CHI Franciscan, CityMD plan to partner to open urgent care centers
CHI Franciscan Health (Tacoma, WA) plans to partner with urgent-care chain CityMD (New York, NY) to open urgent care centers in the Pacific Northwest. CityMD plans to open five to six locations in the Seattle-Tacoma region in 2016. This expansion is separate from CityMD’s New York City expansion, going from 50 to 80 locations. CHI Franciscan plans to use CityMD to supplement its existing 100-plus primary and specialty care clinics and eight urgent care clinics. CHI Franciscan is owned by Catholic Health Initiatives (Englewood, CO).
Tenet and Aetna sign multi-year national agreement
Tenet Healthcare Corporation (Dallas, TX) and Aetna Inc (Hartford, CT) signed a new, four-year agreement through which Aetna’s commercial, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and Coventry members will have in-network access to Tenet’s 87 hospitals, more than 2,130 employed physicians, and 218 of the company’s outpatient centers. The agreement also allows for both organizations to create accountable care networks to offer Aetna members the benefit of clinically integrated care. The agreement is effective January 1, 2016.
Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim enter exclusive negotiations for business swap
Sanofi (Paris, France) and Boehringer Ingelheim (Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany) entered into exclusive negotiations to swap businesses. The proposed transaction would have Sanofi acquire Boehringer Ingelheim’s consumer healthcare (CHC) business unit and in exchange, Boehringer Ingelheim would acquire Merial (Lyon, France), Sanofi’s animal health business. The transaction would also include a gross cash payment from Boehringer Ingelheim to Sanofi of $5.14 billion. Boehringer Ingelheim consumer healthcare business in China would be excluded from the transaction. According to a release, the transaction would allow Sanofi to become the number one ranked player in consumer healthcare with a global market share close to 4.6 percent. Acquiring Boehringer Ingelheim CHC would improve the position of Sanofi in Germany and Japan, where Sanofi CHC presence is limited, and significantly expand Sanofi’s presence in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Eurasia. The execution of definitive agreements is expected in the coming months following consultations with the relevant parties. The companies’ goal is to close the potential transaction in Q4 2016, subject to appropriate regulatory approvals.
CVS Health completes acquisition of Target pharmacies and clinics
CVS Health (Woonsocket, RI) has finalized the $1.9 billion acquisition of Target Corp’s (Minneapolis, MN) 1,672 pharmacies and 79 clinics. The pharmacies clinics will be rebranded as CVS/pharmacy and MinuteClinic respectively. A CVS/pharmacy will be included in every new Target location that offers pharmacy services and CVS Health will open 20 new MinuteClinics within the next three years. The existing Target pharmacies and clinics will transition to new branding, signage, and systems within the next six to eight months.
Emory Healthcare names Lewin as CEO
Emory Healthcare (Atlanta, GA) appointed Jonathan Lewin as its new CEO effective February 1, 2016. Lewin currently serves as SVP for integrated healthcare delivery and co-chairman for strategic planning at Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore, MD). In addition to the position of CEO, Lewin will also become the university’s EVP for health affairs, executive director for Robert W Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University (Atlanta, GA), and board chairman for Emory Healthcare. Lewin’s appointment consolidates four roles into one, after those responsibilities were divided when John Fox vacated the CEO position to become president and CEO of Beaumont Health (Royal Oak, MI) earlier in 2015.
Blue.Point LLC and Capstone Health Alliance announce strategic partnership
Blue.Point LLC (Andover, MA) and Capstone Health Alliance (Asheville, NC) signed a strategic partnership to help Capstone’s member hospitals identify, implement, and sustain utilization savings. Through the partnership, Blue.Point will provide a Web-based solution designed to assist supply chain and value analysis teams in identifying product and clinical practice variance and driving product utilization savings. Capstone currently has 85 system members representing 150 hospitals. For more information, visit www.bluepointscs.com.
CDC Foundation appoints Monroe as new president and CEO
The board of directors of the CDC (Atlanta, GA) Foundation appointed Judith Monroe as its new president and CEO effective February 1, 2016. Monroe, who currently leads the CDC’s Office for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support, oversees key activities and technical assistance that support the nation’s health departments and the public health system. She succeeds Charles Stokes, who will retire from the CDC Foundation on January 31, 2016.
Maryland state officials look to increase healthcare jobs in Baltimore, MD
Maryland state regulators reached an agreement that could create 1,000 new healthcare jobs throughout Baltimore. Under the agreement, participating hospitals would pay a share of the cost of -the program and the rest of the costs would be covered by hospital-rate increases. Plans call for $10 million in annual rate increases and $5 million a year from hospital budgets. The jobs are expected to cost $40,000 each, with an average pay of $15 an hour plus benefits. The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, MD) has already agreed to offer 375 jobs, leaving other Baltimore businesses to create the other 625 jobs. Participation is voluntary, so the total number of jobs filled will depend on the businesses that agree to participate. State officials will review the plan in two years. The Johns Hopkins Hospital is owned by Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore, MD).
ACO News: Blue Shield of California’s ACO program saves $325M
Blue Shield of California (San Francisco, CA) and its ACO provider affiliates have achieved more than $325 million in healthcare cost savings in the program’s first five years, according to a release. Launched in 2010, the ACO program now includes 35 ACOs throughout California and has helped to reduce both hospital admissions by up to 13 percent and hospital bed days by up to 27 percent.