The newly branded Mount Sinai Health System must set about the delicate work of consolidating the operations of two of New York City's largest hospitals.
Continuum Health Partners and Mount Sinai Medical Center closed on a merger deal that brings together 1,031-bed Mount Sinai Hospital and Icahn School of Medicine with Continuum's 812-bed Beth Israel Medical Center, along with St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center Hospital and Roosevelt Hospital, which have a combined 711 beds, and the 32-bed New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.
Dr. Kenneth Davis, president and CEO of the new organization and who previously headed Mount Sinai Medical Center, said bigger is better as hospitals and doctors take on more financial risk under contracts that offer more incentives for quality and efficiency. “We believe the future of medicine is in large, integrated health systems that have the ability to manage population health and to take risk,” Davis said.
More change is coming now that the deal has closed. The larger system combines the two partners' ambulatory networks and seven hospital campuses. Davis said the organization will consolidate or relocate various services across the new system and merge the administrative and billing operations during the next year. The new system has no insurance arm, but officials are considering whether to add that, he said.
The system also includes a Medicare accountable care organization with about 24,000 enrollees that finished its first year in June. The scope of the integration work is significant and potentially risky, Moody's Investors Service said in August when the deal was announced.
The ratings agency estimated Continuum's annual revenue to be on par with that of Mount Sinai Health System's $3 billion in revenue. “This intended combination, if executed, could enhance the scale and strategic position of the combined system tempered by the enormity of structural and cultural integration,” Moody's analysts said in August.
Follow Melanie Evans on Twitter: @MHmevans
