Texas Spine & Joint Hospital part of larger hospital merger

Published 3:20 am Tuesday, October 2, 2018

HEALTH CARE

Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Hospital facilities in Tyler are part of the proposed merger of two of the state’s largest health care providers.

Board members of Memorial Hermann Health System and Baylor Scott & White announced Monday that they signed a letter of intent to merge into a combined system — which would be the largest hospital system in Texas.

Texas Spine & Joint entered into a partnership agreement with the Baylor Scott & White system in August 2017. Under that agreement, the Baylor system has a controlling stake in Texas Spine & Joint Hospital, but it continues to be at least partially physician-owned.

The Baylor and Memorial Hermann systems have signed a letter of intent, but the deal isn’t complete. The hospitals hope to be fully merged by July 1, 2019, which would be the beginning of each hospital’s new fiscal year, said Ross McKnight, chairman of the Baylor Scott & White Holdings board of trustees. The proposal would need to go through a four-to-six month due diligence period and be approved by regulatory agencies, he said.

Once combined, the new entity would have facilities in 30 counties and employ 14,000 physicians as well as 73,000 employees, according to a news

release about the merger.

“This merger is not the end of what we know of Baylor Scott & White or Memorial Hermann,” McKnight said at a news conference in Dallas. “This merger is the beginning of a new era of health care in Texas — a new era that will be superior care at an affordable price, greater value and greater service to our communities and our patients.”

The group of CEOs and board of directors said there are no plans to close any facilities, and while the group will look for ways to make the health care system more efficient, there are no plans for physician layoffs.

“We are not looking at closing facilities,” said Deborah Cannon, chairwoman of the Memorial Hermann Health System board of directors. “When we talk about efficiencies, that leads people to think layoffs. Between us we have 5,000 open positions. We are not looking at this as we are cutting staff, we will continue to hire more staff. We are looking at efficiencies we can gain and innovate technologies. We can accelerate that.”

Leaders of both companies said the merger was natural because the hospital systems carry a similar mission and had beginnings as faith-based hospitals. Each also has strong connections to the academic community and works to attract skilled physicians.

“These are two very like-minded organizations,” McKnight said. “It’s hard to believe we would find someone that is as like-minded as we are. We have no overlap in districts we serve. We only have complementary things to each other.”

The merger will create a yet-to-be-named parent entity, but the individual hospitals and facilities will keep their names. That includes Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint.

The new system will have administrative offices in Dallas, Houston, Austin and Temple.

There are no immediate changes planned for the Tyler market, said Jim Hinton, CEO of Baylor Scott & White Health. Patients won’t notice a difference in care.

The joined system hopes to expand health care technologies and improve on medical best practices. As technologies are developed, those can be shared among the system, including in East Texas facilities, Hinton said.

“One of the reasons that Baylor Scott & White and Memorial Hermann are coming together is to make health care better for all Texans,” he said. “The things we develop, and new technologies — Tyler will be on the list to receive those like everyone else. The Spine & Joint Hospital made the decision to affiliate with Baylor Scott & White to strengthen their (system) and now there will be more opportunities.”

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