SAN FRANCISCO-Stanford and UCSF have agreed to merge their teaching hospitals and clinics.
The Nov. 1 union was blessed by the UC Board of Regents and Stanford trustees after two years of talks, creating a private nonprofit corporation called UCSF-Stanford Health Care. It does not affect the two medical schools, however, and faculty members, house staff, and fellows stay where they are.
Proponents of the merger have argued that it will keep both institutions viable in the competitive health-care climate by pooling costly projects and equipment, giving them an edge in dealing with managed care. Dr. Haile Debas, UCSF’s chancellor, greeted the merger as the first step in “a revolution in the way academic health care is both organized and delivered.”
UCSF’s unionized hospital workers battled the plan, however, despite assurances that 98% of the 11,000 employees of both centers will be retained.
Critics also jumped on Stanford’s demand that the new corporation be exempt from public-meeting laws. They weren’t fully mollified by efforts of local state legislators to keep it accountable for at least some public disclosure.
Then there’s the transfer of some $386 million in UCSF assets into private hands, a move that has prompted a series of legal challenges. Los Angeles lawyer Frank Clark, one of four regents who voted against the merger, thinks it’s unconstitutional. But even if it’s judged illegal, he said, “I don’t know how to unscramble the egg.”
The merger comes as two New York institutions, Mount Sinai and NYU, launched a renewal of merger talks, but this time without including their medical schools-the source of bickering the first time around. -Judy Ismach
SAN FRANCISCO-Stanford and UCSF have agreed to merge their teaching hospitals and clinics.
