Does all Kentucky business happen at basketball games?
I made an interesting field trip to New York City last Friday. By accident, I discovered that the University of Louisville’s Department of continuing medical education was offering a seminar in the Big Apple entitled, “What We Can Learn about Hospital Mergers, Capital Investment and Construction in a Landlocked Urban Environment.” This topic sounded familiar! Given all the excitement about religious intermarriages of hospitals, I thought it would be interesting to hear what some of the players would have to say off the battlefield. It took a few phone calls, but eventually I got my name on the list. As I learned later, this meeting was part of an annual affair for University officials and faculty going to the Big East basketball tournament. Physician members can get some of continuing medical education credits necessary for licensure. The trip also gives University representatives a chance to visit other medical schools and teaching hospitals and to talk about things like technology transfer and mergers. This year’s field trip included a visit to Mount Sinai Hospital and Medical School which had recently gone through a high-profile marriage with New York University, and an even higher profile divorce.
There were some 20 people in attendance at the conference– a pretty high-powered team. President Ramsey, Provost Willihnganz, Vice President Inman (development, governmental relations, and marketing), and the Deans of the Schools of Medicine and Education made up the starting five. On the bench were the director of the University’s Residency Programs, and various division chiefs and program directors including neurosurgery, neurology, and anesthesia. I was actually shocked to find in attendance two very senior officials from Jewish Hospital who were leaders in last year’s failed merger attempt. This was not a party to which I would have been invited had I not crashed it myself. A few of the group were obviously not happy I was there and I suspect their conversations following the scholarly presentations of the conference were guarded in my presence. Continue reading “Ongoing Planning Between UofL and KentuckyOne Health.”