NEW ORLEANS — A local hospital system will soon be joining into a partnership with several others in the New Orleans area.
Tulane hospitals are severing ties with Nashville-based Hospital Corporation of America, and partnering with the local LCMC Health.
LCMC Health already manages local hospitals you are familiar with, Touro, Children’s, East and West Jefferson, UMC and New Orleans East. And now the non-profit is adding one more health giant to the list.
There are no planned changes for Tulane Lakeside Hospital in Metairie, and Lakeview Regional in Covington, but over the next year to two years, there will be changes downtown.
Tulane Medical Center will transition from an in-patient hospital to seeing patients in clinics, a nursing school, and research and innovation facility. In-patient care will move to East Jefferson General in Metairie and University Medical Center downtown.
When asked if there is enough space at East Jefferson and at UMC currently unused that will be able to absorb all of the ORs of the downtown hospital, Greg Feirn, CEO of LCMC Health replied, “Yeah, we have capacity at both East Jeff and at University Medical Center.”
Included in the $600 million downtown initiative, Tulane is also part of the renovation going on at Big Charity.
“Ultimately the school of public health will be going into Charity. We will be expanding our research lab and having 600 researchers in Big Charity, and this will be good for not only health care but employment in the city of New Orleans, and the downtown,” Mike Fitts, President of Tulane University said.
All employees are expected to keep their jobs. Tulane expects to add 2,300 jobs. LCMC expects to add even more, as financial, IT, and other support jobs with Tulane's former partner HCA move back from Dallas and Nashville.
“It's significant,” Feirn said about the number of jobs that this will create. “When I look at LCMC Health today, and the tight labor market, just the number of vacancies we currently have, we're adding jobs.”
LCMC Health already operates six hospitals in the GNO area, and doesn't expect this to cause any disruption in your insurance coverage, or your doctor-patient relationship.
Since competition drives prices down for the patient, and the is moving to two big providers, Ochsner and LCMC, will less competition drive prices higher? “We think it'll affect it in a good way,” Feirn responded.
The partnership from Nashville-based HCA to LCMC could take three months to complete.
Doctors’ appointments, insurance, clinic locations, and access to your MyHealthOne health portal will all remain the same.