The county’s largest healthcare systems announced Monday that they’ll be merging their long-term, acute-care services into one already-existing acute-care facility at Amherst Hospital.  

 Officials from EMH Regional Medical Center, Community Health Partners and Grace Hospital – a nonprofit facility at EMH’s Amherst Hospital – said that they’ll merge their long-term, acute-care services into one entity, which will be called Specialty Hospital and will be located in Amherst Hospital.

 The decision will result in Community Health Partners closing Community Specialty Hospital, its long-term, acute-care facility at St. Joseph’s Community Center.  That facility has 30 beds for long-term patients, while the current Grace Hospital facility has 20 beds. The merger is planned to take place in four weeks, and will result in the revamped Amherst facility increasing to 28 beds.

 The move means that the county’s long-term, acute-care services as a whole will reduce from 50 beds to 28 beds, a difference that officials from the local hospital systems say can be absorbed by the area’s skilled nursing facilities.