U of L can't find a partner to buy Jewish Hospital, but will continue professional partnership on education, transplants etc. 'for now'

Jewish Hospital and its Rudd Heart and Lung Center

Failing to find the partner it says it must have, the University of Louisville has suspended efforts to buy Jewish Hospital and the other Louisville-area assets of Catholic Health Initiatives, operated as KentuckyOne Health. The failure leaves in limbo the future of a major Kentucky hospital and its affiliated health-care facilities.

“U of L officials were not willing to put the university at financial risk by taking on the acquisition alone,” the university said in a news release. “We regret ending our talks with CHI but we must do what is fiscally responsible for the University of Louisville,” U of L President Neeli Bendapudi said in the release. “Without a viable partner, we do not have the resources necessary to make the acquisition a reality.”

"KentuckyOne and U of L will continue their professional partnership for now, including the academic affiliation agreement that ensures undergraduate and graduate/resident medical education programs continue at Jewish Hospital and Frazier Rehab Institute," report Morgan Watkins and David Harten of the Louisville Courier Journal. "If the programs cannot be continued at those facilities, CHI will assign those residencies to another facility requested by the university, according to U of L’s statement Wednesday."

University spokesman John Karman "said U of L is continuing to make progress on contingency plans that it has been working on since last year concerning the transition of its service lines from Jewish Hospital to other health care facilities," the newspaper reports. "More than 1,000 employees work at the hospital. Jewish also serves as the only adult organ transplant center in the city, and all of the physicians who perform lung, kidney, liver, pancreas, heart and dual organ transplants at Jewish are employed by U of L."

KentuckyOne's assets have been for sale for more than two years. Besides Jewish and Frazier Rehab, they include Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital, four outpatient centers, Our Lady of Peace psychiatric hospital and Jewish Hospital Shelbyville.