The University of Louisville Medical Center, UMC, has announced that University Hospital and KentuckyOne Health will be partnering. The agreement has been signed by both partnering entities and the Governor, Steve Beshear.
This partnership follows a yearlong pursuit by UMC to find a counterpart to help the institution financially. Two previous merger attempts were rejected by the Governor in December of last year and in January of this year.
The announced partnership will allow the state to retain control over assets of the university. Because the state would have lost control over assets of the university in the previous attempts at merging, they were rejected by Governor Beshear.
University Hospital is the teaching facility for University of Louisville medical students and is overseen by UMC.
According to the press release by U of L, the partnership will allow, “All current UMC policies for women’s health, end-of-life care and its pharmacy [to] remain unchanged.” These issues were a concern of community members in the past and were some of the reasons cited by Beshear when he chose to reject past mergers.
KentuckyOne Health is a composite of the organizations that attempted to merge with UMC in the past. The organizations are Jewish Hospital and St. Mary’s Healthcare and St. Joseph Health
System. Initially, UMC was going to be a part of the group, but when the governor rejected UMC’s part in it, the organizations merged independent of UMC.
In the press release, UMC President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Taylor said, “Our joint operating agreement ensures that we not only maintain our current academic and medical services, but that we have the financial resources and statewide network to continue to expand and innovate those services for the future.”
[email protected]
Photo Courtesy of WDRB
