CommonSpirit partners with U of U for clinical collaboration
CommonSpirit will expand University of Utah Health’s capacity to provide care to more people along the Wasatch Front, the two organizations announced this week.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
The clinical alliance will increase access to medical care closer to home, CommonSpirit Health and U of U Health said Wednesday.
To improve population health and care delivery for a broad spectrum of patient needs, U of U Health providers will collaborate with CommonSpirit hospitals, explained Andrew Gaasch, president of the CommonSpirit Mountain Region.
“At CommonSpirit, our mission calls on us to innovate relentlessly so we can provide the highest standard of compassionate care to all, including the most vulnerable,” Gaasch said in a statement.
The university, the state’s only academic health care system, has provided medical care to patients and training to health care providers in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada since its founding in 1965.
THE BIG TREND
Two years ago, CommonSpirit Health was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted medical operations at 140 facilities in several states, compromised electronic health record systems and exposed the personal information of some patients, family members and healthcare providers.
That year, healthcare cybersecurity breaches continued to skyrocket, although some argue that hospital mergers and acquisitions make larger, combined organizations attractive to threat actors vulnerable to flaws in legacy systems.
Following the merger of DignityHealth and Catholic Health Initiatives in 2017, the combined CommonSpirit system became the second-largest nonprofit hospital chain, with more than 350 hospitals nationwide.
The nonprofit health care organization purchased the five Utah hospitals in Davis, the Jordan Valley, Mountain Point and Salt Lake in 2023.
ON THE RECORD
“We put the patient at the center of everything we do and are proud to partner with CommonSpirit’s exceptional teams and hospitals to increase access for people in our communities and region,” said Dr. Michael L. Good, CEO and senior CEO of University of Utah Health vice president for health sciences. “Working together, we will do what all of us in healthcare were trained to do: improve health and quality of life.”