Alegent Health is acquiring the 334-bed Creighton University Medical Center from Creighton University and the university's clinical partner, Tenet Healthcare. The agreement would make Alegent facilities the primary teaching sites for the university's health sciences schools. Alegent, the medical center and the university are based in Omaha, Neb., and Tenet, in Dallas.
Under the agreement, which is expected to close July 1, the medical center will become part of Alegent and no longer will have a relationship with Tenet. Alegent also will assume operations of the university's specialty physician group, Creighton Medical Associates; and that group in time will become part of the Alegent Health Clinic network.
The Catholic medical center will continue to serve as a teaching site for the university's health sciences schools and will continue to adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services after the deal closes.
The university and Alegent have agreed that under the deal they will make matching contributions to an investment fund that will further their academic and clinical missions. Alegent also will make an annual financial contribution to the university's health sciences schools. Alegent would not disclose the amount of the contributions or the financial details of the medical center acquisition.
The university and Alegent already have academic affiliations; this deal will expand those affiliations. This will benefit the university because the patient base at Creighton University Medical School alone is not large enough to support the university's teaching mission and also allow it to grow, according to Alegent administrators. Creighton University administrators added that Creighton has been expanding its affiliations and relationships with a variety of health care organizations, and having a larger network will give the university more traction in that regard.
Alegent has nine hospitals and a mental health center — four of these facilities are in Omaha proper — and so the partnership with Alegent increases the sites potentially available to train the university's medical and allied health students.
Gary Honts, president and chief executive of Creighton University Medical Center, said becoming part of a regional system will help the medical center to adapt to U.S. health care trends including the decades' long shift to outpatient services from inpatient care and the more recent focus on improving the health status of the population at large.
One of Alegent's cosponsors is Catholic Health Initiatives of Englewood, Colo., and three of Alegent's hospitals are Catholic.
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