Articles Tagged: University of Iowa Health Care

As part of the ownership transfer, about 1,000 former Mercy Iowa City “team members” — including 45 physicians and 33 advanced practice providers — will become UIHC employees.

A week before Mercy Iowa City’s 150-year history comes to an end – with the bankrupt hospital transitioning to University of Iowa ownership Jan. 31 – the Board of Regents will meet Wednesday to consider new bylaws for the former Mercy campus, renamed UI Health Care Medical Center Downtown.

The new chief integration officer that University of Iowa Health Care has appointed to manage its complex merger with Mercy Iowa City — following UIHC’s $28 million bankruptcy acquisition of the community hospital — could earn $780,000 this year, according to her professional services agreement.

A letter to Mercy Iowa City patients went out over the weekend about its transition to University of Iowa Health Care ownership asking them to “continue to schedule and go to your appointments as usual.”

Just weeks away from “day one” of a merged University of Iowa-Mercy Iowa City model through which the 150-year-old Mercy Hospital will morph into UI Health Care’s “downtown campus,” job offers are going out to more than 1,100 prospective transitioning employees.

The University of Iowa shift in leadership and decision-making power has meant “significant” challenges for the $525.6 million hospital campus it’s building in North Liberty, according to an Oct. 18 audit by Baker Tilly, provided to The Gazette through an open records request.

As the University of Iowa continues its takeover of Mercy Iowa City, administrators are sharing more details about the transition — including the appointment this week of Deborah Berini to lead management and integration with the now-bankrupt community hospital.

Among the complexities of a Mercy Iowa City bankruptcy sale to the University of Iowa is its electronic medical system transition – with any gap or abrupt termination of system operations posing “significant” threat to Mercy and its patients.

About halfway through construction of the University of Iowa’s new 469,000-square-foot hospital campus in North Liberty, its orthopedics department this week shared more details about plans to move its clinical, surgical, research, and educational operations to the Forevergreen Road site — further backing his characterization of the campus as an “orthopedic hospital.”

When the University of Iowa finalizes its purchase of the 150-year-old Mercy Iowa City campus, it will be renamed “University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center Downtown,” according to a rebranding UIHC announced Thursday.

A former employee of University of Iowa Community HomeCare has paired up with a former patient to sue the entity on behalf of themselves and 67,000-plus others over a data breach in March they argue could have been prevented, was reported too late, and unjustly enriched the university while causing years of stress, risk, and potential further victimization in the form of fraud and identity theft.

Although the common and highly-contagious RSV – short for “respiratory syncytial virus” – runs a mild, cold-like course for most people, it can hit infants and patients over 60 hard, even requiring hospitalization. For the first time, a vaccine is how available for those high-risk groups – thanks, in part, to University of Iowa Health Care trial work.

When Bradley Haws takes the reins as University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics CEO on Nov. 29 -- following a stint as UIHC chief financial officer two years ago -- he’ll make a $1.1 million starting salary, with the chance for $385,000 more in incentive pay.

Continuing its local and regional explosion in growth – including a pending $28 million purchase of Mercy Iowa City – the University of Iowa next week will ask Board of Regents permission to move forward with another $36.5 million in health care-related construction, including a $17.5 million “new road” paving the way for a $1 billion inpatient tower.

Although Mercy Iowa City – given its pending sale to the University of Iowa – now has more resources to pay all the attorneys and restructuring agents it hired to navigate its bankruptcy, a U.S. trustee has objected to fees for one law firm, arguing the amount “shocks the conscience.”