Contact:

Lori Williams
Baylor College of Medicine
713-798-4712
loriw@bcm.tmc.edu

Paul Harasim
St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System
832-355-3897
pharasim@sleh.com

Baylor College of Medicine, St. Luke’s Sign New Affiliation Agreement

HOUSTON— (April 22, 2004) - Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System have entered into a new affiliation agreement that significantly expands St. Luke’s relationship as Baylor’s private adult affiliated teaching hospital.

The strengthened affiliation agreement was approved by both institutional boards this week. The agreement will become effective April 24.

The strengthened alliance is an enhancement of one of Baylor’s long-term affiliations. Baylor maintains and will continue to maintain cooperative affiliations with several Texas Medical Center institutions including The Methodist Hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital, the Harris County Hospital District’s Ben Taub General Hospital, the Michael E. DeBakey Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, and The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research. St. Luke’s will continue its longstanding affiliation with Texas Heart Institute and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

“Baylor College of Medicine and St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System have long sustained a shared vision based on a set of core values focused on excellence in patient care, research, and education,” said BCM Board Chair Corbin J. Robertson, Jr. “This new affiliation agreement provides us with the opportunity to forge a strategic partnership through which both institutions will pursue a common goal – providing an enhanced model of patient care for the community we serve.”

“For more than 40 years in our healthcare ministry in Houston, we have greatly valued our affiliation with Baylor College of Medicine,” said The Right Reverend Don Adger Wimberly, chairman of the St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System’s Board of Directors and Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. “Our new relationship will lead to enhancement of many already-strong clinical programs, as well as development of new clinical programs, bringing us to a point of even greater pre-eminence in patient care, research and education.”

This expanded and comprehensive affiliation will provide a new model of patient care for Houstonians that will further augment education and research missions at the College. This new model will provide added benefits to patients, physicians, staff and the community in general through enhanced delivery of medical care. To achieve this objective requires a level of cooperation and integration between the two institutions that goes above and beyond the traditional medical school/hospital affiliation arrangement. It is a goal to which Baylor College of Medicine and St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System are both committed.

While Baylor and St. Luke’s have been affiliated since September 1961, the new affiliation agreement will result in a strengthening of their shared programs to forge a new model for healthcare delivery that includes:

• Providing significant benefits to patients, physicians, staff, and the community through high quality medical care and accelerated diagnosis and treatment, enhanced medical research programs with a commitment to biomedical technology that addresses the needs of the patient, and state-of-the-art educational opportunities for the next generation of health care professionals.
• Providing patients a seamless experience in the delivery of care such as single billing, one-stop adult clinical care, and easier communication between medical specialty areas.
• Establishment of and enhancement of national centers of excellence that will result in cutting edge solutions to complex medical problems.
• Joint efforts by both Baylor and St. Luke’s in the areas of program development, prioritization, mechanisms of funding, and the planning and development of facilities.
• Provision of translational “bench-to-bedside” research as the core of a new patient care model.

In pursuing these programs, both Baylor and St. Luke’s share common values and a vision for enhanced patient care that will address many of the radical changes in the healthcare market today. This strengthened alliance between the long-time partners will open up new opportunities for Baylor College of Medicine including:

• The ability to see and treat patients in a Baylor-operated state of the art adult ambulatory care center for advanced diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.
• The ability to create more opportunity for cutting edge medical research.

For St. Luke’s, the enhanced relationship will

• Provide patients and physicians with a new environment of care that optimizes the use of information, technology, research and education
• Enhance a number of clinical programs at St. Luke’s, leading to even greater pre-eminence in patient care delivery
• Include advanced and connected data systems enabling rapid access to information for physicians, other clinical staff, and patients—further enhancing care and outcomes across all patient care sites.

The strengthened affiliation will benefit the Houston community by increasing access to care, accelerating diagnostic and therapy processes, augmenting treatment solutions, boosting medical research, and bringing the very latest in biomedical technology to the patient’s bedside. St. Luke’s is internationally recognized for excellence in patient care, and was the first hospital in Texas to receive Magnet designation, the highest honor for patient care. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital is home to the world-renowned Texas Heart Institute, ranked in the top 10 cardiovascular centers in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, and has been named by Fortune Magazine as among “Best Companies to Work For” in the nation. Baylor, ranked the nation’s No. 13 medical school by U.S. News & World Report, is one of the nation’s few medical colleges with no parent-university ties. This affiliation and resultant new model of patient care will be unparalleled in the nation in its ability to respond to a rapidly changing healthcare environment.

Baylor continues its key shared programs at other affiliated hospitals including:

The Methodist Hospital: Joint programs in breast cancer study and treatment, cardiovascular disease, multi-organ transplant, psychiatry, diseases of inflammation, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and many others.

Texas Children’s Hospital: Comprehensive pediatric patient care services as well as specialty programs such as the Texas Children’s Cancer Center, clinically based research studies at the USDA’s Children’s Nutrition Research Center, developmental pediatrics, and other pediatric specialty service areas.

Harris County Hospital District: Provision of physician healthcare services at Ben Taub General Hospital, Quentin Mease Community Hospital and community health centers.

The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center: Provision of broad primary and specialty medical services for veterans, and research activities such as innovative investigations in Health Services Research, geriatrics, mental health, gastroenterology, and surgery.

The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research: Provision of medical services in cooperation with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and shared research areas such as the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Spinal Cord Injury, the Texas Rehabilitation Engineering Center and other spinal-related investigative areas.

Tri-institutional and Multi-institutional Efforts: The Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, the Sickle Cell Center, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute and The Menninger Clinic are examples of how Baylor and its affiliated and non-affiliated institutions work together in the pursuit of healthcare solutions.

In addition to these affiliations, Baylor has many long-standing ties to outstanding institutions such as Rice University, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Houston, and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UT-Houston). UT-Houston collaborates with Baylor and St. Luke’s in joint educational programs.