Brown’s Paxson’s Constantly Changing Healthcare Strategy Is Driven by Fear of Harvard and Yale
Sunday, February 20, 2022
In the past four years, Brown University President Christina Paxson has announced an ever-changing number of proposed healthcare partnerships for the university's medical school.
She has proposed Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School partnering with Prospect Medical of California, the hedge fund-backed for-profit hospital group.
In January 2018, when she announced the Prospect partnership, Paxson criticized the proposal by Partners HealthCare — now rebranded Mass General Brighams — to buy the financially struggling Care New England.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“I feel strongly that letting this acquisition go forward [Partners buying CNE] would be wrong for Rhode Island and for Brown. Doing so is likely to lead to specialty healthcare shifting to Massachusetts, impeding access to healthcare for Rhode Islanders and especially for members of the state’s underserved communities,” she wrote in a letter to the Brown community that was released to the media.
Then, less than nine months later she dumped Prospect and announced an agreement with Partners HealthCare (now rebranded Mass General Brigham) and Care New England, and then and most recently Lifespan and Care New England.
Initial Attempts
In August 2018, Partners HealthCare, Care New England Health System, and Brown University announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to formalize “a joint commitment to providing the highest quality of patient care, physician training and biomedical innovation to Rhode Island.”
“This agreement sets us on a clear path for achieving Brown’s goals of a partnership that will enhance the quality of clinical care, generate biomedical research that improves population health and fuel economic development in Rhode Island,” Paxson said via the joint release.
“Other objectives of the new partnership include maintaining and enhancing the quality of medical education for medical students at existing and future CNE clinical facilities; evaluating ways to strengthen the relationship between CNE physicians and physicians in Brown-affiliated faculty practice groups; exploring the potential for a new medical research institute in Providence and shared governance to support the goals of the partnership,” said the release.
When asked what transformed Paxson’s position, her press office told GoLocal in an email, “The MOU commits to providing the highest quality healthcare and exceptional medical training, enhanced opportunities for research, and biomedical innovation that fuels economic development. We remain steadfast in embracing solutions that serve our region and preserve our academic mission.”
In other words, Partners promised not to bring Harvard medical students into Rhode Island hospitals.
The flip-flopping strategy has led to no significant expansion of the medical school and left Brown falling further and further its peer institutions -- especially Harvard University.
Harvard is a massive competitive threat to the north due to its medical superiority and its partnerships with Mass General Brigham -- a hospital group with an annual budget of $13.4 billion -- larger than the State of Rhode Island's budget.
Make no mistake about it -- Harvard and Brown’s medical schools are in two different stratospheres.
According to rankings of medical schools, Harvard ranks as the top research university in the United States — Brown ranks 36th.
Medical school rankings for research are not just a source of pride -- they serve to attract top talent and prized research dollars.
And while Harvard is a threat from the north, Yale University may be a growing threat to the south. Yale-New Haven Hospital already has a foothold in Rhode Island. It now operates Westerly Hospital.
The danger for Brown is that Rhode Island's hospitals shift their affiliations from Warren Alpert to Harvard and Yale's better funded and more prestigious schools of medicine.
Brown Receives Just 8% of the NIH Dollars Harvard Receives
According to another ranking, Harvard received more than $1.7 billion in National Institute of Health funding in 2020. In contrast, Brown received $143 million — just 8% of the amount Harvard received.
Among Ivy League schools, Brown ranks second to last in attracting coveted NIH research dollars, ranking ahead of only Dartmouth College.
Brown ranks 46th in the United States — behind the likes of Boston University and the University of Connecticut.
Latest Deal Blocked
When that Partners purchase of Care New England collapsed, then Paxson signed onto the now blocked merger between Lifespan and Care New England.
She announced in February of 2021 that Brown was all in on the deal. “Brown is excited to invest $125 million over five years to bring together the medical expertise and capacity needed to create exactly the kind of integrated academic health system that has provided such dramatic success in healthcare, medical education and biomedical innovation for other regions across the country,” said Samuel Mencoff, Chancellor of the Corporation of Brown University.
Now, with Paxson's Lifespan-Care New England merger being blocked by a lawsuit filed by the United States Federal Trade Commission and the Rhode Island Attorney General, Brown is again without a strategy.
That lawsuit was announced on Thursday.
“This proposed merger is a bad deal for patients who are likely to see higher hospital bills, lower quality of care, and fewer cutting-edge medical services,” said FTC Bureau of Competition Director Holly Vedova. “By eliminating competition between Lifespan and Care New England, this merger would create a new healthcare conglomerate with outsized power over the entire continuum of healthcare services. As this country struggles to recover from a devastating pandemic, we can’t afford to allow this kind of concentrated control over critical healthcare services. I am pleased to partner with the Rhode Island Attorney General in suing to block this illegal merger to preserve patient choice.”
Yale to the South
Harvard entering the Rhode Island market is of deep concern for Brown, Yale too is a growing threat.
Yale-New Haven has made news in recent weeks with their purchase of Prospect Medical's Waterbury Hospital, Manchester Memorial Hospital and Rockville General Hospital in Vernon -- the three hospitals have a combined 708 patient beds and about 2,900 employees, according to a release.
In Rhode Island, it is reported that Prospect's CharterCare is for sale. The company operates Roger Willams and Fatima Hospitals.
“As we begin to emerge from an international pandemic that has devastated many hospitals across this nation, it is critical that we think creatively about sustaining local access to high-quality care,” said Marna P. Borgstrom, CEO of Yale-New Haven Health, in the release.
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