Tampa General Hospital plans to invest more than $162 million in University of South Florida Health to bolster their partnership and expand across the state.
The funds also will be used to advance research projects and to attract new clinical and research staff.
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The two organizations have been affiliated since Tampa, Florida-based USF Health was created in the 1970s, though their partnership has been weaker and less involved at some points, Tampa General Hospital CEO John Couris said Wednesday.
The capital infusion announced Wednesday follows a $62 million investment by Tampa General and it will not be the last, Couris said.
"We're going to continue to expand," Couris said. "We're going to grow an academic health system across the entire state of Florida. We're not just going to stay in Tampa. We're going to expand, and we're going to grow where the state needs us and where the people want us."
While the hospital does not offer typical recruitment perks, such as tuition reimbursement or signing bonuses, the institutions plan to attract more clinical and research staff by improving their reputation as an academic health system, Couris said.
"No perks in the traditional sense of it," Couris said. "What we're building here, it's not a perk, but it's really creating an environment and an ecosystem. World-class physician scientists want to be with like-minded people, right? The system that we've just created attracts those people so they can collaborate, they can innovate [and] they can cross-pollinate ideas, thoughts and new technologies.
The updated affiliation agreement is slated to go into effect Oct. 1.
Tampa General Hospital is a nonprofit, private health system with 981 beds. USF Health has more than 6,000 students per year entering the healthcare workforce in the physician, nursing, pharmaceutical, physical therapy and public health fields.
