Jefferson Parish is considering leasing its two public hospitals to outside interests. Here is a look at the players
Jefferson Parish is considering leasing its two public hospitals to outside interests. Here is a look at the players:
THE ASSETS
East Jefferson General Hospital
Founded: 1971
Facilities: 1 hospital, 6 clinics
Licensed beds: 420
Employees: 2,503
2012 revenue: $373 million
East Jefferson General Hospital in 2007. East Jefferson's rapid growth after World War II created a shortage of hospital beds, with only then-Metairie Hospital and Ochsner providing care in the area. But the first proposal to levy a property tax for a public hospital was defeated in 1960. It wasn't until after Hurricane Betsy damaged hospitals in 1965 that voters approved the hospital taxes. East Jefferson opened in 1970 with 250 beds. The hospital saw rapid expansion in the next three decades, and it's now the second largest hospital in East Jefferson, after Ochsner.
West Jefferson Medical Center
Founded: 1960
Facilities: 1 hospital, 5 clinics
Licensed beds: 427
Employees: 1,907
2012 revenue: $257 million
West Jefferson Medical Center in 2011. Throughout the 1950s, many West Bank residents used Mississippi River ferries to seek urgent medical care in crowded New Orleans hospitals, and doctors complained it took three weeks to get a patient admitted. After Hurricane Flossy temporarily moored ferries in 1956 and closed the Huey P. Long Bridge, West Jefferson voters passed property taxes to build and run a 120-bed hospital. West Jefferson Medical Center opened in Marrero in 1960 and greatly expanded its facilities and offerings in the '70s, '80s and '90s. It remains the largest health care provider on the West Bank and one of the area's largest employers.
THE SUITORS
HCA
Founded: 1968
Facilities: 162 hospitals (three local), 113 surgery centers
Licensed beds: More than 40,500
Employees: 204,000
2012 revenue: $33 billion
Tulane University Hospital & Clinic in 2007. Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA (formerly Hospital Corp. of America), a publicly traded company, began expanding its network shortly after a group of doctors founded it in the late 1960s. By the mid-1980s, HCA ran 463 hospitals, and in 1994 it merged with health-care giant Columbia to form one of the largest hospital networks in the country, employing 285,000 people. HCA sold its non-hospital businesses and other assets in the late 1990s and went through a leverage buyout before becoming a public company again in 2010. The company now boasts of providing about 5 percent of all inpatient care in the U.S.
HCA has ownership stakes in eight Louisiana facilities, including three local ones: Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans, Tulane-Lakeside Hospital in Metairie and Lakeview Regional Medical Center in Covington. HCA's MidAmerica Division has offices in New Orleans, and HCA's Louisiana properties include ones in Alexandria, Lafayette and New Iberia. HCA purchased an interest in Tulane Medical Center in 1995 and now owns 82.5 percent of the medical center, with Tulane University owning the rest. Lakeside Hospital merged with Tulane in 2005. HCA's three local hospitals have a combined 526 licensed beds and about 2,500 employees.
Louisiana Children's Medical Center
Founded: 2009
Facilities: 2 hospitals, 3 specialty clinics, 1 retirement facility
Licensed beds: 641
Employees: 3,560
2012 revenue: $558 million
Children's Hospital main entrance in 2009. Children's Hospital and Touro Infirmary merged in 2009 to create the Louisiana Children's Medical Center, a non-profit that manages both hospitals and other facilities. As part of the merger, Children's provided cash to Touro, a 160-year-old Uptown institution that had struggled financially. Children's Hospital, which dates from 1955, is the largest pediatric hospital in the state and one of the largest in the South. Children's runs pediatric clinics in Metairie, Baton Rouge and Lafayette.
Louisiana Children's Medical Center has negotiated an agreement to take over the LSU Interim Public Hospital in New Orleans in June. That will add more than 2,000 employees and at least 230 beds to Children's. Under the deal with the state, Children's also would run the $1 billion, 424-bed University Medical Center when it's completed in Mid-City in 2015. The state also has an agreement to lease to Children's the Uptown property of the shuttered New Orleans Adolescent Hospital Uptown, with Children's offering services to mentally ill kids.
Ochsner Health System
Founded: 1942
Facilities: 8 hospitals, 38 health centers
Licensed beds: 1,102 (in five local area hospitals)
Employees: More than 13,000
2011 revenue: $1.8 billion
Ochsner Medical Center in 2007. Founded as a group practice by five Tulane Medical School professors in Uptown New Orleans, Ochsner has grown into the largest health care provider in Louisiana. For decades, the non-profit focused on expanding its original hospital, in Old Jefferson, and growing a network of clinics across the New Orleans area. By the 1990s the clinics served more than 180,000 individual patients through a managed care plan. Ochsner shifted strategy in the early 2000s, selling its health plan and merging its clinic, hospital and foundation. The new entity, which became Ochsner Health System, bought Elmwood Hospital in 2001.
Ochsner's growth accelerated after Hurricane Katrina. Its main campus and many of its clinics served patients looking for medical options as the region recovered. In 2006, Ochsner purchased Tenet's Memorial Hospital in Uptown New Orleans, Meadowcrest Hospital in Gretna and Kenner Regional Hospital, and it signed agreements with hospitals in Raceland and Baton Rouge. Ochsner bought NorthShore Regional Medical Center in Slidell in 2010. The system's clinics have also expanded, treating more than 346,000 unique patients in 2011.