Healthcare Partnership Targets KY's Medically Underserved

Three major healthcare organizations in Kentucky announced plans Tuesday to form a statewide healthcare system.

The system will include the University of Louisville Hospital/James Graham Brown Cancer Center; Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare based in Louisville, and Saint Joseph Health System based in Lexington.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Heart Association rank Kentucky among the 10 states with the worst health indicators in the nation for cancer, obesity and death due to heart disease and stroke. More than half of the state is designated as medically underserved and there is a growing scarcity of physicians across Kentucky.

"There is so much more we can accomplish together. Most important, we will be increasing access to basic and advanced health services," Bob Hewett, who will be the first chair of the system's community board of trustees, said in a media release. "That will lead to improving the health not only of individual patients, but of entire communities. At the same time, we will work to lower costs as we advocate for the poor and underserved in our communities."

The sponsors are Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services, University of Louisville, Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives, and its affiliate Saint Joseph Health System. Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare formed in 2005 in a joint venture of Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services and CHI.

The network will include hospitals, clinics, specialty institutions, home health agencies, satellite primary care centers and physician groups with 91 locations combined.

Under the partnership, CHI will make an incremental capital infusion of $320 million to support the system's mission and healthcare services statewide. And the system will invest $200 million to expand the academic medical center in Louisville and $100 million in statewide healthcare services.

The partnership will result in a system with a medical staff of more than 3,000 academic and community physicians across Kentucky. Technology – especially telemedicine – will enable network physicians to expand access to specialty care that many communities have not had available before. The proposed system will combine the faith-based and academic missions of the partner organizations, integrating medical research, education, technology and healthcare services wherever patients receive care. The network will collaborate with all healthcare providers, enhancing existing relationships and developing new partnerships, according to the media release.

Plans call for expanding the academic medical center in Louisville to include the University of Louisville Hospital, James Graham Brown Cancer Center, Jewish Hospital and Frazier Rehab Institute, and extending research and teaching programs of the University of Louisville statewide through an academic affiliation agreement with the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

The partnership still must receive regulatory approvals before becoming effective, which could take up to a year. Until then, the partners will operate as separate organizations, the three systems said in a joint media release.