JMCLL, how is your friend doing and is he at a Geo

JMCLL, how is your friend doing and is he at a Georgia facility/hospital in the Novant system?

<<from October 2012, North Carolina-based Novant Health made waves in Georgia health care recently when it struck a partnership deal with Memorial Health in Savannah.

But Novant already had a substantial footprint in Georgia health care. It operates 20 medical imaging centers in Georgia, mostly in metro Atlanta, through its MedQuest subsidiary.

Novant is considered among the most aggressive nonprofit health organizations. And the company says it will seek to expand further in Georgia.

“We’re very interested in Georgia,’’ Mark Billings, president of Novant Health Shared Services, told GHN on Wednesday. “We’ve had a number of CEOs in Georgia reaching out to [Novant] in the last few months.’’

Growth in Georgia could include partnerships with existing organizations, similar to the one with Memorial Health, or even constructing new facilities, Billings said.

Novant’s network includes 13 hospitals and a medical group consisting of 1,124 physicians in 355 clinic locations. It has annual revenues of more than $3 billion. It focuses on four states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia.

Presbyterian Healthcare is one of two major health systems in the Charlotte area. A leading spokesman for Presbyterian is basketball great Michael Jordan, who grew up and began his sports career in North Carolina.

Craig Savage of the consulting firm Ascendient Healthcare Advisors, based in North Carolina, noted that Novant “is not afraid to go out of state.’’

“They behave more like an investor-owned system than anyone else,’’ Savage said. “They have been shopping more proactively in surrounding states.’’

Memorial Health, which includes the 530-bed Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah, will retain its independence and local management structure under the partnership with Novant.>>