Former University of Minnesota leaders who were "at the table" when it transferred its hospitals and clinics to Fairview Health Services agree that it's time for the assets to come home, according to a Feb. 25 op-ed in the Star Tribune.
The entities, both based in Minneapolis, signed a letter of intent Feb. 9 that would allow the university to purchase its four academic health facilities back from Fairview by the end of 2027.
The future of the university's healthcare was debated throughout 2023 as Fairview considered a megamerger with Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health. The deal, which fell through over the summer, would have created a 50-hospital health system with around 78,000 employees; it would also have transferred control of Minnesota's public teaching hospital to an out-of-state entity, which university leaders, students and community members opposed.
Frank Cerra, MD, the university's former senior vice president for health sciences; Roby Thompson, MD, founding CEO of UMPhysicians; and Keith Dunder, a former hospital counsel, "were charged with working to create the necessary agreements to make the relationship [between Fairview and the university] successful once the deal was reached."
In the op-ed, they wrote that the move made sense 28 years ago. Back then, the medical school and hospital struggled to keep up with a rapidly changing industry as the medical marketplace consolidated, and large payers and HMOs emerged. The structure of individual practice groups within each department of the medical school also caused issues for coordinated care and payers.
"The environment of the 1990s led to the decision to align with an external, more market-driven system," the retired leaders wrote.
But times have changed, and the university now features a "unified clinical entity that is comprehensive, stable and functional," and a fully integrated faculty physician group. Now, the university is poised for full control of its health facilities, the leaders wrote.
They expressed agreement that the university needs to be responsive to the state's medical needs and remain independent of any out-of-state entity.
"We believe the university can take the knowledge and experience of increasing responsibility for managing the joint clinical enterprise with Fairview and apply it to its next chapter when it resumes control of the operations of its academic health clinical enterprise," the leaders wrote.
Read the full op-ed here.