Can anything positive come out of a pandemic? Leaders of Lifespan Corp. and Care New England Health System are willing to find out.
For more than a decade, the state’s two largest health care systems have tried and failed to agree on a merger. The last time was about a year ago, and for months thereafter prospects for a unified statewide health system looked bleak.
Then came the pandemic – with significant financial losses in the first month alone for both health systems – and their need to collaborate grew.
Lifespan’s Dr. Timothy J. Babineau and CNE’s Dr. James E. Fanale, both of whom serve as CEO and president, began talking again, this time about the challenges of managing COVID-19.
“It became pretty obvious to us that working together was better for all of our organizations and … our patients,” Fanale told Providence Business News.
Now they’ve agreed to a 90-day exploration of what could include a potential merger.
If the harsh reality of unsustainable losses amid an ongoing pandemic can’t finally bring them together, nothing will.
