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New Nonprofit to Take Over OU Medical System

News  |  By Philip Betbeze  
   August 14, 2017

The new entity will complete the buyout of for-profit HCA after the failure of a previous deal between the Oklahoma health system and St. Louis-based nonprofit SSM Healthcare.

It seems the creation of a new nonprofit organization will finally result in a takeover of ownership and management of OU Medical System this fall, after almost a year of efforts to end management of the system under a joint operating agreement with HCA.

The new entity, OU Medicine Inc., a partnership between the University of Oklahoma and the University Hospitals Authority and Trust, a state agency, will buy out HCA after a previous deal with St. Louis-based nonprofit health system SSM Health fell through this spring. OU Medicine will buy out HCA, bringing the health system into closer collaboration with the University.

Jason Sanders, senior vice president and provost for OU Health Sciences Center, told the Norman Transcript that the new deal will bring the university to a closer working relationship with the health system, and that its educational affiliation and research affiliation will provide for growth.

HCA is the current manager and joint owner of OU Medical System hospitals and facilities, which include the flagship 680-bed OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City. Previous reports suggested the HCA buyout would cost $750 million, and be completed sometime this summer.

SSM Health had been expected to take over day-to-day operations at all of OU's medical systems, hospitals and clinic buildings, but the deal was scuttled for unspecified reasons. Unions with private Catholic healthcare organizations and large public health organizations have often been scuttled by failure to reach agreement on reproductive issues.

The two organizations said at the time that their cooperation would thenceforth be limited to a clinical collaboration between SSM Health's St. Anthony Hospital and Physicians Group and OU Medicine, but recent news offered no update on those plans.

The completion of the deal is still contingent on reviews by the attorney general’s office, a contingency review board and financing details. OU Medicine, unlike the university or the Health Sciences Center, will not receive state appropriations.

 

Philip Betbeze is the senior leadership editor at HealthLeaders.


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