Friday, May 12, 2017

Financially strained KentuckyOne Health to sell most Louisville-area facilities, shift focus to Central and Eastern Kentucky

"KentuckyOne Health, the once-dominant hospital system across the state, announced Friday that it will sell off Jewish Hospital and many other high-profile facilities in Louisville as it refocuses on Central and Eastern Kentucky," Grace Schneider reports for The Courier-Journal. "Besides Jewish, its flagship hospital, the health system will sell Frazier Rehab InstituteSts. Mary & Elizabeth HospitalMedical Centers Jewish East, South, Southwest and Northeast; Jewish Hospital ShelbyvilleSaint Joseph Martin and KentuckyOne Health Medical Group provider practices in Louisville and Martin," a small town in Floyd County.

"The great change and great uncertainty in the health care industry has strained our financial health," said Ruth Brinkley, KentuckyOne's president and CEO. “We understand this will bring change and questions to our employees and community partners. We have an extensive transition program underway to ease the change and ensure focus on our priories to our patients and our partners."

The sales will leave KentuckyOne with this footprint: Our Lady of Peace, a behavioral-treatment hospital in Louisville, Flaget Memorial Hospital in Bardstown, Saint Joseph Hospital and Saint Joseph East in Lexington, Saint Joseph Jessamine in Nicholasville, Saint Joseph Mount Sterling, Saint Joseph London and Saint Joseph Berea, and affiliated provider practices.

"The announcement comes 10 days after The Courier-Journal reported the health system was severing ties with doctors in the Louisville area," Schneider notes. Last month, the system announced it was trimming about 250 employees to cut costs, including the layoff of 150 workers. Others were transferred to the University of Louisville Hospital under the split between KentuckyOne and U of L Medical Center or took voluntary retirement offers. KentuckyOne has run day-to-day operations of the University of Louisville Hospital and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center under an arrangement with U of L, but the University Medical Center is to resume management July 1.

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