On Monday, San Francisco-based Catholic Healthcare West announced that it is ending its governing board's affiliation with the Catholic Church and changing its name to Dignity Health as it seeks to expand, Kaiser Health News reports.
Background
Lloyd Dean -- president and CEO of the organization -- said concerns over the system's Catholic affiliation have hindered potential mergers and other deals in the past.
Health system officials said they hope the changes will make it easier to merge or affiliate with other hospital systems, medical practices and health care providers.
Details of the Changes
The health system -- which has $11 billion in revenues and is the fifth largest health system in the U.S. -- is aiming to triple its size and expand beyond its current locations in California, Arizona and Nevada (Rau, Kaiser Health News, 1/23).
Under the new structure, the organization will remain a not-for-profit organization but will no longer be a ministry of the Catholic Church. The system's board of directors will assume governance duties of the organization, while a group known as the Sponsorship Council will have responsibility for the system's Catholic facilities (Barr, Modern Healthcare, 1/23).
The system's Catholic facilities still will follow Catholic directives and keep relationships with the religious orders of nuns that have governed the system. Secular hospitals will continue to adhere to some rules based on church doctrine.
The changes will not affect patients or the medical care provided at CHW's 15 secular or 25 Catholic hospitals (Kaiser Health News, 1/23).