Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., will move ahead as planned with a merger with St. Joseph Health System. However, University Hospital will not be part of the long-discussed transaction, reported the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The deal between Jewish and St. Joseph will create the 12-hospital KentuckyOne Health system, with nearly $2 billion in annual revenue and more than 13,000 employees.
However, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear rejected including publicly-owned University and its affiliated James Graham Brown Cancer Center in the system. Beshear feared the deal would have put University's public control at risk.
"While we may not have liked (Beshear's decision), it is time for us to move on, to do what's best for our organization," David Laird, CEO of Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare, told the Courier-Journal. "We just redirected our efforts to do what we could do," he said.
Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives will be KentuckyOne's majority owner, controlling 10 of its 15 governing seats. It will invest $320 million into the new system, and assume $400 million of Jewish's long-term debt, noted the article.
To learn more:
- read the Courier-Journal article