Irving, Texas-based CHRISTUS Health and Coomeva Cooperativa Medica announced a new identity and name for a Colombian health care network called Sinergia they have jointly owned for a year.
In June, Sinergia was renamed CHRISTUS Sinergia Salud. The formerly secular health care network Sinergia has become a Catholic ministry operating in alignment with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, after extensive discussion and discernment related to the core values and similar missions of the organizations, said George Avila, CHRISTUS Health's vice president for international mission integration.
CHRISTUS Sinergia Salud includes a health provider network, two wholly owned hospitals, two partially owned hospitals, a home care company and 88 ambulatory care facilities with operations throughout six regions in Colombia.
Avila said CHRISTUS Health and Coomeva Cooperativa Medica administrators held a series of meetings over the course of about a year to discuss the histories and values of their organizations and to develop a mission statement for CHRISTUS Sinergia Salud. The new mission statement calls for extending "the healing spirit of Jesus Christ for the holistic well-being of the person and our community," Avila said. CHRISTUS Health's sponsoring congregations are the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of Houston, the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio and the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
CHRISTUS Health and Coomeva Cooperativa Medica have equal ownership in CHRISTUS Sinergia Salud; CHRISTUS Sinergia Salud is managed by CHRISTUS Health, Avila said. CHRISTUS Health also has minority ownership in two other Coomeva businesses — a health insurance company and an administration company that provides services, information management and software. CHRISTUS Health's relationships with those enterprises remains unchanged, and those businesses remain secular.