Mass General, Tampa General deepen affiliation to advance specialty care
The two organizations are also growing their healthcare services to support Florida's veterans and service members.
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Tampa General Hospital and Boston-based Mass General Brigham have said they're "deepening" their affiliation with the development of new programs and services, including a bone marrow transplant program and CAR-T therapy program, at TGH.
The two organizations are also growing their healthcare services to support Florida's veterans and service members through Home Base Florida. These efforts, the organizations said, complement the ongoing exchange of expertise and clinical best practices between the two health systems.
The announcement was the culmination of three years of collaboration, the systems said.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT?
TGH said its relationship with MGB is part of the Florida-based system's overall strategy to transform healthcare through innovation, building on existing ties with academic and research organizations, including USF Health.
John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General, said the collaboration formalizes a long-standing relationship.
"For years, our leadership, providers, researchers and teams have worked closely to share knowledge, information, findings and outcomes to elevate the level of care we offer," he said. "As we look ahead, we're aiming to build a greater presence in the state of Florida, where patients can not only benefit from the exchange of knowledge, but also the best-in-class providers of both networks."
One of the first joint programs between TGH and MGB was the 2021 establishment of Home Base Florida on TGH's main campus, serving American veterans and service members. It began at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of MGB's academic medical centers, in 2009, as a partnership with the Red Sox Foundation. Home Base is dedicated to healing veterans through a combination of clinical care, wellness, education and research.
Home Base Florida at TGH currently serves more than 375 veterans and service members per year at no cost to the patient. TGH and MGB plan to expand from health and wellness to offering mental health services in the future.
Over their three years of working together, TGH and MGB developed a bone marrow-transplant program and cell-therapies unit as part of the TGH Cancer Institute. The program serves patients with aggressive blood cancers, such as leukemias, lymphomas, multiple myeloma and other types of cancer.
Through the program, patients also have access to CAR T-cell therapy, a cancer immunotherapy that uses a patient's own T cells to fight cancer.
THE LARGER TREND
Subsidiaries of Franklin, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems agreed last year to sell three Florida hospitals to Tampa General Hospital in a deal estimated to be worth $290 million.
The hospitals are 120-bed Bravera Health Brooksville, now TGH North; 128-bed Bravera Health Seven Rivers in Crystal River, now TGH Crystal River; and 124-bed Bravera Health Spring Hill, now TGH Spring Hill.
Jeff Lagasse is editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a HIMSS Media publication.
