Articles Tagged: University of Iowa Health Care

In a letter updating its tens of thousands of patients on how this week’s news of Mercy Iowa City’s bankruptcy could affect them and their care, Steindler Orthopedic Clinic on Friday vowed to “remain independent” — even as the 150-year-old community hospital, and Steindler’s longtime partner, “will cease to exist.”

After considering Mercy Iowa City’s argument that it’s an increasingly “fragile organization” forced into an emergent bankruptcy filing after suffering “significant and negative destruction of value,” a U.S. bankruptcy judge on Wednesday agreed to expedite the timeline of the hospital’s sale – presumably to the University of Iowa – setting a bid deadline of Sept. 19.

The Board of Regents on Tuesday morning unanimously approved a University of Iowa request to buy most of Iowa City-based Mercy Hospital’s assets for $20 million — without asking any questions about the deal’s finances, including how they came to the $20 million figure, where that money will come from, and what will happen with the $63 million Mercy owes on publicly-issued bonds.

The University of Iowa has signed a letter of intent to acquire “substantially all the operating facilities and key assets of Mercy Iowa City — which has filed for bankruptcy — in hopes of ”preserving the continuity of care for patients and continuing opportunities for physicians and employees.“

After slipping last year to the lowest number of medical care specialties ranked among the Top 50 nationally in at least a decade, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics again this year ranked in the same two specialties — but improved their ratings in the U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals” list made public today

Despite inflation, labor cost and supply chain snags that stalled the original timeline, a new Steindler North Liberty Ambulatory Surgery Center now is under construction just east of Interstate 380, north of Forevergreen Road – adding to the health care construction boom underway in that community.

“I don't think I've ever gone a week here on my unit for four years without being physically assaulted,” said UIHC registered nurse Alex Kestrel, who works in the geriatric psychiatry unit. “I get punched in the face pretty much every week by my patients.”

The day before the University of Iowa announced who would serve on a revamped search committee for its second attempt to find a new vice president for medical affairs, a committee co-chair asked the woman who later would be chosen for the job to apply.

The state of Iowa added to its tally of Board of Regents-related settlement payouts Wednesday by approving three more – including a $5 million agreement tied to allegations of medical negligence at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, to be paid out over 30 years through 2053.

As it’s done for years, the Board of Regents last week approved a University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics across-the-board 6-percent rate hike for the new budget year starting next month – the highest allowed in many UIHC payer contracts.

Continuing its construction boom involving more than $1 billion in new and renovated facilities, University of Iowa Health Care next week will seek Board of Regents approval to spend $249 million on a new 263,000-square-foot “Health Sciences Academic Building.”

The next head of the University of Iowa’s sprawling health care enterprise and medical college is retired U.S. Public Health Service Capt. Denise J. Jamieson, who accumulated decades of experience with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at Emory University.

Although University of Iowa Health Care ranked nationally as the second-most trusted health care brand, the state of Iowa had among the most “doctor dodgers” in the country.

As the University of Iowa searches for new leadership atop its sprawling health care enterprise, growing network of hospitals and clinics, and highly-ranked college of medicine, administrators want a partner to help them assess “fair market valuation” of a “wide range of health care settings and assets.”

For the fourth time since 2007, the National Institutes of Health has renewed a large scientific grant for the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine — this time awarding it $28 million over seven years to “take clinical research out into rural communities.”