The joint venture, which was announced in September 2022, provided UChicago Medicine with controlling interest in four AdventHealth hospitals in Chicago’s western suburbs of Bolingbrook, Glendale Heights, Hinsdale and La Grange, including additional physician offices and outpatient sites.
“The partnership is going phenomenal between the two organizations,” Ivan Samstein, Enterprise CFO of University of Chicago and UChicago Medicine, said during a Becker’s CFO+Revenue Cycle Podcast episode. “We’re excited to see how we continue to deliver some of that more complex care offering.”
Mr. Samstein said commonalities like style, transparency, clarity of what success looks like and management teams that work comfortably together have helped lead to wins for the partnership.
“Our values as institutions are pretty well aligned,” he said. “We’ve looked at other joint ventures at various times, and that gets more complicated when you either don’t have enough in the concentric circles of the definition of success, or worse, there’s more of a spread between base organizational values and progress.”
Apart from the joint venture, UChicago Medicine has also seen growth in other areas.
The health system opened a $121 million, two-story multispecialty care center in Crown Point, Ind., in April 2024. It is also building Illinois’ first standalone cancer center, an $815 million facility that is expected to open in spring 2027, and comprise 80 inpatient beds, 90 outpatient exam rooms, and imaging, infusion and clinical trial spaces.
Mr. Samstein said additional growth for UChicago medicine will come from investments in joint programs like the AdventHealth partnership and an expansion in northwest Indiana to build out that territory for the system. He also said the system is focused on growing its cancer program and recruiting new faculty.
“[For] inorganic growth, I think we, like everyone, will be opportunistic,” he said. “It’s difficult right now because of the uncertainty around some of the dynamics around reimbursement schemes that the federal government has a role in and I think understanding that will impact things. Like everyone, we will continue to be open to conversations with market players, and opportunistic when inorganic growth can supplement and be synergistic.”