Baptist-FIU alliance to be completed in summer

Florida International University announced a comprehensive alliance with Baptist Health South Florida to enhance the university’s medical school, providing training for new physicians, nurses, and other disciplines, increasing clinical-based research, and expanding the hospital’s healthcare services.

Juan C. Cendan, dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and senior vice president for Health Affairs, announced last week to the FIU Board of Trustees the beginning of negotiations with Baptist Health, after evaluations with several other healthcare institutions.

Efforts for this clinical partnership initiative with Baptist Health began last December, as the Herbert Wertheim College worked to engage with an adult hospital system that would be part of “a true integrated academic health partnership,” said Dr. Cendan. “The vision is that the academic health entity would be founded on the vision of the tripartite mission of typical medical schools: teaching, research, and clinical.”

Similar to the partnership that the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine has with Jackson Health System, this initiative would expand undergraduate and graduate medical education programs, develop clinical and teaching facilities, grow faculty-physician practices, and deepen capabilities around research, said Dr. Cendan.

“FIU and Baptist are creating a new healthcare system for South Florida with global impact,” said President Kenneth A. Jessell in a press release.

This alliance would provide “an enduring connection with a clinical leader” to FIU, said Dr. Cendan, “from bench to bedside, and create access to additional revenue streams to support future research, teachings and clinical investments.”

The process to select a clinical partner to start negotiations with began last summer and fall, Dr. Cendan said. The school engaged with the National Charter School Institute to perform a comprehensive assessment of the opportunities, challenges, and how to develop a strategy for growth for the College of Medicine, and what would be the best viable path.

“Over time, that really led to thinking about partnership discussions,” said Dr. Cendan. “The outcome of the first phase is that our best step forward would be to find a hospital partner.”

The consulting firm helped FIU define expected outcomes and prepare key questions for potential hospital partners. “We developed that over the course of months and visits with potential partners,” said Dr. Cendan. “That created several proposals.”

The partnership would look at sharing governance, management and co-branding of healthcare facilities and activities. Having a medical residency program was also a critical component.

“That creates the environment where medical students, nursing students, physician assistant students can also be taught within the clinical platform,” he said. “Our research is limited because we don’t have access to the volume of patients that a hospital system would bring. We want to be able to impact the community, and invest in clinical activities, including a potential [medical] facility on the FIU campus.”

During the assessment stage, he added, seven healthcare organizations presented potential academic alignment opportunities to FIU; four organizations discussed detailed partnership opportunities; and two organizations shared a detailed proposal, said Dr. Cendan.

“Both proposals presented an incredible opportunity for the growth of the college and for academic programs,” he said. “One organization – Baptist Health – entered into a 90-day negotiation phase.”

All other proposals, their healthcare providers, and their conversations are under non-disclosure agreements.

With the Baptist Health alliance, “the community will absolutely be the beneficiary of everything that we are starting today,” said Bo Boulenger, president and CEO of Baptist Health South Florida.

The FIU Healthcare Network, which is the entity from which the school uses clinical faculty practices, is changing its name from the Florida International University Academic Health Center Health Care Network Faculty Group Practice Inc. to the Florida International University Health Care Network “to comport with other healthcare networks within the state university system,” said Carlos B. Castillo, general counsel of FIU.

Baptist Health and Florida International University have partnered for a decade to offer an accredited medical residency program at Baptist Health West Kendall Hospital, according to the hospital’s communications.

All terms of the partnership, the school said, are to be finalized in the summer.