Five months ago, Community Health Systems Chairman, President and CEO Wayne Smith and Cleveland Clinic CEO Dr. Toby Cosgrove unveiled a partnership they explained as a means to marry clinical and data and expertise to improve quality and efficiency.
The unusual alliance raised an obvious question in this era of fast, furious and anomalous consolidation in healthcare. Did they want to run hospitals together? “We might get to acquisitions in this, but this is much more about what we can do to sort of transform these organizations to be prepared for healthcare reform,” Smith told Modern Healthcare.
Last week, they announced plans to do just that. They're now in exclusive negotiations to be joint owners of Akron (Ohio) General Health System, which would be converted to a for-profit enterprise.