HOSPITAL AFFILIATION TOPIC OF COFFEE

James Wente, administrator of Southeast Missouri Hospital, and James Sexton, president and chief executive officer of St. Francis Medical Center, will speak at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce's First Friday Coffee Friday.

The coffee will be held at the Show Me Center at 7:30 a.m.

The hospital administrators will discuss an affiliation plan by the two hospitals.

The hospitals announced in December that they are studying the feasibility of an affiliation. A Joint Study Committee made up of representatives from both hospitals' boards and administrations is reviewing a draft of an efficiency study that projects approximately $47 million in savings over a five-year period if the hospitals affiliate.