The largest hospital system in Indiana is about to get bigger.
St. Francis Hospital and Health Centers, a 428-bed facility in Beech Grove, voted to join a mammoth Indianapolis-area network formed earlier this year by St. Vincent Hospitals and Health Services and Community Hospitals Indianapolis.
The result will be a network with more than $1 billion in assets and more than 2,100 acute-care beds. It will control about 45% of Marion County's acute-care market, according to American Hospital Association statistics.
"We're excited to be able to move into this next phase of exploring ways to bring St. Francis into the St. Vincent-Community health network," said William Corley, president of Community Hospitals Indianapolis. "Having St. Francis as a partner in the network would offer the opportunity to blend the strengths of our organizations to benefit the patients and families of Central Indiana."
The network will submit a joint operating agreement to the Justice Department for approval.
All the revenues from the hospitals would go into a new holding company. After expenses are subtracted, the surplus would be divided according to the percentage of assets each system has in the company.
For example, St. Vincent's now gets 60% and Community Hospitals earns 40% based on its portion of assets. (March 21, p. 8). That venture was approved last February, and both of those systems' boards have voted to pursue the joint operating agreement with St. Francis.
St. Vincent Hospitals and Health Services includes St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital and Health Care Center; St. Vincent Carmel Hospital; St. Vincent Stress Center, a center for chemically dependent and mental-health patients; and St. Vincent New Hope, an intermediate-care facility for mentally disabled people. Community Hospitals has three facilities, one each on the city's north, east and south sides.
St. Francis, owned by Sisters of St. Francis Health Services, would be a profitable addition to the network. In 1993, the hospital had net income of $15.3 million on net revenues of $166 million, according to HCIA, a Baltimore-based healthcare data company.
