconess began in the 1890s as part of a movement among certain Protestant denominations (mainly Lutheran and Methodist) to provide medical care. Its Kentucky facilities, as of July 1, are Deaconess Henderson Hospital and Deaconess Union County Hospital.