Leaders Applaud KU Med Alliance: But Some Lawmakers Dislike Cross-Border Ties.
By Julius A. Karash and Jason Gertzen, The Kansas City Star, Mo.
Feb. 2–The University of Kansas Medical Center has struck a deal to forge closer ties with Kansas City hospitals, part of a broader effort to cross political and financial borders.
Kansas City civic leaders on Thursday hailed it as a breakthrough in long-simmering, often contentious talks aimed at boosting the region’s emerging life sciences economy. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been brandished in competing efforts to lure KU Med into long-term research and teaching relationships.
Kansas lawmakers, however, continued to express alarm at what they see as a Missouri-led grab for Kansas money.
News of the agreements triggered applause from more than 200 chief executives, government officials and other civic leaders attending the second annual Governors’ Summit on Regional Economic Development at the Liberty Memorial.
Irvine O. Hockaday Jr., chairman of the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, acknowledged key issues must still be resolved. He said, however, that University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway assured him that resolving those issues by a March 31 deadline would be a top priority.
“It could be our first bridge across the state line,” Hockaday said.
Lacking a major research university, the Kansas City region for years has sought ways of filling this gap as part of an effort to become a nationally recognized life sciences hub. Attention has been directed at bolstering the medical center, which has a long-standing affiliation with KU Hospital, and seeking collaborative roles for other area institutions, such as St. Luke’s Health System.
Recruiting scientists, expanding research and encouraging collaboration with other area hospitals and research organizations is considered key to the medical center’s efforts to win federal designation as a comprehensive cancer center. Success on that front could help attract massive amounts of research funding.
“What has become clear is that having a top-notch medical school in this region is hugely beneficial to both states,” Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said at the summit organized by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.
Sebelius said achieving the designation by the National Cancer Institute is crucial for the medical center. Such designation, she said, would benefit patients and would generate jobs and economic development.
Officials at the medical center, the University of Kansas Hospital, St. Luke’s and others have been talking for months about forming new teaching and research relationships, but have struggled to reach consensus. Late Wednesday they signed letters of intent.
The agreement between KU Medical Center and St. Luke’s designates St. Luke’s main hospital near the Country Club Plaza as a teaching and research arm of KU Med.
KU Hospital would be designated the “primary academic clinical, teaching and research hospital of KUMC.”
“If approved, the partnership means Kansas Citians will benefit from strengthened medical education and research programs right here in our community,” said physician Mark McPhee, St. Luke’s Hospital’s chief operating officer, in a statement.
The talks have focused on forging stronger ties between KU Medical Center and the main campuses of St. Luke’s and Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics on the Missouri side of the metro area. Truman Medical Centers and the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine could join the talks later.
Kansas lawmakers, however, are concerned that some proposed changes could weaken the finances of KU Hospital. Those lawmakers point to a significant financial turnaround at KU Hospital in recent years under the leadership of Irene Cumming, president and chief executive officer.
In a statement Thursday, Cumming said that “while we have made it clear that this was not the path the hospital would have chosen, we also want our partner, the Medical Center, to move forward as the area’s life sciences leader. The life science initiative has the potential to be great for Kansas, if Kansas’ interests receive the proper support and protection.”
Some Kansas lawmakers were not as supportive.
“I am not opposed to KUH and KUMC expanding their research programs and facilities but this is not about research, this is about siphoning off interns to St. Luke’s,” said Melvin Neufeld, speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives.
Kansas legislators are considering a measure that would require their approval of any partnership involving a state university hospital.
Hockaday bristled at questions about financial motivations pushing the hospital relationships.
“The drumbeat of concern, perhaps even suspicion, that somehow this is a Jesse James bank robbery of funds in Kansas is just flat wrong,” he told reporters after the summit. “There is no such intent. There has never been such intent.”
Missouri businesses and philanthropists, Hockaday said, are major financial backers of KU and its medical center located just across the state line. In addition, on Thursday Hockaday said that he had secured pledges of about $150 million for the realignment effort from Cerner Corp., DST Systems Inc., Sprint-Nextel Corp., Embarq Corp., the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, H&R Block Inc., the Hall Family Foundation, Hallmark Cards Inc., Kansas City Southern Industries, YRC Worldwide and three anonymous donors.
The discussions have strained the relationship between the hospital and the medical center unlike anything in recent memory. KU Hospital officials have fretted that the hospital will lose its position as the primary teaching hospital of KU Medical Center if the medical center forms stronger ties with St. Luke’s, which is one of KU Hospital’s biggest rivals.
The interfamily squabble also has highlighted tensions between Barbara Atkinson, executive vice chancellor of KU Medical Center, and Cumming.
KU Hospital in November offered to spend nearly $400 million to secure long-term ties with KU Medical Center. The offer included several conditions, including that KU Hospital would remain the primary teaching hospital of KU Medical Center.
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To reach Julius A. Karash, call (816) 234-4918 or send e-mail to jkarash@kcstar.com. To reach Jason Gertzen, call (816) 234-4899 or send e-mail to jgertzen@kcstar.com.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Kansas City Star, Mo.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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