Mercy Iowa City Hospital to end affiliation with MercyOne
Mercy Iowa City Hospital announced it is ending its partnership with the Catholic non-profit health network MercyOne, which it has been affiliated with since 2017.
Iowa City’s Mercy Hospital location on September 25, 2017. Kathleen and Andrew Kromphardt, sued Mercy Hospital of Iowa City, Obstetric and Gynecologic Associates of Iowa City and Coralville and Jill Goodman, an obstetrician-gynecologist and one of the directors of the Coralville clinic after their newborn sustained serious brain damage after his birth at the hospital.
July 1, 2021
Mercy Iowa City Hospital will end its partnership with the MercyOne health network, according to an internal memo released Wednesday.
The Mercy Iowa City Board of Directors state that hospital and clinic operations “will go on as normal.”
MercyOne is a non-profit, Catholic health network that has affiliations with various hospitals throughout Iowa.
The partnership between Mercy Iowa City and MercyOne started in 2017, and will continue until a deal with a new partner can be reached. Potential partners will be evaluated by a third-party adviser.
“Mercy Iowa City remains an affiliate of MercyOne and will remain affiliated through this evaluation process,” Mercy Iowa City said in a statement to The Daily Iowan.
Mercy Iowa City said its affiliation with MercyOne has been beneficial, but in the long-term, it needs to find a partnership that will suit them better.
“We are an independent hospital and given the market dynamics as well as challenges from the healthcare industry, we need to integrate much more closely with a larger health system so we can achieve economies of scale aligning with our long-term goals,” Mercy Iowa City said in a statement to the DI.
In an internal memo, Mercy Iowa City cites one of its reasons for looking to a new management is its desire to further integrate its ministry into the health practices.
The hospital was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1873, and Mercy Iowa City claims that to better serve the memory of its founding, it will need a different partner.