Becker's Hospital Review

country. 9. Tenet, Ascension and Dignity's joint venture e players: e deal involves Dal- las-based Tenet Healthcare, St. Louis-based Ascension and San Francisco-based Dig- nity Health. e deal in a sentence: Tenet, Ascension and Dignity entered into a joint venture to own and operate Tucson, Ariz.-based Carondelet Health Network — with Tenet as the majority partner and Ascension and Dignity owning minority interests — and also launched a new organization focused on efficiently providing high-quality care. Hospitals involved: Carondelet's facili- ties include two hospitals in Tucson — St. Mary's Hospital and St. Joseph's Hospital — and Nogales, Ariz.-based Holy Cross Hospital. What makes it interesting: Account- able care is driving the deal. Tenet and Dignity separately own and operate hos- pitals in the Phoenix area and together manage an accountable care organization — the Arizona Care Network. e joint venture connects Carondelet to the ACO. 10. Barnabas Health, Robert Wood Johnson to merge e players: e deal involves New Brunswick, N.J.- based Robert Wood Johnson Health System and Barnabas Health, based in West Orange, N.J. Hospitals involved: Barnabas Health's seven New Jersey hospitals — Clara Maass Medical Center in Bellville, Communi- ty Medical Center in Toms River, Jersey City Medical Center, Monmouth Med- ical Center in Long Branch, Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus in Lakewood, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston — and Robert Wood John- son's four New Jersey hospitals: RWJUH in New Brunswick, RWJUH Somerset in Somerville, RWJUH-Hamilton and RW- JUH-Rahway. e deal in a sentence: Barnabas and RWJUH signed a definitive agreement to merge, creating a system with more than $4.5 billion in annual operating revenue and a staff of nearly 30,000 employees. What makes it interesting: e deal would create the largest health system in New Jersey. Barnabas Health President and CEO Barry Ostrowsky, who will serve as president and CEO of the combined sys- tem, said the deal provides an opportunity for the two entities to better manage their population health initiatives and adapt to changing payment systems. e merger, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in 2016. n Health IT in 2015: 10 CIOs Define the Highs and Lows By Carrie Pallardy and Akanksha Jayanthi I T has gone from a back-office func- tion to an indispensable element of healthcare, but as an industry health IT is still maturing; and every industry goes through growing pains. Here, 10 CIOs share their health IT highs and lows for 2015. Responses have been lightly edited for clarity. Aurelia Boyer Senior Vice President and CIO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospi- tal Highs: I do think that one would have to look at the achieve- ments of the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT to incentivize hospitals to become more automated as a success. A lot of people want to say, "What did we get for that [meaningful use] money?" because they think of it as an endpoint as opposed to a first step. I think it was an important step on the road to where technology needs to take the industry. It's not the endpoint. But it's a success that IT is more available and is a base that can really change. Lows: If you look at the industry, the greatest angst right now is around this question of interoperability. I don't know that it's a failure because we're ready for it now, and we weren't even ready for it before. I think how we tackle that going for- ward, and how we tackle opening these systems and make them more useful, is the thing we haven't done yet. It's not a failure, but it's where we have to really move. Kumar Chatani Exec- utive Vice President and CIO of Mount Sinai Health Sys- tem (New York) Highs: Mount Sinai Health System and the healthcare indus- try have experi- enced several high points this year. The CMS announcement earlier this year to extend the reporting period and reduce the number of measures required for qualifying for meaningful use Stage 2 incentive funding certainly gave us some breathing room to prepare accordingly. In addition, after a three-year process of over 100 clinicians and staff working collaboratively and tirelessly, Mount Sinai Health System transitioned successfully to ICD-10. Finally, we are now seeing digital medicine move beyond the 26 2015 YEAR REVIEW in

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